Ramble along Nature's Highways

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 6 (Supplement)

Ramble along Nature's Highways

When tliey are nesting, the falcon pair will allow no intruder to approach without attack. A man may expect to have his hat knocked off. Yet the ferocious parents, whose talons are the terror of "all the birds in the neighbourhood, rear the chicks with great gentleness and care. The little falcons, clothed in a downy bluish grey' suit, are even expected to observe a sort of grace before meat. With hardly a sound the mother falcon sweeps on to the ledge, where the nest, just a hollow on the bare ground, is situated. Always, after the parent bird's arrival there is a pause, the grace before meat, as it were. "She stands with outstretched talon, pressing down her prey," says the observer, "and during this tantalising pause the nestlings' eyes seem to be starting from their heads, and they whine with hunger and excitement. Their gaze is riveted on the ground, but they never offer to stir an inch until permission is given, and the capture dangled from her beak." The New Zealand falcon chooses some place very difficult of access for its nest. Thus there should be no fear of its family dying out.. Yet, as mentioned above, it comes so close to a man with a gun that. it pays the penalty swiftly for its last duck or hen raid. It now lives chiefly in forested, mountainous country, or in other places of little settlement.

A BOTANIST ABROAD KING WILLOW.

By L. M. CRANWELL, M.A., Botanist, Auckland Museum.

SPRING / popped into England with a handful of palest primroses for Cornwall, a glorious quilt of purple, yellow nnrl white crocuses for Oxford, and a flood of daffodils, like drifts of gold, for London street barrows. In earliest spring I went to Essex, where the willows grow. Scarcely a tree was in new leaf, but already a fat-tasselled pussy willow (the sallow or goat willow used for Palm Sunday decorations) was in full and cheery bloom, haunted by insects. Other willows showed their shining red and yellow shoots along every stream and ditch emptying the quiet waters of Essex towards the North Sea. Willows and poplars form the family Salicaceae (from Latin sa-lix, a willow). They grow rapidly, maturing early after producing a great bulk of light wood often used for charcoal and paper-making. Hats and baskets are made from some, especially the osiers, and the bark is useful for tanning. Starving people have made a rough and unappetising bread from the bark; exhibits of this I saw in Swedish museums. These are all tall trees or shrubs. Small willows, no higher than mosses, grow in the cold mountains of the northern hemisphere, right up into the Arctic tundra. It is curious that of the hundreds of forms of willow not one is native to Australia and New Zealand. We have a willow problem, however, as many of our slower streams are ohoked with the roots of the. weeping willow (originally from China) and the great crack willow.

To return to Essex. Here I saw willow plantations for the first time. These were the cricket bat willows. My ears were cocked for information about these famous trees, and I was surprised to find that each one is worth about £15 when it is 10 to 12 years old, while at full maturity, when 30 or so years old, it is worth £100. It is really wonderful that England can still supply the world's cricket bats, for Englishmen have played the game since Tudor times at least, and now black and white people everywhere have lost their hearts to the willow. Naturally, these trees, which every young

cricketer surely remembers in his prayers, are a great source of income to some few counties. They cannot be widely grown, as'they are finnicky about soil,- they demand plenty of sunlight, and they need careful trimming to keep the wood straight and free from knots. Knots ruin a bat, but the "water mark" disease curiously enough makes the wood harder, and spoils its appearance. In spite of their value these trees are usually crowded and poorly tended. Now the "water mark" disease (due to bacteria that cause dark blue wavering patterns in all the tissues from top to toe) is sweeping through them, as through the other willows. My companion in Essex was an agricultural instructor, and it was his duty to report on the spread of the disease and to prod the farmers to cut out sick shoots when they first began to wilt in May, and to burn all diseased parts. The Essex man has not our lively interest in trees, I'm afraid. Where we would

prune and burn and fight for a: valuable tree, he would just scratch his head and say in his soft, sing-song voice that death and destruction were the portion of all living things.

The cricket bat willow (Salix alba var. caerulea) should be planted about loft apart, on well-drained soil, with plenty of water available for its questing roots. It does not thrive on water-logged soil. It is always said that the female tree yields the best wood.

I collected healthy cuttings for growing in Auckland, so soon you may have resilient bats of New Zealand wood. Outside England the cricket bat willow has been established in parts of India. Perhaps we could grow enough to sell to our Australian friends, for they must be amongst the world's greatest buyers of bate.