NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14787, 16 September 1911, Page 5 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

.. BY JAMES DEtTMMONT), F.L.9., F.Z.S. ;r; S As * re *k information is collected week by week, erroneous ideas that have received general acceptance are corrected. The ■ -•■ history of the short-tailed hat may be taken as an illustration of this. A few years ago it was believed that this crea

, tare, i one of the few land mammals be- .":.,.-■' longing to New Zealand, was extinct, or pn the verge of extinction. Several reports of its existence, in places from which it had never been recorded before, have been received, and some of these seem to be quite authentic. Tho latest report is '- from Mr. H. L. Bryant, of Teramamoa, . in the Kawhia district, on the west coast of tho North Island. "I was much interested," he writes, in your notc\s on the short-tailed bat. Some months ago : one of these little mammals found its way .--:'.:• . into a room in my house. No doubt it ; - came in through the window, which had' ; been left slightly open during the night. It circled around the room for a- consider- ;:,: able lime, often squeaking like a rat. At ' "last it flew down into a corner, apparently ' -exhausted. When I attempted to pick it * up it. promptly stuck its needle-like teeth . .-/into my finger. I noticed at the time the .:..:. delicate construction of the wing-mem- • - ". brane, and that tho wing folded as you .described; also, the short, stumpy tail and . the large ears. I have often seen numbers ■' ci bats flying about at dusk, especially in the Nelson district, but that was many years ago, and they may have been the -'] more plentiful long-tailed species." In a -later note, in reply to inquiries, Mr. Bryant says that the bat he caught had ears -: about a fifth of an inch long, perhaps less, and a tail that was a mere stump. On the :.-. - back the hair was a somewhat dark brown, and around the breast it was lighter.

- In tending some notes on fishes Mr. F. ,".?{. Ludwig, of Tauranga, says that many H people regard fish stories with a good deal >.:.'■. of doubt, but. he expresses a hope that *V~-his . account of one of his experiences will .;. be credited, as he can vouch for the facte. ."-,•* Early last month, while he was walking ■~ ■• .'along the Ocean Beach at Mount Manga- •; hui. Tauranga, looking for any rare shell that might have been left by the tide, ho ; found a dead John Dory, about 20in long. "r He was passing it. with only a casual glance, when he saw, the tail of another :" ; fish protruding from its mouth. He grasped the tail in both bands and pulled it, and was astonished at the pulling and tugging required to separate the two 'fishes. The fish swallowed by the greedy John Dory was new to him, but he thinks that- it was a boarfish. It had a total length of 11 in. and at its widest part was .; 3jin. It had a remarkably small mouth, ; with a number of teeth around the edge, - very large eyes for its size, and above the ? /'eyes a sharp spike l|in long, which could -be raised or lowered will, but could not be pushed forward past a vertical position. | This spike, he believes, was the principal I; cause of the difficulty in withdrawing the ■ fish from the John Dory's mouth. In, roughness, the absence of scales, and colour, the skin resembled the skin of -a

shark. The strange features of the case were the size of the . fish taken into the John Dory's mouth, the small piece of the tail showing outside the mouth, and the fact that the victim, had evidently gone down head first. Is it reasonable to sup- : pose., he says, that the John Dory was . • lying in wait in the mud with its extensive mouth wide open, and that the boarfish, wandering in search of food, made a ■" mistake thai was bad for both. A resi-

dent of Christchurch, who is interested in

the study of fishes, states that the fish which was swallowed by the John Dory was doubtless a bottle-jacket, a common fish in candy places. He adds that fish swallow their prey head first.

Touching on the controversy as to whe- ... ther the cuckoos use tnis' nests in follow- -. ing their parsitical instincts, Mr. W. Best, ■--of Otaki, says that if -they do victimise - tnis in that way it must be on very rare occasions, as he has found large numbers - of tuis' nests, but has never seen any other birds' eggs in them. He has found one, two, and three eggs in tuis' nests, but never more than three. When a - , female saw him near her nest she uttered loud cries and darted at him in order to * drive him away. If he went away all was well, although he might be_ quite close to the nest, but' he found that if he -;£§,■ touched the nest or the eggs with his hand the female deserted her possessions, presumably to start housekeeping elsewhere. .however, the young birds were hatched - _ she remained with them. No matter how often he handled them she would continue • to feed and care for them. " May not the cuckoo, have discovered this peculiarity," he asks, "and concluded that her eggs ran a great risk of not being hatched, and so leaves tuis' nests alone? These obser-

- . vations were made many years ago, when tuis were plentiful and their nests could be found in numbers if one knew where .'■ "to look for them. The long-tailed cuckoo - was very plentiful at Te Whetu, On. the range between Waikato and Rotoma, dur- -," - ins the months of October and November, 1903. In fact, I never saw them so plentiful anywhere; but the shining cuckoo was ; seldom seen or heard. I heard only one or two during my stay of about six weeks on that trip, and! had. not time to observe them or hunt for eggs. One of the most plentiful birds in that district is the grey warbler. On a fine day grey warblers , could be seen hunting for insects in all * v . directions, and their whistling was continuous. I saw one or two nests, with from one to four eggs. I have never been. - able to satisfy myself as to the usual number of eggs laid by female warblers, having found nests with numbers up to eight., One nest I found had thirteen young ~ birds in it, all strong and healthy-looking. Whether they belonged to more than one mother I cannot say. as I had no. opportunity of observing them further."

• V "Robins were more in evidence than I have seen them for many years, but .. they were very shy, and it was difficult .;.. to get near to them. They were quite -'. unl-ke the bold, cheeky little fellows we ', . used to have at this end of the island in - years; gone by. The other birds I noticed there were fantails, wekas, mountain ducks, moreporks, a few bell-birds, kakas, hlack and white tits, pigeons, and kiwis. •' "* A pair of tits had built their nest in a : hole scooped out in the stem of a rotten r tree, which seemed to me to be a most -i- unusual proceeding for them. Whether _. they 'made the hole themselves or found it ready for them to go into I cannot say. Kiwis "could be heard calling near the - camp during the early part of the night, ;,l but I did not see any. I have been told that kiwis never call after midnight, bub .v: as I have never lived for any length of > time in places where they were present, I cannot- speak for the truth of the state- . V " ment, though I certainly never heard them v in that region after that hour. Tuis were both plentiful and noisy, with a note that was quite new to me, and possibly to them, also, as I have noticed in other places r . that the prevailing note in one season is seldom heard. the following year, some- ,; thing quite new being substituted. Taken altogether, the birds were in larger numbers there than in any other place I have been in for many years, ana the early ■ morning concert? of the native birds, assisted by the blackbird, the thrush, the ;'; linnet, and the sparrow sitting on the ,'" tent-pole, were a genuine pleasure, which : ; ." reminded me of the early settlement days ~ forty years or more ago." '. . . .

The town of Elma, Washington, in the ,■ midst of the great fir timber belt on the west slope of the Cascade Mountains, pre- ; - sents a unique feature in the forming of a .;.- two-storey house, containing 14 rooms, otiilt entirely of the timber from a single Er. This tree was a giant Douglas fir, and was felled west of Elma. It was wonderfully straight, and when scaled was found io contain 40,000 ft of serviceable timber, the tree was cut into fix log,?, the first or butt being 28ft in length. Inside the - • bark ..the,'stump measured 7ft 9in in . diameter. The distance to the first limb of -rH'this tree was ■ 100 ft, "■ and the total height of the tree was over 300 ft. At the standard then; prevailing£s a thousand—the hxtimr in this .tree was wain £200* v..:'.''-...'-.. .. ■