The Parasite

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 112, 4 February 1933, Page 16

The Parasite

(By J. DRUMMOND, F.L.S., F.Z.S., for “The Dominion.’’)

AMPED In the Urewera Country last summer, when native C birds were plentiful there, Mr. A. 8. Henry, Erawera .Street, Rotorua, heard the monotonous notes of the long-tailed cuckoo through the night. He was particularly interested in this parasitical migrant, unpopular among all small birds that dwell in the forests, and he took advantage of opportunities to watch its ways. A few weeks ago, Mr. G. J. Garland stated that lie did not know of a long-tailed cuckoo having placed its egg in the nest of a tui, explaining this by the fact that the tui is a honey-eater, and, he presumed, not likely to feed a young cuckoo with the insect food it demands. Mr. Henry has supplied a more feasible explanation. “It seems to me,” he writes, "that if a long-tailed cuckoo had an opportunity, it would place its' egg in a tui's nest, but the opportunity may not come readily, as tuis guard their nests closely, and are very aggressive towards cuckoos, attacking them viciously if, they go near the tuis' nests. I have often seen a cuckoo pursued by tuis. usually a pair of them. On one occasion, the tuis succeeded in beating the cuckoo down. 1 made for the place, but could find no trace of tlie cuckoo. I often wonder if tuis ever kill a cuckoo Have you any information on this point, and have any of your readers seen these attacks?” The tui and the bell-bird belong to the family of the Meliphagidae, which means honey-eaters, but honeyeaters do not live by honey alone. It is convenient to group about 150 species of New Zealand and Australian birds as honey-eaters. At the same time, it is a loose arrangement. Species are admitted to this, family not because they eat honey, but because they have a protrusible tongue tipped with a brush composed of stiff fibres. Tlie tongue can be used as a tube, through which nectar may be sucked from flowers. All members of the family vary their diet with insects. Some are fond of fruit. New Zealand is represented in this family by the tui, the bellbird, the stitch-bird, and the whitereye. All these are insectivorous. The dainty little spectacled white-eye has blight-bird for its other name.

It earned this name because in the early days of settlement it entered ortacked the American blight, better known as the woolly aphis. Its weakness for tiring and troublesome insects may be the measure of its weakness for fruit. .Many orchardists say that it is not a case of fifty-fifty, its sins reaching a higher percentage than its virtues. It has even been condemned as a menace. Fruit and insects are its main foods. Mr. H. Guthrie-Smith, on his sheep-station at Tutira, Hawke’s Bay, has heard a continuous merry twitter from a score or two score of white-eyes busy in a hill-side fuchsia tree, “gathering honey from the bells of glaucous blue.” Their frequent visits to neefnred flowers, perhaps, are made to take insects that live in the perfumed halls, rather than to sip nectar. Still, the white-eye is a honeyeater officially, and a member of the Meliphagidae, whether it drinks deeply of the sweet and pleasant liquid or not.

Tuis are valiant when enemy birds approach their nests. They are filled with madness when they see a long-tailed cuckoo. 'They attack, chase and persecute it whenever it comes within sight or hearing. Its parasitical practices seem to be known to them by instinct. Mr. W. W. Smith, of New Plymouth, lias heard tuis utter wild alarm notes when a long-tailed cuckoo was near. lie has seen them attack boldly, and chase the cuckoo through the forest, in tlie way Mr. Henry describes. A cuckoo can offer feeble resistance to a company of angry tuis. Its only hope iff in flight. Dr. It. Fulton, who made a special study of New Zealand's cuckoos, wrote: “The moment a long-tailed cuckoo shows itself in the daytime, it is pounced upon by all the small native birds. They pursue it and torment it until it reaches safety in the long grass or thicket. Sometimes, when a cuckoo is chased by a tui it settles along a fairly large bough, and, turning towards the pursuer, makes a curious, crowing, defiant sound. It is noiseless in flight. 'This, no doubt, is the main reason for the female’s success in getting her eggs into other birds’ nests.” 'Tuis do not always drive off the enemy. A brownisli olive egg, contrasting with several delicate white or pale pink eggs, spotted with reddish-brown, in a tui's comfortable nest, evidences a long-tailed cuckoo’s imposture.