WAYS OF THE WILD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 102, 2 May 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAYS OF THE WILD.

THE BITTERNS. DISTRIBUTION, HABITS AND FOOD. (By A. T. PYCKOFT.) When returning by train from Kotorua last January the writer was interested to see two bitterns in flight when the train was ■ passing through the swamp area between Raugiriri and Mercer. Their slow and regular flapping flight is typical of the birds of the order, which includes herons, egrets and bitterns. The bittern belongs to the genus botaurus. Oliver states that five species divide the world among them, their areas of distribution not overlapping. The brown bittern, commonly known as the bittern, is allied to the bittern of Europe and Asia, but is more uniformly coloured and is especially distinguished by the smoky brown ruff on the sides of the neck. Our bittern is also very closely allied to two sub-species of Australian bitterns, and is also found in Tasmania and New Caledonia. It is generally distributed throughout the North and South Islands, the Great Barrier Island and Stewart Island. It was formerly found in the Chatham Islands. It frequents raupo swamps, sedgy lagoons and appears to love a solitary life, being generally met with singly, except in the breeding reason. It usually remains concealed during the heat of the day and at eventide startles the ear with its four loud booming notes, slowly repeated. From this noise coming from the swamps the Maori name matuku-hu-rcpo or the matuku of the swamp is derived. The name matuku is derived from matuku-takotako, an ogre chief, the, slayer of Wahieroa, whose son Kata heard from Matuku's servant that his master who lived in an underground habitation would be killed at the (fountain at which he washed if Rata came at the time of the new moon. This Rata did and with assistance snared Matuku as he emerged from the cave and although his limbs were lopped off and only the trunk remained, he still lived. Not, indeed, as a man, for feathers grew from his skin, legs furnished with the claws of a bird appeared and a neck with the head and beak of a bird, and as a bittern, a matuku, he escaped from his astonished enemies. His voice is still heard in marshes, as it was heard then in the cavern. The bittern's fare includes a varied assortment of animal foods, insects, Crustacea, spidew, fish, lizards, birds and the introduced frogs, also rats and mice. Butler, in recording that he found the remains of a white eye in the stohmch of a bittern, remarks that as this species only feeds on living animals, it would-probably catch the white eye alive. Oliver believes that the very varied and large amount of animal food devoured- by the bittern, places it in the, list of valuable birds, not only to the agriculturist, but also as a protector of-small birds. It is a destroyer of rats and mice, of insects, and also of eels. Against the bittern it should be noted that its. food consists partly of young trout. Bitterns feathers are much fancied for the manufacture of artificial flies for trout fishing, but being.>, protected bird such feathers are prohibited. ■':.'■•'..' ' '■ Nesting Habits.

Guthrie Smith has found the bitterns nest eggs and young. The number of eggs varies from three to five. They are ovoid in form, arid pointed at one end, and arc of a greenish cream in colour. The first nest found in one locality was on a small islet surrounded by soft mud. It was in the centre of a meagre rush plant, trodden almost flat by the birds. It contained a family of five—a family so unbirdlike in appearance, and with such unbirdlike' notes, that during the moment of discovery Guthrie Smith states that he stared wildly, amazedly, upon these strange living things—golliwogs, not birds. Their cold grey eyes, staring, protuberant,. were the eyes of fish. Their polls grew' a thin crop of long, grey, wavy down. Circlewise they sat, with naked haunches pressed together. Their low pipe to one another was the thin, quick drip of water on water. They were modelled on fish or frogs rather than on avian types. Immediately on sight of the intruder they froze themselves into snags, each little head and bill pointing skywards at an odd angle. Disturbed and handled, the chicks, hatched intermittently, and now when discovered from one to five days old, opened their vast, cavernous mouths and lunged forward as if to strike, the biggest of all attempting to vomit up a small eel. On account of the youth of these nestlings, and the probability of their getting chilled—one of their parents was heard booming in the distance—the camera had to be withdrawn after the exposure of one plate. Guthrie Smith then retired, and saw this set or youngsters no more. Another bittern's nest was found within 20 yards of a road over which much traffic passed. It contained five eg<*s. A third nest was found in a situation which would make photographing it possible, but owing to too much speed the birds became alarmed and left the nest. Many species of birds will endure much on days immediately before the e°gs chip, and for a few days immediately after. The bittern is not one of these long-suffering birds; it will readily forsake its nest or forsake it long enough to fatally chill the eggs or callow nestlings. Guthrie Smith is inclined to ascribe the remarkable erect attitude so often to be noted in the bittern as assumed in the first place not for purposes of concealment, but in order to offer a minimum of resistance to the storms of his hunting grounds—storms alike unavoidable and recurrent. Only in the second place, perhaps, has the attitude been utilised to mislead and beguile. This belief is based on an incident once witnessed by Guthrie Smith at his sheep run, Tutira, where half a dozen hens and a rooster had been caught in the open by a sudden, sharp sunlit downpour of warm rain. In their tepid tropical shower-bath, before his astonished gaze, they stretched themselves into what seemed twice their natural length, the rooster especially transmogrifying himself into one long line from beak to tail, a line exactly adjusted to the slant of the almost vertical downpour. Other species, then, when so minded, can assume the bittern pose. In that bird only has it become habitual when immobility is desired. Devised originally to deflect the rains of the- open marsh, of the unsheltered fen, the posture has at length become used on any occasion requiring statue-like stillness. New Zealand also possesses another bittern, known as the little bittern, and though widely scattered this species is seldom seen, nearly all speci" mens being obtained from Westland,