A DAY WITH NATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17336, 6 December 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

A DAY WITH NATURE.

AMONG THE FOREST FOLK. BY IVAN BLTTH. I A morning wind, freshly sweet, ripples the placid surface of the creek, &nd murmers in tho branches overhead, in the turquoise of the eastern sky, light fleecy clouds, flecked with red and gold, and the growing light amid the tree-trunks, herald the coming day. As the first rays of the rising sun touch the tops of the kauri trees on the further ridge with gold, against the dark green background of straight walled bush, the flowering ratas stand out like pillars of living flame, and the clear light filters down through the tangled greenery weaving a dancing, flickering pattern upon the carpet of bright groundT mosses and softly curJmg fern. High up in the deep-blue sky the larks are making melody, the songs of blackbird and thrush ring gaily through the green aisles, and the liquid notes of bellbird and tuis come down the glade with the breeze. Untouched by Axe and Fire. In a bend of the creek, screened from possible enemies by tall brown sedge and waving raupo, a pair of wild ducks, and their flapper family, are foraging for the morning meal. A "clump of miro trees are full of wild pigeons feasting on the ripening berries, from the deeper bush comes the harsh cry of a quail and the brisk cluck, cluck of a cock-pheasant. In the little bay, fringed with the crimson glory of pohutukawa blossom, the tiny waves lap quietly along the sand edge, and sandpipers and godwits, and the smaller gulls, scream and jostle each other as they search for titbits left by the receding tide. From the beach to the top of the distant ridge, that rises to six hundred feet above sealevel, spurs and gorge' and damp shadowy gullies are clothed in dense tangled bush the primeval forest—untouched as yet by the fire or axe of the selector, a sombre mass of foliage, relieved by the white of manuka blossom and the young shoots that make bright splashes of colour against the darker tints of the totara, and lordly rimu. In the dank swamps the kahikatea towers skyward, its trunk and branches festooned with tufted parasites and long streamers of hanging fern. On a sloping bank a great kauri throws its shadow over an acre of ground, and the straight-boled, grey-barked giants stand thickly all up the spur and along the crest of the ridge. Beneath the larger trees the ground is covered with a trailing glory of creepers and vines, tree stumps, and banks and fallen trees are bright with crape and kidney ferns, and the bush maidenhair; wreaths of lycopodium, and the white convolvulus hang with supplejack and bush-lawyer from the lower branches, and form a living network of tender green ; the waving plumes of toitoi, and the tassels of red and black birch move gently in the light breeze, and a towai tree showers largess upon the soft wet ground in the shape of berries of shining red and black. Half way up the spur the bush opens out, giving a wide view of the summer sea blue and white-flecked with ever changing lights and shades, as the drifting clouds cast moving shadows of purple and brown across its broad bosom. Far away on the horizon, a fitting background to the picture, stands a timber-clad, saw-toothed range, blue with distance, its outlines soitened and veiled in a shimmering curtain of amothyet-tinted haze. Noon: and the sun high above the tree tops throws a thousand spear-points of light upon tha cascade that rushes down the hillside—a broad glittering ribbon of molten silver— to fall a hundred feet through the rainbow-tinted mist, into a wide pool, cool and deep crystal clear is the fall, a gem in nature's own setting of wet, dark rocks, tufts of rock lilies, and purple berried wild fuchsia trees.

The Birds of the Bush. The denizens of the forest are sheltering from the ardent rays of the sun, in the green depths of the bush, the only signs of life being a solitary blue heron, standing motionless on one leg in a reedy pool, and a stoat— red brown patch upon the shingle of the creek—prowling among the shallows for minnows, A slight movement, the fall of a leaf or twig sendshim scurrying into the undergrowth leaving the bird to his fishing. In every cranny and crevice wherever soil has found a lodgment, festoons of feathery creepers and ferns cling to the face of the stone, or throw searching tendrils from branch to branch, and on either side of the cataract where the earth is deep, and damp, and rich with the leaf-mould of centuries, huge tree ferns and nikau, with flowers of coral pink, broad-bladed flax and spider palms, kiekie, and the I white flowered hoehoe fill all the wide spaces, a bewildering jumble of green and gold, and brown. At evening, when the westeren sun throws lengthening shadows across the glade, the birds come in to drink and bathe in tho forest pool, blackbirds and thrushes and finches sport in the sandy bottoms, and kokas and parakeets dip and scream and preen themselves in the rosy light. On the green marshy margins, teal and wild duck disport themselves, and pukeko and a crested grebe (rare summer visitant) stand in the water, their reflections strangely distorted by the ripples on the surface. Overhead, in and out among tho tangled greenery, fantails glance up and down, and the white-flowered shrubs on the creek banks each have a merry party of tomtits or white-eves, or the rarer warblers. A shadow floats for a moment across the surface of the poo! and is cone, a st-ange hush falls upon the birds, then thailoud warning note of c blackbird rings out, followed/by a, sudden scurry of the forest folk to cover, there is a swift thrush of strong pinion*. an( ] a glimpse of a j brown, speckled body, a? a hawk flashes ; through the clearing, for he too visits J the quiet pool in the forest depths. : By and by, the little people come out I again, at the mouth of the burrow under ! the gnarled roots of a giant totara the I rabbity (ramble and frisk, th birds din and splanh and ruffle once more, and a pair of pigeons flv down from the trees, their burnished plumage of white and green gleaming in the late sunlight as they stoop to drink. " i " Sunset and Evening Star." When the sun dips behind the purple range, the birds seek their roost-trees, the chatter dwindles to a few sleepv chirp,?' and the pool is deserted. P ave bv the ducks and teal, and other night-feeding water-fowl. As the twilight steals over the landscape the owls come out, and huge white and tawny moths flit like ghosts down the dimly lit vistas, there is the churr of a passing chafer and the deep booming of a bittern in the raupo swamp, the velvet blackness' deepens, the outlines become blurred and night comes.

The morepork's weird crv rings out with a strange eeriness. and on the ground and ! in the are night noises, little brown '< forms, with black, beadv eves, climb up into the karaka trees and hold h>h revel among the yellow berries, the elfin sounds and rustling of unseen tinv feet lending ! some colour to the ghost 'stories of the native kainga. Soon the full moon lights up the open spares quenching the plow worm's torch and throwing sharp cut shadows, strong contrast of black and silver, gleams of white upon shining foliage and inkv blackness in the, depths. The wind has died away, the whispering leaves are still and in all the light-bathed glade there is silence, broken only bv the scurrying of little feet as a soft-winged owl flits through the trees or the rattle of karaka berries upon the fallen leaves. There is a strong attraction in the moonlit bush, a mysterious influence that both attracts and repels, a shadowy, indefinite, deep-flown fear anil love blended that appeals to the primitive man still surviving in us all, a harking back to other days, days of cave dwellings, and wide free spaces, when our ancestors guarded their lives, and hunted their food, as do ,the forest folk to-day., ,