NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19133, 26 September 1925, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

BIRDS IN TASMAN BAY.

BY J. DIU7MWOND, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

Totaranui, on the west coast of Tas- J man Bay, was owned by Mr. W. H. Pratt, of Wanganui, for more than 20 years. Totaranui Bay is a mile long. At the north end of tho beach there is an en trance to a and flat of about five acre's, over which the tides (low. It is an ideal place for swamp-birds and shore-birds A pair oi paradise ducks reared eight young every year at. Totaranui. When the young were able to get along by them selves tho parents went on tour for a month or so. On returning they gave the young no rest and hunted them out of the bay. The same treatment was given to strange ducks that visited the place. Oil one occasion Mr. Pratt took all the eggs, which were hatched under a hen. The duckling- were much tamer and friendlier than the ducklings of a doilies tic duck. He cut off the first joint of one wing of each of tho paradise ducks he had reared. They were content to live with the poultry, except on windy days, when they went to tho top ot a low hill that overlooks the bay. The} then showed restlessness, gazing out to sea and flapping their wings. Tho year in which Mr. Pratt bought tho property the male was rearing the young, the female having died after tho hatching. Tho male, after going on tour, as usual, returned with another mate. A few years later the male disappeared while tho young were being reared, tho female returned from her tour with another male. A pair of tomtits built their nest in an angle formed by the chimney and a wall of the house, close to a bedroom window. Their domestic affairs could bo watched from tho beginning of tho nest to tho hatching of the young. The attentive and considerate male carried food to his mate while she sat on the eggs. A wekn one day chased another wcka along a passage and upstairs into a bedioom. The tremolo whistles of kiwis were heard at night with pleasure. Tuis changed their song each season; thoy used the same notes, but arranged them differently. In tho same seasou tuis in an adjoining bay, about five miles off, with high hills between, had different sonps from the songs of tuis in the bay. "1 he bellbirds song did not change. Bitterns and blue herons wore always present. A white heron visited lotaranui for a few hours. It was hoped that tho rare and beautiful visitor would take up its abodei there, but it went to another bay along the coast and fared worse, as it was shot. Pukekos that lived in a swamp spent the night in the bullrushes, and in tho daytime played in the grass paddocks near the homestead, some even venturing on to a lawn that adjoined the house. All the native birds were lovable, but some of the introduced birds were pests. Four acres were sown in red clover. When tho seedlings were thick on the ground the joyous skylarks and the linnets came along and took tho whole crop. Mr. Pratt was induced to send these notes by reading Mr. H. F. Chaffey's praise of the South Island wood-robin's song. Mr. Pratt states that Keats' line, "a thing of beauty is a ;oy forever," aptly describes that "whispered, mellow, sweet, moving song." When Mr. Pratt was working in his garden at Totaranui a wood-robm sat on a twig about 6ft. above his head and sang, but all the notes were soft and low, just audible. The shining cuckoo and the long-tailed cuckoo should arrive in New Zealand on their spring migration soon. Correspondents are asked to watch for tho interesting visitors and record the dates of their arrival and any observations of the migrants' habits that may be made, particularly in regard to their parasitical habits. The little grey warbler seems to be the usual small bird selected as the good natured foster-parent. Mr. L. W. McCaskill, of Te Aroha, has sent in two records this year. He states that eight shining cuckoos were seen on fig-trees in a Coromandel garden in March, and that ho saw and heard a shining cuckoo on the road between Mercury Bay and Coromandel on These, pro bably, were birds which were hatcned last year, and which missed tho annual migration, spending tho winter in thin Dominion. A Ponsonby resident la.s'4 year reported that she heard tho shining; cuckoo thrico in one week in Augast. Apart from this record, tho earliest record last yeai was on September 21, when shining cuckoos were seen or heard at Epsom, and at Whangarei. About 30 jords, from North Auckland to the southern districts of Otago, were made last year. Parasitism, is the common term applied to tho cuckoos' practice of placing their eggs in other birds' nests and leaving the eggs to bo hatched by the foster-parents, and the young cuckoos to be reared by the strangers, but cuckoos are not parasites strictly, if the v/ord i 3 used biologically. A parasite is an animal or a plarr.fc which, living on or in another animal or plant, derives food or some other benefit from the host, arid in some way harms it. The benefit to the parasite almost always is nutriment, but it may be transport or shelter. Cuckoos aro not actually parasitical on other birds, but re duce them to a state of servitudo. Ser vitude is imposed in other classes of the animal kingdom, although, perhaps, in a different way. A smill crab, for instance, looks for and picks up a seaanemone equipped with tentacles that turn outwards. These are used by the crab for defence and feeding. If it is assailed, it thrusts the anemone toward tho enemy, warding him off with the stinging tentacles. If the anemone catches food, the crab rakes the food from its servant's grasp, and places it in its own mouth. Still, cuckoos' practice of usurping other birds' nests is known very generally as parasitism, and the lorm will pass. It is common to almost ull species of cuckoos in almost all parts of tho world. The practice is more extraordinary on accouut of the fact that care of the eggs is the rule with birds, some of which fight fiercely when their treasures are endangered by enemies. The earwig, the mole-cricket, and some other insects guard their eggs, and even the abhorrent octopus, much further down in the social cale than cuckoos, it is stated, broods over her eggs, and re news the water around them by using her syphon.

A Palraerston North correspondent, who saw the pterodactyls on the screen at a picture theatre in " The Lost World,' asks if they were birds or reptiles. The reply is that they were, greatly modified reptiles. As with birds and bats the fore-limbs were used as organs of flight The last digit on the hand was prodigiously prolonged and thickened, and supported a compara lively largo nrea of web of skin, which extended to the back or side of the body, and downwards to the hind-limbs and even to th tail. The skull was large, and was set on the neck at angles, as in u bird, and the long-pointed beak resembled the bill of a bird, particularly of a crane or a heron. The eyes were much larger than the eyes of any bird. Casts made of the interior of a pterodactyl's skull show that the brain reiS semblcd the brain of a bird more thanli the brain Oi a modern reptile.