IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 62, 10 September 1910, Page 13

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN NEW ZEALAND. (By James Drummond, F.L.S.. F.Z.S.) (All Rights Reserved.) (For The Post.) Sufficient evidence has been gathered during the past few years to prove that, fortunately, there is a good deal of weakness in the theory that largenumbers of species of native birds have become extinct. A careful study of tho position shows that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that any native species, with the doubtful exception of the quail, has been exterminated since Europeans cam& to the country. Somewhat reckless statements have been made in this direction. -The result is that many people have run away with the idea that th© .ancient avif auna is rapidly being lost. There certainly has been shocking slaughter, and birds have completely disappeared from districts where they were once plentiful,, but most species can be reported from some part 1 of the Dominion, and the creation of sanctuaries and reserves offers hope | that nearly every native bird will be •represented in the land of the living for many yea^s. The latest report on this interesting subject has been 'sent by Mr. Walter Best, of Otaki, Wellington. He is a brother of Mr. Elsdon Best, who has made Tuhoe Land and its inhabitants famous. He states modestly that he is not of a literary turn, and that there are many weapons which he can use with greater facility than the pen, but he has written some interesting and important notes. "I have heard it said, and have seen it in print," he says, "iftat many New Zealand birds are extinct, bub that is not the case in this district. Thei^e are three species which seem to have disappeared, but others are still •with us, although, of course, in greatly reduced numbers." The three he has singled out are the tihi, or stitch-bird, the tieke, or saddle-back, and the ti-titi-pounamu, one of the wrens. Of this trio, the saddleback seems to be the rarest. It is many year since one was reported, but there is hardly any j doubt that it may be found" in the Southern Sounds and other districts where the old forests have been untouched. "I have not seen one for a very long time," Mr. Best writes, "and do not know anyone who has." The etitch-bird is a northern bird. It was once plentiful in nearly all parts of the North Island. Apparently i: has almost disappeared from the mainland, but it is still in / existence on the Little Barrier, and probably on other isTSts off the coast of Auckland. As for the pretty little ti-tili-pounamu, there are some people who are fortunate enough to be on terms of close friendship with it. The bell-bird seems to have increased in the Otaki district during recent years, and the tui, which is often found in its company, is fairly plentiful. About fifteen years ago Mr. Best lived near Waikanae. A hill at the back of his house and a terrace ab the foot of the hill were covered with forest, kohekohe being the dominant plant on the terrace. In the winter time the tuis came down from the hill in swarms to feed on the berries, but at about three o'clock in the afternoon they began to fly back up the hill in flocks of one hundred or more. By sunset there were absolutely no tuis on the terrace. At sunrise hext morning, however, they were present in their thousands. He could not discover where they went to. He frequently went to the top of the hill, which is from 1500 to 2000 feet high, when they were passing, and they were flying high, as if they were going right back to the Tararua Ranges. Mr. Best has seen only one robin during his twenty-five years' residence in the district. Grey-warblers, tom-tits, fantans and white-eyes are still seen j there. Kingfishers, apparently, are holding their own in Otaki. They are plentiful in places where their haunts are nob near old-established human dwellings. Mr. Best explains their absence from the vicinity of those places J by the fact that there are usually plantations of macrocarpa or pinus insignis near the houses. They, ai's favourite perching trees foi kingfishers, and as j cats can climb them easily, a heavy toll is taken from the birds. Twenty years ago Mr. Best lived in an isolated house, two miles from the nearest forest. Kingfishers were attracted by a number of pinus insignis trees, and were very plentiful for some years, as many as a dozen sometimes being seen ait- j ting in a line on the fences. Cats found them out, however> and practically exterminated them. Parrakeets are present, but not in large numbers. A traveller is fortunate if he sees t\vd or three pairs in a day's tramp. In some seasons kakas and pigeons aye j plentiful j in other seasons they are not. A sportsman who gets' a bag of i ten birds feels thab he has done something to talk about for the rest of the year. The blue-wattled crow of the North Island lives back in the hills, but sis it consistently shuns civilisation it is seldom seen. Mr. Best states that hi> h»3 seen two specimens of tha oiange-waltled-crow of the South Island. He shot one in the fahges itji the TararU Creek, on the Thames goldfield, in 1869. The other one was shot by a Maori, but he does nob know in what part of the North Island it wtta obtained. Small flocks of whileheads are seen in the hilly country. According to the Maoris, the kakapo was once found ill a certain part of the Waikawa Creek, in the Otaki district, but died out about fifty years age or more. Mr. Elsdon Best states that this bird disappeared from the Tuhoe district, further north in the island, soon after the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand, and before ahj? of them had settled in that patt of the country. According to the statement of one old man, who is sixty-seven years of age, they must have disappeared from Tuhoe before 1850. tn Otaki there are fairly large numbers of moreporka in tho forests, and even in the open country, where they find shelter in clumps of bush that have been preserved, ov in fine plantations. They are heard hearly eVery calm night in th& township. The weka is decreasing. At one time it Wfls all over the district, but, owing to persecution by dogs and to cover beitif destroyed by clearing ib, ifc j a seldom heard now far from ihe forests. At on© time it was sufficiently numerous to become a nuisance to Mr. Best by worrying fowls and eating eggs. Then a spaniel took an idea into hig head ttiat he had a mission to hunt wekas, and in a few months he killed them all. The sparrowhowk, or bush hawk, has become rare. In some seasons thfe shining cuckoo is very plentiful ; it arrives in October, and leaves about March. • Tho long-tailed cuckoo observes the same , dAtes, but is not as well represented as [in other, districts Mr. Best has visited.