NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16098, 11 December 1915, Page 5 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

HI" J. DanUMOSD, F. L. S., F. Z. S.

Eels have had so many columns all to themselves since these notes first were published that I decided recently to ban them, in order that the space might be given to other creatures : but I have received a letter from Mr. Dudley Le Souef, director of the Zoological Gardens in .Melbourne, and author of " Wild, iife in Australia," which claims publication and prominence on account of the position held by the writer in Australasian zoological studies. Mr. J, c Souef 's letter is dated from .Melbourne on November 22. and he says :—•• In your notes of November 10, the Hev. YV J. Elliott, of Ashbux ton, states that lie -cannot accept the theory that eels do not breed in fresh water and marshy places.' Please let, instate that it is a proved tact, not a them \ . that eels breed ,n the ocean oniv, and anyone s belief to the contrary "cannot alter it. Only last week, when travelling by steamer, 1 mentioned the Victorian giant earthworm being often oft 10r..: and over. One gentleman, who .-lalvd that his name was Thomas, .-aid that h.- F.i! lowed h'.s namesake and was a ' Doubting Thomas.' and , ould not adept mv state" ment. The specimen ot the earthworm m my office is sft long, and I have seen others over that length. This Mi. Thomas is just on the same level as tlu.se who refuse to believe th it ee!.- breed .id'-' in salt water, just Ix-causc- thev do n..'t happen to know anything abo, 'that side of the subject, and • aiim.t realise it. ! Thev brand all the scientific men who do know as untruthful. Mr. KUiott also I states that he 'has f,,imd vmni.' eels in places and conditions that absolutely prehide the possibility of their having come from the sea," but 'he does not state what those conditions are. Therefore. 1 cannot gainsay him. Youni* eel-, when mi ji at inup the rivers, will crawl any stone ->r cement wall, and no barrier i.i that kind will stop them."

Mr. I> Souef's indignation when his statement of the si:£e of pant eaithworma was questioned by Mr. Thomas is easily understood. Many people seem to have some difficulty in believing that earthworms attain gigantic dimension.-. Some months ago. while having lun< h with a resident of Christchurch. ho told me that when visiting Australia he read in the newspapers there of Mr. 11. K. Houston's discoveries on the Gouland Downs, in the Nelson province, and believed everything Mr. Clouston said except that earthworms there are four or five feet long. As a matter of fact, the presence of those, earthworms on the downs is more credible than the presence of some rare species of birds. The largest earthworm known, as far as mv knowledge goes, is an Australian, with a name—Megascolides Australiaalmost as long as itself, but not as long as the name of a giant earthworm on the Little Barrier Island, near Auckland, which Professor W. B. Benham. of Dunedin, has called Diporochsta "igantea, and which, when stretched out alive, has measured 4ft 6in.

Brazil and South Africa and. no doubt, other countries, have their gigantic representatives of earthworms, but the record is held by Australia, the MeEraseolides, Austral is, although averaging 4ft. sometimes reaching as much as 6ft. In conversing with his doubting friend, indeed, Mr. Le Souef, so far from exaggerating, was one foot within the mark. In his lwok on Australian natural history, which the general reader, as well as the naturalist, will find very fascinating, he supplies a life-size illustration of a "iant earthworm's egg : it is shaped like an elongated oval bag. and is three-quarters of an inch wide, and three inches long. " T am a worm and no man," David said when he sounded the lowest depths of his self-reproach : hut he was thinking of common, insignificant earthworms a few inches long. and. probably, did not know that there were magnificent specimens, as long i as a tall man and as thick as his forefinger.

In order to demonstrate tie starling's intelligence, Mr. ~R. M. Baird,' telegraph engineer, describes an incident he noted "when he, with his assistant, was travelling between Hamilton and Cambridge. They saw a starling fluttering very persistently outside a rural letter-box. Fin-' ally, to their surprise, it raised the lid of the box with. its. bill and fluttered in through the slot, and the lid fell down behind it. When Mr. Baird mentioned the incident to a resident of the district, he was told that starlings had been known to do the same thing before. They tried to build their nests in the letter-boxes. Letters sometimes were found on the ground outside. Evidently, they had been removed by the starlings, which" found that the letters interfered with their domestic arrangements. "If I had not actually seen the starling." Mr. Baird states. "I would have some doubts as to these birds being able to enter one A those letterboxes, but the lid, which is a piece of hinged tin, may be raised easily, and the slot supplies ample space for the admission of the bird. It seems to me to be a remarkable illustration of animal intelli- , gence."

Experiments -with whitebait are described by Mr. G. Stringer, of Hawera. About forty-five years ago, when he lived in Canterbury, he and his brothers decided to solve the problem of this fish's identity. Their home was in Ferry Road, close to the Heathcote River, in which they went fishing. Their chief catches were "silveries," a handsome little fish about six inches long, which Mr. Stringer's father regarded as a great delicacy. Occasionally, they hooked a brownish fish, which resembled the " silveries," and which they called "smelt," but the smelt were common in the creeks, and they were despised and thrown away. In the whitebait season, when the whitebait was served at table, the question often was raised whether they were young silveries or young smelt. To solve the problem, som* whitebait were caught alive and were placed in a spring in the garden. The whitebait developed there, but, to the boys' disgust, they proved to be smelt. Mr. Stringer, while on fish stories records the adventures of a cat, which began by catching frogs and taking them into the house, where it teased them in the presence of members of the family, and, later, extended its hunting operations to fishes. It was not known at first where the fishing took place, but one day the «-at was seen crouching near the edge of the spring in which the whitebait had been liberated. Soon a paw was seen to shoot out like lightning, and the cat hooked his smelt and took it proudly to the house. As the boys had lost their interest in the experiment of developing whitebait, the cat was given a free hand, and ultimately stripped the spring.

Some time ago, Mr. H. H. Travers, of Kilbirnie, Wellington, tried to account for the fact that stones are found in the stomachs of both seals and penguins. He suggested that penguins, -when searching ■for food on the bottom of the sea. take in stones "with the food, and that seals. which prey on penguins, swallow the stones in the birds' bodies. Mr. Travers now to support his theory, supplies the follow ins extract from Sir James Ross's account cf his voyace to southern seas, dealing with a time when his vessel was in the pn k ice in 65 degrees 47 minutes south latitude, and 151 degrees 34 minute? « «{ longitude with the sound.!.'.'* ie.ii.-_ 300 fathoms: —"Seals were killed ■.. iice and brought on board: in the -t im.i' h of one of them were about 91 i.i weight of granite stones, which wo imagined it must have got from off the floating ice as we knew of no land within a thousand miles of us. In the stomach of another were the mutilated remains of some fish about the size of a herrine. and in all <.f them great numbers of a large red shrimp, which appears to constitute their chief food." The majestic Emneror pensniin was first discovered dnrinff Captain Cook's vovace towards the South Pole but Sir James Ross states that be took the first perfect specimens to Fnrlnnd some being preserved whole in casks of strong pickle. ! The principle food of these birds, he sav.. was different sm-< : es of crabs— are found only on the bottom-am] other crustaceans, and in the birds stomachs the. men often found from two to ten pounds weight of pebbles, consisting of granite, quartz and rappean rocks.