MATURE NOTES;

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14223, 20 November 1909, Page 5 (Supplement)

MATURE NOTES;

iV ■■ ,' ' jjaas DBTJMMOND, K.L.S., F.Z.S. ¥§&Wl air's recent account of his ex18|p%th New Zealand's little native ;,peW *S his appeal for information in reirof. n its present existence, have brought her of letters which show that this -IfStinf'arilnials is not as rare as it was SStobe. Mr. J. ReiUy, of Coro- ' W forwarded a live specimen of the m which however, unfortunately died & after reaching Auckland. It wa* #fbv a friend of Mr. lleilly's, who 'clearing bush on the Coromandel |»*?^v^ a ,i wav between Coromandel and ISeßay. -Mr. H. Meiklejohn, of Big $&2 -cords two cases in which the STUs «*& in mountain streams near M«iawi. In one case a timber worker ilfeoecimen under a large stone. ; In I Ihercase, Mr. Meiklejohn's father -,«1 the frog at a place now known fere's Village Settlement Mr. P. C. JL*l of Auckland,. states that he saw a Wm 4 1870, but not since. He was camp?Lr the 'head of a small stream on the rcury Bay, or cistern, side, of the main -between two high points or, the "1 known as Kakatarahae and Whare- <• « about 1600 ft above sea-level. Some tis working for Mr. Cheal were lying. «dera""moemoe," a lean-to covered with JL leaves. During the night ho heard loud yell, and on s ° ing to the )laons i, e was "told that ono of them had been .wakened bv something cold and we? i-giiinV on his face. Investigations brought Affile I frog to light. It was placed in. 4 matchbox. ■>About six days later Mr. Cheal took the frog out on to his hand in , Maori settlement, in the presence of m «, women, and children. They had Mver seen anything like it before, and immediately classified it as a "taipo," and when it jumped to the ground they scatilai'ia- all directions.

>'vf : .;, *'-:'■■':'■'■'' 1 I Mr- -H. Macpherson, of Opoutama, B»ffke"s Bay, states that three years ago jk, eaw three native frogs on the western slope of the Moehau Mountain, and only eight months ago, in company with Mr. Fraser, of the Geographical Survey, he |jw eight or nine at the head waters of a branch at Kanaeranga River, in the iThames district, leading up the southern i^ids'of.Table Mountain. When Mr. Mac"ptfe»oa;saw the frogs on Moehau Mountain 8 Maori was with him, and said that their name "was "keneturio," probably the aarte in the Maori's own district. Further evidence in regard to the presence of this member of ; the Dominion's fauna is supplied by Mr. G. F. Wood, of Waihi, who ' jays'that about thirteen years ago, when the Triumph battery -was being erected.. ! o»veral frogs were found in the moss amongst loose - boulders locally known as yitbe mineral bar." The stone was pitted ■ with holes like, scoria, , and the frogs eeem«d lobe in the damp places in the boulders, i The battery .was on the road from Coromandel to Cabbage Bay, and was situated *■ in heavy bush country. Up to the present time the presence of :, the frog has not been reported in the South Island, or, indeed, in any place outside of the Auckland district. /It'-will be interesting to learn if I its habitat has a more extended area..

- . ■.->•■■;■":. , ' Mr. M., Priestly has recorded some inci-dents-in the lives of a family of magpies, which li*e in a small bush near the Waikiekie township, north of Auckland. For ! some years : they have been in a semi-pros-perous sedition, but neither increase nor -'decrease, |1 They break the monotony of j their lives by making determined raids on ,'every, hawk; that happens, to so much .as 'look at their private domains. They have earned a local reputation for discretion, u they invariably r attack ", in pairs, and Mr. ; Priestly ".was surprised when, a few weeks ago, he was an 'interested spectator of-a battle between a hawk and a,lonely magpie. Repeatedly tie magpie, by.means of its powers rising s perpendicularly, would dart down :with lightning speed on. its; bigger antagonist, which nearly always rose to meet the charge, only to receive the blow rail in the face.; Distress signals were out- before minutes ' had elapsed, and then, apparently without reason, the magpie rose ; about 50ft above the hawk, and, instead of charging again, ffiide off at full speed. "Then," Mr. Priestly writes, I'eaw, the reason for the. withdrawal, and remembered that ; 'he vho fights and runs away lives to fight another -day.' Far away, just a speck in tie blue, "was a second hawk, which the magpie had evidently spied when rising tie last time. ' Realising that the top man invariably wins,"' he ' had- retired. ; While M was on top he ■■ had ; confidence; enough '■fij fight; any hawk that ever flew, but when m found that he had lost that position, h» courage forsook him,' and he flew to wfoge,,possibly to gather reinforcements." j "One of; the most interesting sights in »y country, Finland," writes Mr. C. Karli»,| of iDargaville, "• is the arrival - and departure of the feathered migrants, especially-, the godwit. The big bird invasion commences early in May, .that is, in the wanner, and during that month godwits jmve in countless thousands from the far s&sth, bound for the tundra. This tundra "the 'name given to a barren, swampy tract of country, thousands of acres in •ft* o *- It is ■ the nesting and ■ feeding pounds of some fifty different ' kinds of tods of . passage. -k The flight for the Sunny South'. is an interesting one. Like » huge snow-plough, the birds take the ™8 aerial flight,.the old .birds in turn «dag the .way, the young following. After the flight: south the vast;■ tons of leathers left behind by the moulting birds »« collected by feather nets and are sold •t as much as one shilling a pound."

i* correspondent at Patea, in the Tara**i province, states that in reading this «9lnmn he was - surprised to see many l]??^; not© the rareness of the native Wgwn'fi nest,' but - when he counted the 5l he . ha « seen ' he found that although '-W/OOMi: experience extends over thirtv jw», they number only seven. Five of gem were found in".the. month of March m two in January. They were at heights ffW.wom seven to twenty feet from £6 ground, ' and most of them were in tTCiISF" The corres °ondent adds that «e worth Island crow is not rare in the «ngc ranges of, the upper branches of the g«'andj,Whenuakura Rivers, and that 8£? are very plentiful in the highWind rangeS in the interior of the North