NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19762, 8 October 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

BT J. DBUMMOND, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

THE BLACK SWAN.

When Mr. E. Greensmith, of Coromandel, was stationed near the southern end of the Ninety-mile Beach, Canterbury, he heard black swans at night. Later he saw them near small lakes in North Auckland by day. Consulting the "Animals of New Zealand," to identify the species, he was surprised to find no reference to swans in the bird section of that work. "Has New Zealand no swans, then, and if not, what birds did 1 see ?" he asks. Black swans are npt mentioned in the " Animals of New Zealand," except in the introduced bird section of the fourth edition, because they do not belong to New Zealand, although they are so plentiful in many parts that there is a general belief that they ,are members of the Dominion's native avifauna. New Zealand has seven or eight species of ducks, but it now has neither geese nor swans of its own. The only geese in the Dominion are the Canadian goose, introduced for sport, and likely in a few years to become a nuisance, and the Cape Barren goose of Australia, established in Otago. Before human beings came to New Zealand the Dominion had a goose, Cnemiornis, which was a connection of the Cape Barren goose, and was flightless; and on the Chatham islands there wa3 a swan, whose extinction is surprising in view of the amazing numbers of black swans that find the group a suitable abode. With probably the extinct goose and the extinct swan, there lived in New Zealand an extinct eagle, Harpagornis—bird of prey—larger than tho condor of the Andes; an extinct giant weka as big as a turkey; an extinct swamp-hen, much larger than the living one; and great, long-legged rooas. The black swan is an Australian, it is a colonist in New Zealand of some sixty-three years' standing. Among the first batch introduced were some brought by Sir George Grey to beautify his home at Kawau. Acclimatisation societies then turned their attention "to this graceful and stately bird, with the result that it is present in its thousands on many lakes, estuaries, rivers and lagoons. As a game bird, it comes under the Animals' Protection and Game Act. An open season may be declared for,.shooting it under licence. Except for that, it is protected. The North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, which has the "Government's permission to take black swans' eggs at Lake Ellesmore, and to sell them to confectioners, sometimes deals with 1500 dozen eggs in one season. In spite of this black swans on that lake are increasing. The present is the black swan's principal nesting season in New Zealand. It continues until December. There may be a second brood later. Lovely Lake lanthe, which sparkles like a jewel in a setting of green hard by the king's highway far south of Hokitika, is a favourite home of black swans. Their nests are on the banks or in shallow water close in. On land, they approach their homes through | low archways and along beaten paths in raupo or flax. The cygnets, toddling down the slopes from the nests to the edge of the lake, reach the 'water without any trouble. Floating nests are on bulky platforms, disc-shaped or' roughly obiong, about 3ft. in diameter. They slope up from the edge 3to the centre, which is about eight inches high. The white eggs tinged with green or greGn tinged with grey or brown, about four inches long, usually five in number, rest comfortably in a depression in the centre. Bulrushes, ranpo-loaves, and even twigs compactly tramped, are the materials of each platform. It is fixed in the water by live stems used a3 anchors. They do not prevent the cygnet's cradles being rocked by every wavelet. The first step in building a floating nest is to bend several live bulrushes together. Dead stems and other material are placed on the bent bulrushes. In that way the foundation of the platform is laid. Roots of bulrushes used seem have been pulled from tho bottom of the lake where the water is shallow! On Lake lanthe, black swans have been seen at work after the eggs were laid, probably to reinforce •he structure or to repair damage by wind, rain, or water. Some of the first black swans introduoed into Canterbury were presented by George Grey. The object, partly at least, seems to have been to check the watercress in the Avon. In those days, about 1865, the watercress was a notorious pest in many New Zealand streams. The hlack swans increased greatly on the Avon, but in 1867 many of them made long and somewhat notable migrations to the wild country on the West Coast and in Marlborough It is claimed that they cleared a pathway through the watercress in the Avon, ancl allowed the current to run clear. Forty-seven years ago there were great flocks of black swans on the Avon, Halswell and Heathcote Rivers, as many as 500 sometimes being counted on small areas. Black swans shift their quarters sometimes, but are not very migratory. At their shifting they usually fly in flocks at night. The Hon. G. M. Thomson states that this takes place often on still moonlight nights, when the black swans may be seen in the sk'y, and their whistling notes may be heard as they call to one another. "We have been passing most of our lime lately at Titirangi, among the kauris," Miss Agnes Skeates wrote from Fairview Road, Mount Eden, on September 20 "To-day when we had just arrived here, and I was getting lunch ready I heard two kingfishers making more noise than usual, and then* three times in succession, came the thrilling notes of a shining cuckoo. I did not see it, as the trees "are fairly thick, but I heard it distinctly. A thunderstorm coming on, I heard it no more. A faithful tui at this moment, although it is raining dismally, is twittering and chiming. We hear the grey warbler and the white-eye quite a lot Morepork owls are very plentiful and very comical. The chimes of the tuis are lovely first thing in the morning and when darkness begins to fall." Mr. W. W. Smith, New Plymouth, ranks so high among naturalists that his opinion that sheep and lamhs found dead with a deep wound behind the ear were victims of weasels carries much weight. He states that weasels sometimes work together when thoy attack larger animals. Seven of them, three years ago, attacked « m->» a* *w>n nn i ncr merston North. Mr. Smith states that weasels hunt mostly by scent, stoats by sight. He describes the bites of both creatures as painful and poisonous, so much so in the case of the weasel that few animals bitten by it recover from the wound. The weasel is the smallest European member of its order, which includes the ferret, the marten, the polecat, the sable and the stoat, but it is the most active, aggressive and destructive. When Mr. Smith was a boy on an estate in the Old Country he sometimes spent his Satrflrvvs tr»npin<r stoots and we"sels. the squire paying him 3d each. He used a simple but effective trap. It was a piece of 3in. or 4in. drain- pipe, placed on the Tound Dear »n we-sel®* haunts. A piece of meat or a fowl's head was placed inside the pipe, which wa3 fastened down with a bent green stick. At each end of the pipe there was a, light rat-trap. He finds that it is better to cover lightly-set traps with fine earth. and to set them toward evening.