IN TOUGH WITH NATURE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 118, 21 May 1910, Page 13

IN TOUGH WITH NATURE.

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTOHY IN NEW ZEALAND. {By James Drummond. F.L.S., F.Z.S.) {All Bights Reserved. 1 (For The Post.) Mr. E. T. Frost states that during the summer which has just passed insect life was very plentiful in tho northern part of the Auckland province. Crickets, especially, were numerous. Some of the farmers know this to their cost, as the insects consumed every vestige of grass from some farms, and considerably depleted many others. In some parts of the Northern Wairoa a person could not walk across a paddock without crushing hundreds under foot. They are not at all particular in their diet. Mr. Frost has seen a set of cart harness all chewed by them, and as for clothes, they simply revelled in anything of a woolly nature. In some plages they started eating the paper off the walls in the houses. They seemed to be especially fond of candles, and they would soon demolish a whole one. When Mr. Frost wrote, at the beginning of April, the insects were having a bad time at the hands of seagulls, 1 which were swarming over the paddocks | in hundreds, devouring every cricket in sight, and pulling them out of their holes in the ground. There are two species of gulls in the district. One is the large black-bacEed species, and ths other, which is more numerous, is the small white-breasted mackerel gull, with light grey back and wings. They get very quiet, and take little notice iof a person near them unless directly disturbed. The seacoast for miles around was almost deserted by bird life, and it waa expected would remain so until they had finished with tho crickets. Not content with destroying almost every inanimate object within reach, the crickets attack any animal that gets disabled and cannot* move. A man told Mr. Frost that he had a horse down in a ditch, and having got it out he left it lying down, as it was too weak to move. He returned some time later to see how it was faring, and found that it had to be destroyed on account of the insects' ravages. In regard to insects, Mr % H. Harrison, of Poroporo, AVhakatane, Bay of Plenty, reports that when in Whakatane some time ago, he ca-ught a strange insect which he had never seen before. On comparing it with Mr. G. V. Hudson's "Manual of Entomology," he. found that it was Tenodera intermedia, which i» described in that work as a local species, confined to the South Island, especially Nelson. Apparently, it has made its way north, and it will be interesting to know if it is seen in. other parts of the North Island. Writing from Devonport, Mr. J. Rees-George says : — "One day last week I saw • a rook fly into a tree carrying something in its beak. On closer observation, I found that the victim, was a live sparrow, which was making desperate efforts to escape. The rook transferred the smaller bird to its claw, holding it and the branch at the same time. Then, slowly pulling the sparrow to pieces with its beak, it made a meal of it. This appears fo me to be quite a new departure on the rook's part, for, although first cousin to the carrion crow, he is usually an insect and worm-feeder. Two people have told me since that the above is a common occurrence, but this is the first time I have witnessed it, and although I have looked up a few notes on the bird, I have not been able to find any similar instance." A story illustrating the tui's powers of mimicry is supplied by Mt. J. Sut-cli-ffe, of the Thames. Some years ago, when he was prospecting for gold on Mr. J. Watts's estate, near Whifford Park, bis attention was drawn to the barking of a dog, chained to a kennel, and resting on the ground, with its head between its paws. "That's a funny dog of yours," ho said to Mr. Watts ; "he can bark without moving. " Mr. Watts laughed and explained that tho barking came from a pet tui, which ho kept in a cage. This tui, Mr. Stitcliffo says, had somewhat surprising ventriloquial powers. Sometimes its barks seemed to be away in the distance, and then they would come loudly right out of the cage. The tui, which was a splendid pet, lived to the age of twenty years. "In 'Nature in New Zealand,' " writes I Mr. R. Mair from Whangarei, "it is stated that the pipi has a Smooth shell. This is an error, as the real pipi of the Maoris, Chione stutchburyi, has a ribbed shell. Tho smooth, oblong mollusc, Mesodesma novae-zealandiae, is called kokota by the Maoris. The mussel, Myrtilus latus, the- Maori kutai, makes excellent eating, and is much ] sought by the natives. It is not plentiful in Whangarei Harbour, but is found on Mair Bank, on tho western head, in two feet of water at low springe, and also on the piles of the wharves. Some years ago it could be obtained on the western shore of the Coromandel Peninsula in cartloads. Another small mussel, Volsella australis, the Maori purewha, was plentiful in the Bay of Islands when I was a boy, but it did not come under my notice anywhere else. Later on. it disappeared, and I have not seen it since." Mr. Henry H. Travers, F.L.S., while at Hanmer in the early part of March, saw keas flying from an easterly to a westerly direction, and heard some in a birch forest on the slopes of Mount Captain. On the top or Jollies Pass he saw and heard the tui and tho bellbird, and also the grey warbler and the while-eye. Tho largo gull, tho blackbacked species, he says, is fairly common on the riverbeds in that part of Canterbury. Miss F. Oaldwell, of Feilding, states that one morning a few weeks ago she was surprised to see, crossing a field, a pair ot birds, which she thought were wekas, but which proved to be large landrails. They disappeared in the bed of a creek, and all efforts to find them were unsuccessful. A few days later a stvang© noise, like the equeaking of small pigs, was heard in the shrubbery adjoining tho lawn, and soon a pair of rails, accompanied by a brood numbering seven or eight, leisurely crossed the lawn, not more than three yards from the front door. The young birds closely resembled young wekas. Mies Caldwell states that she has never before, in either the North Island or the iSouth Island, seen the landrail abroad in the daytime. Although the small rail is very plentiful in the Nelson district, she has seen only one speciftnen. Sho has, however, frequently found this bird's nest. l A Hav/kes Bay correspondent expresses an opinion that the house mynah was a harmless bird in New Zealand until the blackbird arrived, 1 and showed jit that fruit is good. Tho nvynah, ho says, is now as destructive to strawberries and apricots as the blackbird is, and also attacks gooseberries, pearb. and apples. Phalangors, or Australian opossums, as they are frequently p&Uedj. aegm to

find in Westland a congenial home. Mr. James King, writing, from Hokitika, states that a few years ago several black phalangers, the Tasmanian variety, wers liberated en the eastern side of Lake Kanißn. They nave becomo thoroughly acclimatised Reports sent to him show that they have spread out in all directions. Some have been, seen five or six milos from the place where they were liberated. He says that they are quite nocturnal in their habits. During the daytime they remain curled up in some hole in a forest giant, but after sundown they come out to prowl in search of food. They live chiefly on the leaves of trees and shrubs. They are nimble in their movements amongst the trees, and make frequent use of their prehensile tails. The silver-grey species has also been liberated on the West Coast, specimens having been obtained from Southland.