IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16493, 7 March 1914, Page 6

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN NEW ZEALAND.

(By J. DRUMMOND, F.L.S., F.Z.S.)

Lieutenant-Colonel H. Boscawen, of Auckland, lias kindly supplied for this column a report on a visit he made to the Great Barrier Island, in Hauraki Gulf, a short time ago, and he has added to his letter a short note that is specially interesting because it' deals witli the strange little native frog of New Zealand, Liopelma Hochstetteri, which is seldom found in these days, and has never been recorded outside of a restricted area of the Auckland province. His letter is dated January 30, and he states that during the previous week he saw this creature, New Zealand’s only amphibian, in the forests of the Coromandel Peninsula. "If a person knows how to look for it,” he says, "it will be proved to be not uncommon. Ir. damp moss, three or four small grape-like balls sometimes may bo found, and when these are held up to the light a small frog may be seen moving about in the water inside.” Colonel Boscawen is a student of natural history, and on the Great Barrier lie saw more than might be seen by other visitors. He was surprised to make the acquaintance there of a large number of native birds seldom 6een on the mainland now. He believes that they arc the overflow from the Little Barrier Island, which is a sanctuiiry, and is only twelve miles away. Tuis, parrakeets, kakas, pigeons and tlie small forest birds are plentiful. In the centre of the island, in the forest around Mount Hobson, there are a few bellbirds. , The bays abound with fish, and their shores, consequently, are a sea-birds’ paradise. Sitting on a rock early one morning, he watched gannets fishing alongside, closing their wings and coming down with a rash within a few yards of him. He noted that, in Spite of skill and experience, they often failed to catch their fish, and drew a blank. Several species of petrels nest in the rocks near the sea and in the highland in the interior. There is one largo shaggery in poliutukawa trees. Most of the shags are the pied species. The young birds bad left their nests at the time of his visit, and they. could be seen in hundreds. The little petrels, commonly called Mother Carey’s chickens, nest on a smaller island close to the Great Barrier. They are seldom found nesting, but, evidently they come from long distances to particular nestingplaces. Imported birds are conspicuous by their absence. There are no pheasants, very few brown quail, blackbirds, and sparrows, and an occasional chaffinch. Sharks, evidently, are very plentiful in the waters, and Colonel Boscawen saw many flying-fish, with a snout like that of a mullet. They rose siugly, not in droves like the flying-fish he has seen in the West Indies. The vegetation is similar tothatatMoeliau, on the mainland of Coromandel. He saw on tho island the stoutest manuka he has ever seen. There were large trees of that plant fifty feet high before branching. The pollutukawa, which flowered late this year, was at its best while he was on the island. There were boes everywhere. Ho noticed that tho pohutukawa honey was white and the rewa-rewa honey brown, and he saw many largo combs of honey half white and half brown. Some of the bees were making wax and gathering pollen from the rili-grass and other species of grass, but other bees were only gathering honey. The settlers take advantage of the bees' presence and send large Quantities of honey to the market. The land generally is poor, and is fit for only sheep. The mutton, on account of the salt in the grass from the spray,. is excellent. There are a few fairly good flats, notably the Kaitoki Valley, which when dug over and cultivated will grow anything. The inhabitants, who number about 500, live in the bays on the coast. , The great forest around Mount Hobson, therefore, is undisturbed. They are kindly, hospitable people, and always are pleased to see strangers.

Most of Mr W. Townson’s contributions to this column have dealt with plant-life, but ho has also sent notes on animal life, and to these he has added a few more. Writing from Pnkekohe, in the Auckland district, he states that, when he was a boy, he came to the conclusion that fish were almost insensible to pain, and that when he was angling on the River Leith, in ,Scotland, ho had many opportunities of confirming this opinion. It was a common occurrence, when fishing with the fly, to hook, cast after east, a young salmon, called parr in that locality; which anglers were obliged, under a heavy penalty, to throw hack into the stream. At times they became a great nuisance, interfering considerably with designs upon the trout, and so were not always removed from the hook . very carefully. He recorded in his notes that on one occasion one of these juvenile offenders gorged his fly, causing him some trouble- in freeing it, during which process its mouth was badly lacerated'. It might bo expected that the fish would be in trouble, and that it would lie low whilst repairs were effected, but not so. At his next cast, ho rose arid hooked a fish, reeling in the identical salmon parr which a short time before he had thrown back into the river, badly wounded. On a holiday excursion, when angling. near Ambleside, at the bead. of. Mindermore Lake, a trout roso at his fly. got hooked behind the gill, and was landed. It was about a quarter of a pound in weight, and upon picking it up he was surprised to find that it had two minnows wedged firmly between its jaws. The trout had evidently made a verv successful rush into a shoal of minnows, and, seizing two at once, tail on, they had jammed just amidship in their captor’s jaws. The question suggested itself to him, seeing that the trout’s mouth was completely out of action, what could it.have. done under the circumstances with his fly.

Another of Mr Townson’s notes records an interesting sight he saw when living in "Wellington some years ago. A fellow-lodger was employed in the engine-room, of, he thinks, the Thorndon Freezing Works. After breakfast one morning his friend asked him to go down to the works to see what he described as a " feline curiosity.” Arriving at the engine-room Mr Townson was taken to a box in a corner near one of tho engines, in which there was a cat suckling a couple of young rats, and purring contentedly. It seemed that the cat had had her kittens drowned by one of the hands a day or two previously, much to her distress, and during some cleaning operations in the yard a large ease had been overturned, disclosing a nest of young rots, upon which she at once pounced. The cat had a local reputation as a rotter, and the men Were not surprised to see ,her carrying off tee rats, but were very much surprised to fee© her deposit them carefully in her box and copimence to motner them. She had discharged tho duties of foster-mother for some days when Mr Townson saw her, but he has no record of the rats’ ultimate eiid. It seemed to him at the time that tho chief danger they had to fear was from the cat’s afternoon callers, to whom the position could not be ex"olained.