NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14888, 13 January 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

/ BY JAMES DROIOTOKD, F.L.S., F.ZJ. Mr- C. Hutchins, of Omokoroa, Tan- . Tanga, who was brought up in a s;rural: district in Essex, England, has sent for publication a flattering commendation of the rook, which is now :! fairly plentiful in several districts in this Dominion. He says: " Rooks have a great fascination for me, and when I read your notes on them some lime ago I felt that you were T'ritin™ 'Cibiiiu oni irißuUD o. ~i3*" fi J 1 remember that, many years ago, there wto a very severe winter in the place where I was born, and the rooks destroyed eight acres of Swede turnips that grew close to a large rookery. Do you think that' the farmer who owned the turnips declared war. on the rooks? Not a bit of it. He regarded the affair quit© philosophically. 'Poor things,' he said 'they must have something to eat.' There is no doubt that if the turnips had not been available they would have starved, and that would have been a public calamity. The slight damage rooks cause occasionally is far outbalanced by the good they, do as insect-eaters."

In another note Mr. Hutchilis states that in the district in which he lives song birds ere losing their vocal powers. "We have skylarks in largo number*, also song thrushes, blackbirds, goldfinches and other English birds, but not a song from one of them. The thrush is the only bird that seems to try to sing, and his effort is a miserable failure. It is only a squeak compared with the loud, clear notes of former years. The skylark here is utterly devoid of song. In these days I never see it soaring aloft to sing. A short time ago I watched a skylark, siting., on a ■: post. He fluttered his wings and tried to sing, but the effort resulted in complete failure. This absence of song amongst the birds has been noticeable here for the past two or three years! at least. I should like to know if the, same circumstances have been observed in other disj tricts." :'i, ; ', The pied fantail of New Zealand, Rhipidura flabellifera, has a fairly close ally in the black and white fantail of Australia, Rhipidura tricolor, but the habits of these two members of the fantail ■ genua are quite dissimilar. New Zealand fantails love to frequent the banks of forest streams and to flit in shady glens and retreats, and, although sometimes seen in > countiy - and suburban gardens and open Bpaces, aire mostly dwellers amongst the trees. The black and white fantail of Australia | is; often seen on' farms and ■ in gardens, sitting on gates and palings, and it likes the company of domestic ; animals. ; s Mr. i H. G. Jarman, writing from one of the public schools at Broken Hill, New South Wales, gives this bird its popular names -—willie wagtail or water wagtail." Ho Bays that birds are bo woefully few in and near Broken Hill that the cheerful "You pretty creature," as the notes are interpreted, sounded unusually sweet when he heard them on August 14 for the first time last spring. The singer was close at | • hand, flitting amongst the branches of a pepper tree,, outside the class-room door, revelling in the bright, glorious sunshine. In a few enthusiastic notes oh • this Aus- : tralian's habits .Mr. , Jarman Bays:-— "Wherever sheep are found there also is the wagtail. Everybody knows him, and everybody loves him. He is the last bird at . which , a boy will throw a stone. .; Few boys, by the way, , throw stones at birds now. A few short years ago, when I was one of them,, the boy with the best shanghai by common consent was made.■■■■■ chief of a savage crow," who marched forth to slay, and came home with more or less : joy as'the spoils of the day, in the shape of blood-stained ; wings t proudly displayed ; in hat : or buttonhole, were few or many. The boy sof the present generation knows \'< his bird friends ; better, and thanks to modern nature study, he has no inclination to Ha*m" them. "" This;* at'least,* is true of ; j the Australian boy, and I believe 'that it is true also of the boy of my own New. Zealand." "In autumn and winter the. wagtail's only cry is a harsh, quick rattle, resembling the -word •' chiddy-chiddy!',. This cry is also used in the spring and summer as an alarm note, and also when an attack is made on another : bird or when an intrader into the wagtail's special nesting reserve is dealt v.with. - The spring notes are clear arid v silvery, and, as I have stated, resemble the words ? You pretty creature.* and sometimes ' You pretty little creature.* It calls at intervals during' all hours of the night. If even a alight noise is made its challenge - rings out instantly, which is not surprising, out on the lonely plains. 'West o' Darling' this cheerful little bird, haunting the camp of drover and shepherd, is known as 'the shepherd's companion/ It is the friend and companion % of sheep and cattle. ' As one of these animals ; crops ':, the herbage,'"; a .wagtaill often flits about its head, devouring the < insects disturbed by the large, creature's warm breath., Its flight is, short and' slow, merely a side-to-side progression from tree "a ; to tree. Its back, tail and head are glossy black, and breast, abdomen and eyebrows cream. Wings and tail.are loosely held, and ,• it ; does not possess the New Zealand i fantail's beautiful spread of tail. , It 'is held in high respect by all the? inhabitants of i the bush. Even the ; vicious magpie ; will solemnly ; side-step when the wagtail approaches and springs his rattle. The nest, like the < New Zealander's, is, cup? shaped. < It is mad© of grass - and fibres.: The outside is thickly covered "with the web of spiders hor grubs. " It is usually | placed on the upper side of a horizontal branch, close to 4he ground. ' As a • rule the branch selected for the nest is ■?' quite ''% free from twigs at the place where the nest is made." There are four eggs in a sitting. In colour they are a greenish cream, with a light speckling Of greenish-brown spotslf and a zone of the same colour. The lengjth of the egg is 0. lin and the breadth 0.68; in." '" . • ' ' .' r A correspondent, who has taken an. ac* tive part in the establishment of sancturies - and reservations in New Zealand, has forwarded a copy of the report of an address by Lieutenant-Colonel Wood before .the ■ Commission of Conservation at Quebec. ■s The principal object of the address was to ■if emphasise the contention that Labrador is the best country in the world for the ;i;' best kind of sanctuary, but Lieutenant" ; Colonel Wood went into the whole question, of animal sanctuaries, and his remarks ' have an interest to people in New Zealand, i: where something in this direction has been done, although it may not be as much, as some of us wish. He points out that until recently Nature had her own sanctu- ; ; aries, where man did not go at all, or went only as a tool-using animal in comparatively small numbers. But now,, in this age of machinery, there is. no place whero man cannot go with overwhelming forces at his command. To-day he can strangle to death all - the nobler ' wild 1 life in the world, and/: to-morrow he will have done so unless "• he exercises foresight and self-control. Kieutehant-Colonel Wood states, indeed, birds and mammals are being killed off much faster than they can breed, arid it is ! always; the largest and noblest forms that suffer most. The whales and elephants, lions and eagles go. ; The rats and flies and all mean parasites.remain. r This, of course, is inevitable in certain cases, but it is wanton killing that he deplores. Civilised man begins by destroying the very forms of wild life that he learns to appreciate most' when he becomes still more civilised.

_. The obvious remedy, it is pointed out, is to begin conservation at an early j stage, - when it is easier and better in every way, ", by enforcing laws for close seasons, game preserves, the selective production of certain species, .and sanctuaries. "Unless we ; make these sanctuaries soon,". the writer says, "we shall be infamous.for. ever as the one generation, which defrauded posterity, of all 'the preservable wildlife itftafc Nature - took a / million + years *■ to- . evolve into its present beautiful perfection,". One of the greatest "stumbling blocks lie sees in the way of establishing effective sanctu* • aries is the difficulty of arousing . public opinion. That is the principal difficulty-yj scientific societies have experienced in NejJ'■.'■■' Zealand, ;», •