NEW ZEALAND'S BIRDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18396, 11 May 1923, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND'S BIRDS.

WHITE MAN'S ADVENT.

DISASTROUS CON/SEQUENCES

Bird life in New Zealand was the subject of an interesting address in Wellington by Mr. J. E. Myers. The coming of the white man to this country, he said, was injurious to the birds. "The story of the colonisation of New Zealand is as tragic in every detail as the conquest of Peru. By the 'out-hack-burn' policy, the birds have not only been driven out, but the haunts and environment to which they have become adapted in a marvellous manner during ages of unparalleled isolation have been swept clean away. Dogs, cats, and pigs were let loose to find an easy prey on birds which had not learned to tear. Collectors of bird skins, early realising the unique character of the birds of New Zealand, shot and exported thousands of those which escaped to the untouched hinterland." . Mr. Myers said that these practices had some slight justification, but there was to follow a crime for which there could be no justification. He referred to the deliberate introduction into New Zealand of the most blood-thirsty carnivorous animals of Europestoats, weasles, and ferrets. The trouble they were brought «o combatthe rabbit pest— been admittedly a great one, but the weasels and stoats carried death to the feathered population. The speaker referred to the satisfactory protective laws that had been introduced, but regretted that in some parts of the country they were being ignored. ';,.-!;:.

DECLINE IN SPARROWS.

CONTRAST WITH EARLY DAYS.

Mr. Justice Chapman, writing to Mr. Alexander Bathgate, of Dunedin, confirms the latter's observations concerning the decline in the number of sparrows in New Zealand. The sparrows are, he says, only a fraction of what they were in numbers 40 years ago. In 1879 the noise they made in the country in Canterbury was simply harassing. In that year they reached Palmerston South, and ero stil 1 practically unknown in Dunedin. In 1880 they went in a flood to Dunedin. Now they are thinned down to a shadow of their former army. The decline in their numbers in Otago is, in Mr. Justice Chapman's mind, absolutely striking. , The place where they were the greatest nuis ance was Green Island, where they rose in dense crowds from the crops. Their depredations were always worst near the road, and not so bad in the middle of the crop, where they had no landing place. Another place where they were in enormous numbers was Cottesbrook. Other foreign birds have, as well as the sparrows, been enormowrfy reduced in numbers, and Mr. Justice Chapman thinks this must be largely attributable to the eating out of virgin food. The decline of the trout in the.- Lee Stream is, h» says, due to the same cause. The stream food was eaten out, arid about the same time the enormous supply of grasshoppers was wiped out by starlings, causing immense loss to the trout. Another striking case is that of the large trout in Lake Wakatipu. They 1 simply exist no longer. Mr. Justice Chapman remembers, in the winter of 1880 or 1881, seeing three, packs of them sunning themselves off Queenstown, covering at least a quarter of an acre, shoulder to shoulder.