BIRDS AND BEASTS

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21386, 31 January 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

BIRDS AND BEASTS

■(.By Johannes C. Andersen)

■ There are two kinds of parrakeet " ,in New B 'Zealand, one with a red forehead, the other with a yellow forehead. These can be found only la the native bush, and both are now becoming very scarce. The Maori name is kakariki; the ' word riki means "little," so kaka- ' riki means little kaka, as kakapo -means, night, kaka. The parrakeet is bright green in colour, and | because ol this the Maori uses the name of the bird as a name lor i the colour. We do the same when we say a certain colour is canaryyellow, peacock-blue, or kingtisherjriue. , I The parrakeet lives on berries and insects, and he gets something jlrom the down-turned stiff leaves of the curious lancewood. He has been seen nibbling the edges: of 'these leaves, but it is a puzzle what he gets there. I have watched a little company of parrakeets sitting /on the low branches of a spreading inanuka stripping the heads of cocksfoot, witnin reach, and it looked very-pretty to see the bright : green biras with their red fore'heads sitting ■ among tne siarry White flowers of the manuka. I have also sat close by a parrakeet himself in the hot sunshine. He would stretch out one wing so that the sun beat on the . feathers, and after a time he turned and stretched the other ' ■ wing, turning his head irom side to side as he sat there, chuckling softly now and again as if he were ; thinking of some good joke. One day a young parrakeet was .. found on the ground under the - trees in the bush. He had evi- .■ dently fallen out of the nest, but * the nest could not be found, so .he was taken home so that he could be reared. But" what was he : to be fed on? All kinds of tmngs wsre tried, but he turned up his bill at everything and would touch ■ nothing, until he was tried wicn biscuit soaked in milk; and when that was offered on a hnger, he ate it eagerly, and would eat nothing - was strange, for he could never have tasted it before. * j. He was kept in a cage, the door vf which was always open so that he could come or go as he wished; out as he was iea tnere, ana always kindly treated, he came to wok on the caj,e as a home and .£? a . Prison. After a time he would stand in the door and look whenever startled in the - ij® 8 * he would slip inside, and , he considered himself safe. j ventured outside, but } St u- ys lightened hurried back j' cage—no, say to his refuge. 1 w ter , a^ time he flew off to the ' bush close by, where „f gan t0 call and chuckle, Dut , came back at meal- ' limof* slept in Ws refuge. Some- * » ould be away ior a day I but back be would come ' WarivSi + h ome. Then spring frwfV 0 summ er, and his wild * mSi i^ egat ?.. callin S- Something ; n^ ve birred inside him; he : se veral days; he came i camll again—and the day I he went and never * be frimSi' A ll tJie &irds will < 'tt^ y i n l his if we lot i" wild h^ dee A, ther e really are no - birds till we make them so. *aamUino y J was sitting in the bush. ■ »» HSD beautiful trees about listening to the many rounds.

THE PARRAKEET

of birds and' insects, and wind in tiit- leaves, and sea on the shore, when, happening to look up, there cicse above me on a branch of tne karaka sat five little parrakeets in a low, perfectly quiet, listening as I was; were they listening to the same sounds? —watching the same things? Who knows? They must have been watching me, too, for once I saw them they were silent no longer, but began talking together in little quiet chuckling voices. It sounded just as though one would ask something, and another would answer; and at some answer the others would be amused and as it were chuckle among themselves. I wished I could understand; and if I had been Sigfried and had eaten of the dragon Fafnir I might have understood them. How many of you know, the story of Sigfried and Fafnir? When the parrakeet flies overhead he calls out, and often his Call sounds like certain words. Sometimes he seems to say "Take me back; take me back;" at other times it sounds like "Pretty Dick," and for that reason, when kept in a cage long ago when people used to keep the litte birds as prisoners, they used to call them Pretty Dick. Sometimes they seem to say • "Be quick;" and there is a story of a stationmaster who kept a bird on the station, and when it was time for the train to go the bird would say "Be quick, be quick," to hurry the people on to the tr&in. Since the Maori took to football, too, he

caiied the parrakeet "the footballer;" not because he wore a green jersey, but because the little fellow so often used to call out "Free kick, free kick." I remember as a boy when living at Papanui, near Christchurch, one year thousands and thousands of parrakeets appeared in the gar4ens and orchards. No one knew where they came from; some said they came from Oxford, where bush fires were destroying their home; some saicr they came from Australia, where bush fires were raging, too; but no one knew. This kind of sudden appearance of certain birds, or certain insects, or certain animals, is a mystery not yet explained. But who would not be glad to see such a swarm of parrakeets now? But they are so few, and so beautiful. It is a pleasure

to me to see them flying across the bush from tree to tree, with their long tails and their curious cries; "Tut tut tut tut" they say sometimes; "Take mo back; take me back." Take them back where? To the old days when the bush was still thick, and birds plentiful?— the days When the huia was still here, and the flute-voiced kokaka? If we only could! But since we cannot bring back what is gone, let us keep what still remains of our beautiful bush and its rare trees and birds, its ferns that grow better than anywhere else in the world.