NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17110, 15 March 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

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

A Napier lady has asked me to supply particulars of Fairchild's Garden on the Auckland Islands. The garden was named and described by His Honor Mr. Justice Chapman during a botanical visit to the islands in 1891. It is on the northwestern end of Adams Island, ono of the group, and covers about 400 acres. His Honor states that it is one of the moat wonderful natural gardens outside the tropics that the world can show. "The day we spent there," he writes, "can never be forgotten. A peaked rock overhead is 700 feet above the sea; tlfe rocks on the summit of the hill over which the garden extends are 1100 feet high. The whole of the ground up to these and beyond them is literally packed with beautiful herbaceous plants. Along the shore were masses of the golden lily, with golden - yellow flowers. There were great numbers of the most beautiful of all mountain daisies. A small plant with leaves gleaming like polished nephrite fresh from the lapidaries' hands, arranged in perfect rosettes, and t>ver the whole coutftry a large herb sent up, amongst huge ribbed leaves two feet long, spikes of beautiful lilac or purple flowers. This wild garden, on a lonely island in the Southern Ocean, visited at long intervals by only sealers, explorers and botanists, was named as a graceful tribute to Captain J. Fairdhild, master of the New Zealand Government steamer, Hinemoa, a genial kind-hearted sailor whom it was a pleasure and a privilege to know.

When Mr. A. Wilson, of Hangatiki, Kawhia country, was working in the forests of the Ranginui ranges, between the railway line and the Waikato rivor, and east of Otorohanga, a short time ago, seldom a day passed without him seeing a flock of the neatly-attired white-heads, also known as North Island canaries. They fed as they flew through tree tops, and chirped all the time. Usually there were from six to ten in each flock. Mr. Wilson repeatedly has seen one separate itself from a flock anrl sing its pleasant little song, and Mr. Wilson compares the notes of the song to the "mellow, liquid notes of the tui and the bell-bird," but states that they are arranged more like those of the crow, but not bo full or so impressive. In the same ranges the tui, the bell-bird and many other native birds are seen and heard. At Mr. Wilson's last camp a crow uttered its notes in the trees overhead at daylight every morning, wet or fine. Following the practice of most men who have lived in the forests he refers to the white-head by its' Maori name, popokotea, but this is only one of seventeen other equally pretty names the Maoris used.

Mr. R. H. D. Stidolph, Lambton Quay, Wellington, has watched white-heads through a pair of powerful field-glasses at Day's Bay, Wellington harbour. "Sometimes they are clinging to branches upside down, industriously S9arching for food, and sometimes on the topmost branch of a tree; their graceful movements made them charming birds," Mr. Stidolph writes. He points out that at the end of November and December, 1917, they were reported from Day's Bay, the forests of the Wanganui district and on the banks of a tributary of the Manganui-o-te-ao, which runs from the Ruahine ranges into the Waikato River near Pipiriki. Mr. Stidolph recently returned from a trip in the North Island and he reports having heard the white-heads' notes several times along the Main Trunk line and the Wanganui River. He found tuis plentiful on the banks of the Wanganui River and heard one in the Wellington Botanical Gardens recently. On the bed of the Manawatu River, near Longburn, he saw a small flock of small brownish birds. They were very shy. Uttering a note that" resembled "twit, twit, twit," they flew off, but soon settled again. Last year, he was told, a pair nested on the fringe of a potato field not far from the river and raised four young ones. Residents of the district call them sandpiper*, and' Mr. Stidolph believes that they are red-necked sandpipers. These are migratory birds, belonging to the same group as the famous godwit. The only two specimens identical were shot near Lake Ellesmere about seventeen years ago. One, a female, was in full breding plumage, and contained well-developsd eggs. If it had not been shot it would have laid in about a month. The other, which was not in breeding plumage, was sent to the British museum by Lord Ranfurly, who was then Governor of New Zealand.

The common sandpiper is similar to the red-necked sandpiper, but lacks the red neck. It is one of the group that breeds in Siberia and Alaska, and from Siberia passes through China and Japan to the Malay Archipelago, where it spreads into Australia, New Caledonia and Now Zealand. There is very little knowledge of its habits here. It is known to be migratory in Australia, but it i 3 not known whether in New Zealand it is an annual migrant or merely an occasional straggler. The name, "sandpiper," by the way, is used loosely for several species of shore birds, including the knot. Sandpipers a few years ago were reported to be plentiful on an extensive river bed in South Canterbury. When a nest and eggs were sent to me the sandpipers proved to be native larks. . •

A correspondent at Tolago Bay, north of Gisborne, has sent me specimens of a remarkable caddis fly in its chrysalis and j its perfect state. The caddis flies are plain, small, inconspicuous insects, and with the dragon flies, the lace-wings, the may flies, and the book lice, belong to the order of the Neuroptera, the nervewings, the wings of most members of the allied families bearing a beautiful network of nerves or veins. These are sufficiently plentiful to form many series of cells, greatly exceeding in number the cells on the wings of any other insects, The species sent to me is only half an inch from tip to tip of the outstretched wings, which are grey, chestnut and a pale pink. The species is notable amongst caddis flies, because unlike all other epecies in New Zealand, it is strictly marine in habits. This fact was first discovered by the late Captain F. W. Hutton, curator of Canterbury museum, some twentv years ago. For some time after the discovery it was believed that this was the only marine caddis fly in the world, out another marine -species has been discovered in Sydney harbour, and it is thought that the species, or closely allied snecies, mav be present in all parts of the South Pacific Ocean. It is probable, at least, that the species found in New Zealand is present nil round the Dominion's coast.

Mr. G. V. Hudson, of Wellington, states that the grub lives in rock pools on r,he sea beach, and is most plentiful near low-water mark, where it is outside the influence of fresh water. It makes a tiny habitation, about three-quarters of an inch Ion?, shaped like a cylinder, and composed of fragments of coraline seaweed and, perhaps, a few minute stones. The case remains amongst masses of seaweed, and can be found only with great difficulty and after much searching. The case is very small at first and is added to as the grub grows. When the grub is full grown it fixes the case to a piece of seaweed, enters and closes both ends with a loose network of silk. In the strange prison it is slowly transformed into a chrysalis. This is utterly unlike the grub. It is a soft, dark green object, with two strong mandibles, which, Mr. Hudson believes, are used in severing the silken network when it escapes from the case in which it has spent its grubhood. The chrysalis swims in the water for several hours and then from it emerges the perfect insect, the result of three transformations. Mr. Hudson has found perfect insects in great numbers on the open coast near the entrance to Wellington harbour. It usually appears at the early part of the year 4