NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16561, 9 June 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

BY J. EBTJMMONB, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

"Your notes on a visit to. the Mount Arthur district,". Mr. E. A. Hodges writes from Golden Cross, Waitekauri, " wen specially interesting to me, as I spent my boyhood days there, and my old home still stands not far from the junction of the Big and Little Graham Rivers. My dad did much pioneering in the district. He also prospected on and around the Mount Arthur Tableland, and on many of his trip 3 I went with him. The love of that very lovable country still is with me. On one of my trips with a boy friend to Lake Cobb," at the head of the Cobb Valley, we saw many wekas. One, which we tried hard to catch, but which evaded us by getting into the scrub, was a dirty yellowishwhite, instead of the usual rusty red. It was the only weka of that colour we ever saw. Kakapos were fairly plentiful at the head of the valley, and there were paradise ducks and blue ducks on Lake Cobb. Around my home here at Waitekauri there are large forests, and pigeons, kakas, tuis, crows, and fantails are fairly plentiful. There are a few wekas, and I heard kiwis sometimes at night."

It is strange that the little grey owls, or German owls, as they are sometimes called—Athene noctua, to give them their official title—have become well established in Otago and Southland, but not in Canterbury. Specimens were liberated in all those provinces, but absolutely nothing, apparently, has been heard of those introduced to Canterbury. Amongst Canterbury settlers who received specimens for liberation some twelve years ago is Mr. J. H. Davison, of St. Leonards, Culverden, who has supplied a few notes about these birds and others he has experimented with. "For a few weeks after the little grey owls were liberated here," he says, " we heard, them at night in the trees, but they have been neither heard nor seen since. •' 1 was told that some had been seen in manuka scrub on Mr. Bethell's property, at Pahau, near Culverden, but I do not think that they have been a success. Some years previously, I liberated four buff owls. One was drowned in a horsetrough, another was killed on a steamstack, apparently by stoats, and nothing was seen of the others. On three occasions I liberated Australian laughingjackasses here, but all died. The only success in this district in introducing these claßses i of birds is the Australian magpie. It was introduced by Mr. G. H. Mode, of Glenmark. I have always felt that owls would be a desirable im- 1 portatiom, but I think that some of the American species might succeed better than European species."

In 1865, when Mr. W. Hone, of Waverley, Taranaki, was. searching for gold on the West Coast of the South Island, he, with two companions, travelled through dense forest in the Grey-Arnold district. They reached a steep, razor-back ridge,' nearly half a mile long. On the edge of this ridge there grew a row of rata* belonging to the species Metrosideros lucida. Each tree had seni down two or three roots, some nearly as large as itself, and all at least 150 ft long, to the mould where .the slopo was less , precipitous, mostly on the sunny side of the ridge. Mr. Hone had never seen any other trees sending their roots down to far, and he regarded the plants' action as a demonstration of'the fierce struggle in, the vegetable kingdom, equal, he says, to the struggle of human beings in an overpopulated area. Soon afterwards the party travelled through ' the forests up the Grey Valley, and overland to Nelson, but saw comparatively few ratas there. When he went to the Waverley district, fifty years ago, ratas grew there in, their tens of thousands. As far as he.knows, all were Metrosideros robusta. Many of them still held the remains of victims in their grasp, but many others retained no signs of victims. All, howver, had more or less contorted trunks, some of which were very large.

As far as the front of the old forest lands is concerned, practically all the rates in his district have disappeared. They have been changed mostly into smoke and ashes. He does not* think that epiphytes are affected by the density of the wood of their victims, as the black mairi (Olea cunninghami), whose wood in many instances is as hard as that of the puriri (Vitex lucens), often is selected. As a bushman, Mr. Hone has felled both black mairi and puriri, and he would rather use a new axe on a puriri than on a black main. He has seen the third part of the face of a new axe broken out to a depth of half an inch by a single blow delivered directly across the grain of an old black mairi tree, winch had grown on a soil that was not very rich. He thinks, however, that possibly the rough bark of an old black mairi may lend itself more readily to the purposes of a' rata than does the bark of a puriri.

Spciraens of the rata vine, or aka (Metrosideros florida), are still plentiful in the Waverley district, wherever small patches of native forest remain in sheltered gullies or on broken ground. In bloom they are as beautiful as ever, especially if they are surrounded by other climbers or by tree-ferns and nikaus. Mr. Hone, describes the nikau, when exposed, as a mere ' wreck of its former self; and states that when in that condition it would be better destroyed and put out of the way. He also describes another epiphyte of his district, which he believes to be identical with a broadleaf of Southland. He has not seen it growing there directly from the soil, as in the Invercargill district, nor does it seem to strangle its host after the way of the rata, but at times it certainly seems to be an encumbrance.

Mr. E. H. D. Stidolph, of Lambton Quay, Wellington, reports that last month, when he was. close to the top of the 7/ainui-o-matae Hill, he entered some native bush above Lowry Bay, and saw there several rifleman wrens, a pair of grey warblers, a tomtit, and pied fantails. In Wilton's Bush f recently lie saw a black fantail, which is rare in the North Island. In Wellington Harbour he saw about thirty gannets, fishing close to the shore. A few months ago one of these birds dived into the water of the Thorndon Baths. As the enclosure was too small to enable it to get out again, it remained a prisoner until the caretaker, Mr. Wilton, caught it and liberated it. Mr. sj!tidolph was told that a stitch-bird was seen near Orongo-ovongo, at the back of Day's Bay, two or three years ago.

A leading American railroad is pre- ' sently urging its employees to use pencilholders on. the grounds of' economy. '' Ordinarily, the company points out, the pen- , cils are thrown away when they have ■ been used down to the last third, whereas with the use of a pencil-holder they may be used to the very last inch. / In the ' case of a large organisation, such as a railroad company, the saving presented ] in using pencils down to the last inch, amounts- to thousands, # dolto «ouuaUy_. ••