NATURE-AND MAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 1 May 1937, Page 13

NATURE-AND MAN

CAUSE AND EFFECT WHAT WILL THE FUTURE BRING? Mr H. Gulhrie-Smilh is working on his third edition of “Tutira,” a famous book which has been translated into several languages. Perhaps he will add something to the chapter headed “The Future of Native Avifauna,” which now has this passage:— “The real cause of diminution of native birds is easy to give: no creature can live without food and breed without covert; woodland species cannot exist without woodland, jungle and swamp-haunting breeds cannot survive without jungle and sv'amp, they cannot feed on clover and breed on turf. At one time there were on Tutira many hundreds of acres alive with forest birds; not one single individual now exists on many of these localities, because not one single tree remains. That is the simple explanation of the great decrease of natives. On the coastal portion of Tutira, where the country is grassed, comparatively few survive. On the ranges of the interior where the forest is untouched, native birds far outnumber the aliens. So much for the immediate past. When in the future every acre of the run shall have become grassed, when everywhere the flocks and herds of the settler shall have subdued the remaining scrub and fern, a still more severe and searching test awaits the native avifauna. As has happened to other monsters of the prime, the easy-going sloth will have been succeeded by beasts lesser in bulk but more active, greedy and fierce, —the squatter’s room will have been occupied by the farmer. Under the sway of the yeoman class every yard of ground will be utilised; there will exist no longer unconsidered trifles of wild land, an acre here, an acre there, not snapped up, not ploughed, not grassed. Each homestead will support a colony of cats and dogs, each will be a nucleus for a settlement of rats. Wild convert will have altogether gone from the hills, the kowhai and fuchsia and hinahina which, either as single trees or in open clumps, have hitherto withstood fires, will have died out from lapse of time. Because of. nibbling sheep and increase of danthonia—a grass easily fired—no seedling successors will have replaced the originals. “If, in fact, the squatter has chastised the ancient vegetation with rods, the yeoman will chastise it with scorpions. In the last, fullest, most energetic development of land for agriculture and stock-farming, shreds and patches of ancient Tutira will remain only in the deep gorges, the sinuous bogs, the cliffs of the run. There will nevertheless, as I have said, subsist on the station, though in sadly lessened numbers, nearly every native species that has bred on its 20,000 acres in my day. They will disappear indeed from the surface, they will sink, with the streams that are to prove their salvation, deep into the bowels of the earth, they will survive in the gorges.”

INSPIRATIONAL PATRIOTISM What a thrill .many thousands of New Zealanders must have received from the report of that inspiring example of real patriotism shown by Captain and Mrs G. Humphreys-Da-vies in their gift of 135 acres of native forest to the State! Here is a woodland which will be a beautiful home for native birds and a sanctuary of scenic charm and refreshing peace for New Zealanders and visitors from other countries. Another recent case of splendid pub-lic-spiritedness is to the credit of Mr C. H. Burgess in his gift of twelve acres of woodland and gardens to the people of New Plymouth—and also New Zealand, for the estate will be open to the general public. The generous citizen’s love of his country—proper patriotism—will live honourably in the name of his gift, Burgess Park. It is a memorial which should be more enduring and more endearing than a marble tombstone. Hundreds of other New Zealanders are in a similar position—able to win the gratitude of this generation and posterity with gifts which would ensure revered places for their names in the list of real patriots. DELUDED FANTAILS It is very hard luck for a pair of home-making fanlails when their plan is. upset by scrounging cuckoos. The dainty fly-catchers, instead of having the children that they expected, have the upbringing of an unsought foundling, a bulky parasite of insatiable appetite. A friend of mine saw a young cuckoo sitting on the rail of a bridge, squeaking and squawking for meals, which fanlails provided by ceaseless work. It takes many gnats to satisfy a cuckoo; indeed these things, mostly wings and legs, Would merely make the youngster more and more eager for a bigger meal. The poor foster-parents were nearly worn out with their thankless task. Their feather were bedraggled; they looked very woe-begone, but on and on’ they went, fluttering and flapping and snapping at flies for the greedy, yelping faster-child. When grey-warblers are the dupes of cuckoos’ ruses their task is not so heart-breaking, for they know how to pr.ll fat caterpillars arid grubs from their lairs.

REVEILLE Awake! For the King of the skies lias donned his bright vestige of silk, And is painting with amber tints The curdled white clouds of milk. For the sea slumbers not— He has watched you the whole night through, And is spraying the golden sancls With bubbles of every hue. Awake! For the song of a bird Is poured from a wee feathered throat, And is tossed by the whimsical wind To the universe, note upon note. Awake! For a ribbon of light Has crinkled around the hills, And is changing the red-gold clouds To a circle of silver frills. Awake! For a new dawn of life On the world is beginning to break, And- the night is a dream long passed— So awake!—sleeping mortals—Awake!. Myla Barnett, in the “N.Z. Railways Magazine.”