NATURE STUDY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 November 1924, Page 13

NATURE STUDY.

• .• ■ ■ * ■ t , . . ; ■ ; •• ; ■ ■’ AND COMMENTS.

a ■ (“Hori.”) Quite tan interesting exhibit'at the recent A. and .P: Show was the woodwork, section of the. Ilawera Technical High School. This contained a very fine collection of dressed specimens of New Zealand hardwoods. It tended to demonstate what a great variety of beautiful timber the Dominion possesses.} No country of its size lias such a varied assortment of useful and beautiful Jtimber. There was a very .fine, piece/of totara knot, a timber sc well not only for its lasting properties, but also useful in the manufacture of furniture, more especially in veneering work. To those who were not}; intimately acquainted with the different woods, only perhaps having' heard of them by name, the display was quite an object lesson, and evoked much interest to visitors at the show.

When, reading an advertisement in the Star this week, asking shopkeepers to . notify the committee appointed in connection with the decoration of the shops at Christmas time as to the a amount of greenery they would require, including nikau palms, the thought occurred to the writer’s mind that not only would it be a difficult matter to secure nikau palms for decorations, but that if any are procurable in the fast diminishing bush in bouth Taranaki it almost amounts to an. act of sacrilege to destroy these beautiful specimens of New Zealand flora. In days gone by the nikau grew in abundance and yjak the principal decoration used at time about thirty years <ago. Nowadays very little of it remains, but one may often see, a few .scattered and storm-scarred remnants standing sentinel-like in the open, serving to remind the observer

that, like the fast-disappearing bird life," they are the sole survivors of a ,onee beautiful forest, the result of ■ Nature’s handiwork long since destroyed by the bushmen’s axe and fire. ! The age ; .of a-large nikau is hard to estimate, and to grow these plants in pots serves to show the slowness of their growth. Most of them must be over a hundred years old.

The writer, a couple of weeks ago, found a- thrush ’s egg lying ■ out in the open. He intended to carry it hqjme, but suddenly came upon a blackbird’s nest in some long grass on the ground. There were four eggs inside, and as an experiment he placed the thrush’s egg in the nest to see if the blackbird would notice any difference in the colour of the egg. Evidently the pwner of the ilest had no objection .to the addition to her rightful hatch, as on ' later observation, it was found that the thrush’s egg hatched out all right.

A student of Nature recently told the writer that he had. come across quite :af number of., thrushes’ and blackbirds’ nests in which the eggs remained broken, as if they had been interfered with by some enemy. It was not likely that this was the result of a human enemy, a boy, for instance, as the lastnamed would most likely take the eggs away altogether and would not leave the .shells in the nest. It may be the work'of rats or weasels. .

It is father strange that the myna, which is fairly plentiful in. South Tara-; naki, does not flourish hi many paints of the Dominion outside, of this province and in the Hawke’s Bay. v There certainly are not. so many of them even in Taranaki as there used to be. It is hard to account for this. They used to be very useful in devouring ticks in sheep, and were a curious object, perched on the backs of sheep in search of these insect pests, the sheep never resenting the birds’ presence.

’The Otira Gorge,i literally covered with Mount Cook lily, is a wonderful sight at .present, according- to a Christchurch visitor to the West Coast. He considers that thepeople who go through the tunnel instead of over the hill are missing a spectacle that would be worth travelling from anywhere to see.

It is estimated that the aphis common to turnip does damage in New Zealand to the extent of £1 per acre. This ,is equiyuldiit _ to 1.000.000. Included in the is the loss caused by the.'rot of swedes, which is undoubtedly spread by these insects.”—Mr/ J. J. Stevenson at the Palmerston North Lunch dub.— Manawatu Times.

A giraffe, or possibly a pair, -will, it is hoped, be, included ambng the animals in the-/ Auckland Zoological Gardens at lio far distant date. The curator, Mr. L. T. Griffin, who is at present in Pretoria, has intimated that he may he able to obtain the desired animals on reasonable terms, and he has accordingly been instructed by cable to -purchase one, or preferably a pair.

The evening ■wanderings of a hedgehog in the Carnarvon district ended tragically; recently (says the Feilding Star). The animal was found securely caught in a trap set in a rabbit burrow. It is considered that the hedgehog will soon become a pest, for their numbers are said to be rapidly increasing.

In the New Zealand Life and Forest Magazine there, appears an illustration of a remarkable tree on Mr. Newtorn King V estate at “Brooklands,” New Plymouth. Its branches cover nearly a quarter of an acre! The dimensions of the (a Spanish chestnut) are as follows: Circumference of branches 279 ft., diameter -of branches 93ft., diameter of bole sft. 4in. The tree was planted in 1846. Mr. King, who supplied the photograph, writes to the;'journal as follows: “It is interesting to note that when I purchased the property - some thirty odd years ago the tree would not hear nuts. I consulted Mr, Kidd, an old English gardener, and he advised me to plant another tree of‘the game species somewhere in the vicinity. I did this, and in three years I liad ; a fine crop of nuts, and every year sees more“

At a meeting of. the North Canterbury Acclimatisation. Society recently, the chairman stated that he would shortly be visiting America and Europe, and he -believed that if he topk about half a dozen keas to New York he would be able to get about a! dozen ruffed grouse in exchange, which he could supervise on the voyage out to New Zealand. Another bird that was worth trying was the Eastern American snipe. There "were very large areas in Canterbury eminently suitable for snipe, and he believed the society would be well justified in spending money on it, as it would be a valuable addition to the game birds on Lake Ellesmere.

Blackbirds have increased in number so rapidly in England that they now Tank third after sparrows and starlings, much to the disgust- of the farmer,' for it has been proved that one-quarter of the blackbird’s nourishment is cultivated fruit. - 1

Fishing in the Rangitikei at Parewariui. Messrs. Twigg and Knowles, two Marton anglers, noticed an eel chasing trout (relates the Wanganui Herald). They forsook trout-fishing and went for the eel, which latter t'hev _were fortunate in catching. It was 57 inches long, and weighed 191 b.

Mr--J. Mitchell, Eltham, w-rites:“ln your nature study notes of November 22, I read that a writer had seen a blackbird with a white ring round its neck and white on wing. I don’t think this is anything very remarkable, as some years ago, while a resident of New Plymouth, I saw nearly every morning a blackbird with markings somewhat similar. Since' I have been a resident of this town I have seen a blackbird with white spots all over, and only the other day I saw one with a pure white back and speckled wings' and head; it was on a post just outside our back door. I think a. great number of these freaks arc_ turning up all over the country, as, I read in a Wellington paper some few weeks back of one somewhat, similar to the one first mentioned.” (The writer of the notes did not consider the markings very remarkable. It was only, an observation of a little freak of nature. More wonderful freaks than the incident referred to occur sometimes, as for instance some months ago a pure white sparrow was; discovered at Waitara:) ’

A honey-bee weighs one 300th of an ounce. Its “load” of nectar is, thereextremely small. An American scientist ascertained that the average load weighs about one 1250th of an ounce—a quarter of the bee’s weight. Hus means that 20,000 journeys (reckoning the outward, and inward trip as one) are necessary for the gathering ot a pound of nectar; but, as fiowerfuice loses at least one-half of its bulk before it becomes honey, it follows that the production of a pound of honey im on this reckoning, a minimum of 40,000 journeys. If we assume the average tffp outward and home measures half a mile (a low estimate), fthe immense distance of 20,000 miles must be coveredviii’’gathering the raw material pound of honey. This is equal Williams, in Chambers’s Journal.

, A shark, 9ft. 6in. long, was caught bj l " Island Bay fishermen trawling in front of the Oriental Bay Parade recently. It was to be. seen, still alive, though firmly moored at 6.3 Q a.m. It "is stated that the shark was of a species not dangerous to bathers unless starving, but those who saw it are not likely to test the appetite of others of its kind which may be about. The shark was subsequentlyacquired by the authorities of the Museum, and turns out to be a rare piscatorial specimen. It is what is known as a seve'n-gilled shark, and is tinged all over with red. The seven-gilled shark is of a species which is very rarely taken, and that captured in Oriental Bay. is the fourth specimen so far recorded for New Zealand. In addition to its, seven- gills, this particular type of shark has another distinctive feature/in that each of its inch-long teeth have,seven sharp points. Such serrat-, ed teeth as these were formerly highlyprized by'; the Maoris for use as knives. The shark will be preserved in a tank of spirits until arrangements can be made to have it mounted-and placed on permanent exhibition in the museum.

One of the visiters to Hipango Park last Friday, on the occasion .of the river picnic tendered to the Chamber of Commerce delegates, stated to a Chronicle reporter that the city of Wanganui had a priceless asset in the park. ( He said that during liis stay there he saw four pipnvharauroa, a pigeon, and a couple of tuis, something that he thought was both un common and interesting in these days of vanishing bird life close to the large centres. f He stated that it was to be hoped that the Wanganui City Council would make every effort to preserve the flora and avifauna in' the park. He added that it would be a wise move to stop stock from grazing, as there was evidence of damage caused to the shrubs and the undergrowth. THE MYSTERIOUS EEL. All fishermen know the dusky olivegreen eel about half a foot in length, that may be caught lurking beneath any old wooden piles or the river bank, but it is only in the last few years that its life-history has been discovered (says E. P. 11. in the London Daily News). Till 1804 no one had found a baby eel, but in that year one was discovered off the Faroe Islands, and the chase grew hotter. Science lias now. discovered that the eels of. two worlds, the. old and the new, breed at the bottom of the West Atlantic.

At first they are infinitesimally small, shaped like a laurel leaf, and capable of resisting great pressure; but on their journey across the Atlantic they grow rapidly and gradually rise to the surface. Thousands a minute fall victim to some marauder, but an eel generally has about fifteen million little brothers and sisters, so that, a lot of marauding is needed to thin out appreciably that solid moving mass.

It takes three years for our eels to reach us, and those that fishermen know so well are generally four-year-olds on their way up-stream. Instinctively the eel moves inland, eating voraciously all the way roots, snails, beetles, and smaller fish.- It is when he has grown big, with a rich covering of fat to protect him on his long return journey across the Atlantic that man starts to catch him in earnest. During his time up-stream he has been making overland excursions, wriggling through the grass for miles perhaps in search of some pleasant pond, where his ravages among moorland hens and carefully preserved fish bring fury and despair to the owner.

For nearly fifteen years the eel lives inland, the female growing to as much as 6ft., and their skins take on the greyish, silvery hue that we see in fishmongers’ shops. Then suddenly, one autumn, its all-devouring appetite becomes intermittent; like a flash it is off to the sea on its long journey across the Atlantic, there to breed and die. Once the sea is reached there is no stop for food; it intends to perform the journey in a year. And, in spite of eelspears, eel-weirs and traps of every sort, the wonderful life-force of the eel makes him very difficult to catch. % His great Atlantic journey accomplished, he vanishes utterly from our ken. Perhaps he becomes a sea-ser-pent—who knows? But at any rate his life history is stranger than any fictions that the ancient made up about him!