NATURE AND MAN

Grey River Argus, 11 May 1936, Page 6

NATURE AND MAN

A Call for Unity GOOD MINISTERIAL ADVICE. (Edited by Leo Fanning) New Zealand has probably more organisations- —political, industrial, social ami others —-per thousand of population than any other country in the world. There seems to be some tonic propci*fy in the air to induce many a person to ‘‘start something.” The Hou. W. E. Parry, Alinister of Internal Affairs, remarked the oilier day that he had been ‘‘st ruck’’ by the multiplicity- of societies.” He will be still more struck by the fact as lhe Government, gets further on with

its programme. '‘Regarding the question of bird protection, for instance,” he said, “1 wonder if only, one society could not ileal with the whole matter, and so eliminate unnecessary duplication such as exists in the local bodies and other organisations in New Zealand. I attended a meeting of the acclimatisation societies and was struck by the numbers of societies dealing with the different questions. I tried at once to arrange an amalgamation.” The best course for the friends of free birds is to .join the Forest and Bird Protection Society, a, thoroughly national body, strongly organised throughout the Dominion for the achievement of its ideals. Nobody is in this movement for personal gam or selfish distinction. It is wholly a friendly society of men and women, boys and girls to save the native birds and the forests, on which the national welfare depends. BOYS AND BIRDS. Many New Zealanders will be surely surprised by an article, ‘‘Boys Are Killing Our ' Birds,” in “Nature Magazine,” published by the American Nature Association. The wiitei Edgar Kincaid (13 years), described as “a voung conservationist,” remains. “Many people think that boys used to kill birds but that they know better now. I have had lots of experience to back the statement that they are nearly as bad as they ever vieie. I have read many bird books, and not one of them has mentioned among the bird's enemies, the boy, which is their worst one. I honestly believe that the boys of America, kill more birds in a year than all the cats, stravs and pets combined, kill in the same length of time. Some boys average several hundred birds in a yeai, not counting the nestlings left to starve or the eggs that spoil after the death of the mother. Indeed, nesting birds are favourite victims simplv because a bird sitting on the nest is usually loath to leave it. “One would think only vagabonds and bullies would kill birds, but many so-called nice little boys kill them, too And -what do they do with them after they kill them? Why most of the time, they do not even look at the dead birds. They are left right where thev fall while the little birds back in the nest are left to starve to death. Bovs become skilled marksmen witii those accursed ‘nigger shooters’ and air guns, or, in some cases, shot guns, and kill every bird they see.” Well, that is a very sad state of affairs after all the years of educational ’ activity by Audubon Societies and similar leagues in U.S.A. Would ' voiim- Kincaid’s comment apply with equal truth to boys of New Zealand'; ‘ It is well known that an instinct to kill wild things lurks in small boys. Thev have to bo encouraged to take more interest in preserving lives of birds than in destroying them.

ALAS FOR STEWART ISLAND. Observers of increasing damage done bv deer on Stewart Island hold out small hope of the saving of the native forests unless war is waged vigorously against the destroyers. Ihe island is supposed to be a. “bird sanctuary, but it will be only the skeleton ol a sanctuary if the deer are not conquered. If'these alien pests are allowed to go their ruinous way, future New Zealanders will look in vain tor the birds which IT. Guthrie-Smitb saw on Stewart Island a quarter of a century ami. “Those inland woods had been full of sound and flight.’’ he wj'Ote in “Mutton Birds and Other Birds.’’ “The tall trees had really been alive with kaka, the birds hopping with' short, silent flights from bough to bough—the kaka can he as silent as an owl on the wing—raining down rotten ' wood and bark, clambering by beak alone, uttering everywhere their guttural ‘Clock.’ ‘Clock,’ ‘Clock,’ and listening with rapt inquisitive air, to the scratching and tapping sounds made by us, as we paused beneath them on the forest path. The woods were filled with their calls and screechings; and I may say, without exaggeration, that parrots were there by the thousand. Pigeons, too, were very plentiful, and tuis, and bell-birds in lesser though still very great numbers. Fantails, though never so numerous as in the forests of the North—the insect harvest is, I suppose, more sparse in the chillier, southern bush—were yet relatively plentiful. Numbers of warblers were on the tree tops very high from the ground, and tits were to be noticed everywhere. Robins were then to be found along the very skirt of the forest where the tall pole manuka forms a neutral zone between the tangle fern and rushes of the valley lands, and the kamahi. pine and ironwood of the forest. Again in the higher forest fringe where the taller trees begin to dwarf, where new and mountain species begin to assert themselves, and where once more the tree manuka appears, the breed is to bo found in autumn.’’ COMMUNICATIONS OF BIRDS AND ANIMALS. Many naturalists have mentioned that various kinds of birds and animals have a range of expressive sounds which can be termed “language.’’ Martin Johnson, a famous African explorer goes further; he says that elephants seem to rely on telepathy, occasionally. Clarence Weed states in “Nature Magazine” that one day Mr. Johnson saw a herd coming toward him, led by a bull elephant. The leader became suspicious that something was wrong. The great beast lifted his trunk to test the air for the smell that denotes man. But the wind was in the wrong direction. The leader, however, was still suspicious. He stopped, turned around and brought the herd together head to head in a huddle. Here they stayed a few moments, then started off in another direcbetter guess?