Chapter 24
section twenty four of birds and all nature vol 7 number five may nineteen hundred recorded for librivox dot org by betty b untitled The most curious of all objects in New Zealand is that which the Maoris call a weto. One is uncertain whether to call it an animal or a plant. In the first stages of its existence, it is simply a caterpillar, about three or four inches in length, and always found in connection with the rata tree, a kind of flowering myrtle. It appears that when it reaches full growth,
it buries itself two or three inches underground, where, instead of undergoing the ordinary chrysalis process, it becomes gradually transformed into a plant, which exactly fills the body and shoots up at the neck to a height of eight or ten inches. This plant resembles, in appearance, a diminutive bulrush, and the two, animal and plant, are always found inseparable. One is apt to relegate it to the domain of imagination among dragons and mermaids,
but then its existence in nature have been accepted by the late Frank Buckland. How it propagates its species is a mystery. One traveler, after describing its dual nature, calmly states that it is the grub of the night butterfly. If so, then the grub must also become a butterfly, or what becomes of the species. one would be ready to suppose that the grub does really so and that some fungus finds the cast-off slough congenial quarters for its growth but as far as present observation goes the grub never becomes a butterfly but is changed in every case into a plant
end of section twenty four this recording is in the public domain
