NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16210, 22 April 1916, Page 5 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

BY J. DRCMMOND, F.L.3., P.Z.S. Mr. J. Barclay hag written a few lines from Pahautanui to pay a tribute to " a grand little songster." Tho object of his admiration is the bell-bird, or the "mold." as he calls it. He thinks that it was the bell-bird and not the tui, which took tho principal part in tho morning chores that [ enchanted Sir Joseph Banks and Captain I Cook in Queen Charlotte Sound more than a hundred years ago. He commiserates city dwellers who have never heard the bell-bird's song. Between twenty-five and thirty years ago, the forests of Banks Peninsula that Mr. Barclay knew, resounded with the glorious notes. In those days, if his memory is correct, the bellbird was much mure plentiful than the tui, and he thinks that the proportion between the two species was tho name in Queen Charlotte .Sound at the time of tne navigator's visit. Mr. Barclay stales that there are a few bell-turds in the Kaituna Valley, near the northern end of Lake Ellcsmere. Ho hears one occasionally at his place in the North Island, but he believes that, generally, it i* becoming rare, while its rival, the'tui, is fairly plentiful in most jarts of tho Dominion where the forests still stand. Between Kaipara Heads and. Henderson, in the north of Auckland district, sand is encroaching on the valuable cultivated land at an alarming rate. It is feared that thousands of acres may be rendered useless, and Mr. W. L. C. Williams, of Cambridge, Waikato, suggests that the marino pine, pinus maritima, whoso adaptability to New Zealand soil was referred to in this column a few weeks ago, should ho planted in tho district, in order to stop the drift. Mr. Williams states that specimens of this plant, which is closely related to the macrocarpa, can be produced and planted, oven at tho present high price of labour, for 10s a thousand ; the seed may be sown to follow the plough much cheaper. Mr. Williams has had some practical experience with pinus maritima. In 1872, on the Matamata Estate, he planted between seventy and eighty acres in one plantation. Later he established other plantations of this pine. Native birds, which flew from native forests to the plantations, took the seeds of the pine trees and dropped them on the return journey to the forests, and in that way transformed thousands of acres into park lands. Pinus maritima's original homo is on the sea coasts of Mediterranean countries. In France it has done useful work by checking the encroachment of sand-drifts, and evidently its services are available for the same purpose in New Zealand. There are about 300,000 acres of sand dunes in the Dominion. Those who have specially studied them believe that tree-planting is the only way of turning them to use.

One of the objections raised to pinus insignis plantations on farms is that they aro iii too high favour with small birdsIt is stated that some Canterbury farn.ftra refrain from making plantations simply because they do not wish to cncouratja birds who will raid their crops. The wisdom of tins policy has been queatir-ned by practical Canterbury farmers, who believe that more attention should bo given to tree-planting in this province Tho late Sir John Hall, who established the Hororata Estate in the early days, planted many acres of land for shelter for his stock. He found that tho trees, when fairly large, attracted great numbers of small birds. In later operations, instead of planting in belts, he planted the' trees four rows deep, in (.he .shape of tho letter "L," with little clumps and comes, and he found that the birds did not give him; serious trouble. On tho Dunsandel-Horo-ratii Road there is a dense growth of silver Wattles. These have spread to adjoining land, owned by Mr. J. D. Hall, and have done much damage there. Mi'. Hall cleared the wattles from his land, and prevented further encroachments by having a ditch dug, four feet deep and three feet wide. He regards the plantation as a demonstration of the undesirableness of planting silver wattles in New Zealand.

There is no relationship between the albatross and the swan—they belong to different orders of birds, the former to Tubinares, the latter to Lamelfirostres— but Mr. H.' H. Travers, of Kilbimie, Wellington, who recently read Nordenskiold's account of his explorations, has pointed out a strange similarity between the nest of a species of swan, Cvgmis Bewickii, which breeds in Novya Zemblya, in the far north, and the nest of the wandering albatross, which breeds on the Auckland Islands and Antipodes Island, in the Southern Ocean, south of New Zealand. -Mr. Travers has taken the description'of one nest from "The Voyage of the Vega." and the description of the other from tho "Animals of New Zealand," and has placed them side by side :— " The swans' nests," Xordenkiold says, "are so large that they may be seen at a great distance. The building material is moss, which is plucked from the ground within a distance of two meters from the nest, which, by the excavation thus produced, is surrounded by a sort of moat. The nest itself forms a truncated cone 0.6 meters high and 2.4 meters in diameter at the bottom. In its upper part there is a cavity 0.2 meter deep and 0.6 meter broad, in which the four large, greyishwhite eggs are laid. The female hatches the egg, but the male also remains in the neighbourhood of the nest." " The albatross' nest, which is always placed on high, grassy tablelands," according to the New Zealand work, " is shaped like the frustrum of a rone, with a slightly hollowed top, and is made of grass and mud. which the birds obtain by digging a, circular ditch about two yards in diameter and pushing the earth towards tho centre until it is about eighteen inches high. In this nest the female lays one white egg. Both sexes sit alternately." These two species of birds are widely different in structure, in habits, and in scientific classification, and they live as far part as the Poles are asunder, but their nests, which are unlike the nests o£ other birds are made on the same principle, almost the same plan. A resident of Eemuera, Auckland, when digging his garden last week, was visited by a sea-gull, which began to pick up grubs and worms in the fresh soil. When the owner of the garden stopped working the gull followed him to the house, about forty yards away, and waited until the work was begun again. Sometimes, in the hottest part of the day, it stayed in the shade of tho verandah, where water was supplied for its use- Usually it came between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., and left between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. Always when arriving and leaving it made a peculiar noise, as if it was saying " Good morning " and "Good night." One day another gull settled down in the garden, but the first gull chased it away. The visitor has become so tame that it enters the house for food.