FROGS ON THE COAST.

Grey River Argus, 20 May 1922, Page 6

FROGS ON THE COAST.

THE WHISTLERS. (Professor Drummond in the ‘’Lyttelton Times”). Air F. W . Hobbs, when spending last ; (.’hristmas season in the Otdra \ alloy, about seven nines west ot Clio tunnel, 1 and nea.r the- junction of the Ot’ra ; River and (lie Teremakau River, heard I sounds at night that he thought were I uttered by some nocturnal bird, lie : discovered that tJiey came from wnestling irogs. They were so different H'om croaks lie had heard on the ea.stI cm side ol the ranges that no did not j at first associate them with the whistI ling Irogs of which residents had spoken to him. ‘ M heu several, frogs -were I caught, he was surprised at their smallness. “They utter a persistent and far.reaching sound, l:-ke an uiimusicaJ whistle on one or two notes,” he writes. ! 'fhe whistling frogs of the West . Ooasjb haver :a soniewh-lbt iinteresling history '1 hey are not found in any part ol New Zealand except the West i Coast, and they are not natives of this , country. The species Ixdongs to AusI tralia. It is very plentiful on the east ; ern side of the Commonwealth and hi Tasmania. Forty-sevtm years age, a few members of the- species wore taken by Mr W. Perkins, a Greymouth solicittor, in a> bottle from Tasmania, rnd were liberated in a drain in Alexander Street, GreymiOiLClu The».r dosvendents now occupy a great stretch of i country from Greyuioutli to Hokitika, ; and from the sea. coast to the inountI a ( ins. They do not seem to ifiave gone I further south than Hokitika-. They : have not been it ported north of Greymouth. but, probably, have made* tneir way in that direction. South ol Hokitika the green ii’og,’ another Australian, which was first introduced to Cauter. I bury, a.nd made its way over the ranges to the West Coast, is very plentiful In raupo swamps and other wet, weedy places it may lx* heard at any time .ol the day. The whistling frog, which usually is brownish, but cnanges like a chameleon, seems to be strictly nocturnal. It belongs to a group ; known as tree-frogs. it certainly is ; adept at climbing, rising adhesive discs , on its fingers’ and toes, but- it hardly can be described as arboreal, as, | when not living on the ground, it ‘ mostly favours shrubs like blackberry. The whistles a.re sometimes like solos. Oftener they are- choruses. A sudden end to a. chorus, apparently, >s brought about by knowledge of an ( n- ; emy’s presence. T’rogs aie fairly lo,)j ; in the zoological social scale Their . brains at least are of a low' tyix*. At ' the same- time they know that, si'-em-e may be go Lien. The little West Coasters, finding their environment congou- j ialiy damp, spawn at any time of the year. A fcmaJe lays about 100 eggs I at one time. They are enclosed in t clear jelly and are made into a. bunch from one- inch to two inches long, ' a stem of grass, a reed, a stick, or a. twig. The. eggs remain submerged just below the. surface of the water. T!u* whishjing frog’s ollii-ial title is' llyla. ewingi ; its bigger cousin, the gruen frog, i's Hyla aurt-a. Before. ; the introduction of those Australians, : the West Coast, like most other parts ol New Zealand, was a frog less district Frogs were introduced to check insects, on which they Iced. Although ■ they do no harm, it is doubtful if j they have checked noxious insects materially the Australians should thrive better in this country. Instead I of droughts, they have a steady cam- j fall. In addition, most districts in New ' Zealand are well watered. The West I Coast, in fact, is a frog’s paradise. Mr Hobbs has spent thy past two j Christmas seasons in the pleasant) Otira X’alley. When he went there last season the mistletoe's flowers ornamented the tops of the beeches. In his bed in the hotel in the early morning he amused .himself by counting the scarlet splashes in the forests on Mount Alexander, which rises 8000 feet from the banks of the Toremakau. The rata, in the* valley, he states, is so plentiful l in the New Year that is scorns io ciimsc.ii whole- of the , forests. Ear!’’ . . > : ■ -eason, befoie | inc mist 1.-ivi.' 1. Looemed, the' delicate llowe.-, o: ih. clemetis are the p-i in. . :na< ihhi. One ; gjorious da\ . . h •h-.i. is, of Mr Hobbs’s party . - al miles up the T'eremakau ( -, riossMig the river many times. I hey forded up the Otehaka, a rush<ng tiibutarv of ( the T'eremakau River, for an hour. 1 left their horses, went up through j dense forest for several hundred feet, e

over a crest, and clown to Kaura.patakau, a high mountain lake that winds for several miles—warm, shallow and everywhere ove'hung with bush. The crested grebe, a graceful swimmer and an expert diver, is plentiful on the lake, who’ie i<t lives ?n solitude and safety. A single crested grebe and some grey ducks and teal were seen on the Arnold River, down which the party drifted in rfip evening lights, “with shadows so real that- it was hard tn rerogniM' where The ibrest • -I : n 1 ili? water began” B’l-d lil'e was not plentiful a; Ai.keii’s. Pigeons were vnily plentiful iii’.ther up, but there were only a few «*n the lower forests. When the berries ripe') later in the season. Mr Hobbs explains, more pigeons come down. A pair of kakapos lived in the bush near the house; their notes often were ie-nr.l in the early hours of of the evening. It i.s reported that these night parrots still arc plentiful there. The kaka. is reported to be present in fairly good numbers on the upper parts of the Kelly Range.

I Several kakas. were seen flying nigh ] over head. The visitors end not see I either a. kiwi on a weka«. The kiw l is reporter, to be present in fair numbers, but. being strictly nocturnal, seldom is seen. The weka almost has disappeared from the district Fol that Mr Hobbs blames the weasels, se veral' of which he saw. He heard the boding notes 1 of the morepork owl on most nights he: was in the district. He remarks that its nocturnal habits should save ; t from danger of extinction. He has seen only one morepork in the day time, and it wa*> at Tolago Bay. north of Gishourne. To his surprise, he saw trout in i the rapid waters of the Otira and the j Teremakau, which, at that- place fall about fifty feet in the. mile. Many < small trout were seen in the shallow 1 and the back waters. Here and there « hi deeper pools big trout were seen. 1 Residents said that those fish could s not be caught. That was disproved t by a member of the party who, p ■ith a minnow, landed some. ti