NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20722, 15 November 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

DWELLERS IN SWAMPS.

JIY J. DHUMMONP, F.L.S.. F.Z.S

.Although New Zealand's pretty little rails are seldom seen, it is not surprising that one, a marsh rail, has been reported from Kaiapoi. These inhabitants of the swamps, whose pleasant mansions are among bulrushes, niggerheads, rushes and flax-bushes, arc as solitary as they are quiet and unassuming. They may be present in fairly largo numbers without disclosing their presence even to people who live hard by. When one is caught the captor usually is a cat. From this it may be inferred that their chief enemies are cats, stoats, weasels and rats, which, doubtless, go out over the swamps, stepping softly on the aquatic plants and spiinging swiftly on to adults and young in the nests, or taking the delicatelycoloured eggs.

Perhaps the marsh rail is the prettiest member of this group. It wears a cloak of tawny brown, spotted with white and varied with black, a brown vest barred with white, and brown stockings. Mr. E. F. Stead reports that it is very rare in Canterbury. Probably he means that he seldom sees it. Still, there is evidence of its decrease in Mr. Stead's statement that it has completely disappeared from large areas where twenty years ago it was not uncommon. In a few scattered places he hears its chattering notes at dusk. About four years ago, shooting on the hills, his dog flushed a marsh rail close to him in a small swamp. He experienced the thrill of pleasure of meeting again a bird he had not seen for many years. It flew over a flax-bush and fluttered down into the bushes again. He does not disclose the place, but states that if the rail he saw had a mate there, they should get on well, as they are not likely to be disturbed by humans, whatever may befall them from other enemies.

The swamp rail, wearing chocolate brown and slaty blue, has spotless crake for its other name. Some of its homes are in the weird mangrove swamps of the North Island, where a fanciful early New Zealand novelist saw mangroves " glowing in shallow, stagnant water, filthy black mud, or rank grass, gnarled, twisted, stunted and half bare of foliage, looking like crowds of withered, trodden-down old criminals, condemned to punishment for everlasting life."

Twenty years ago a Dunedin resident in a boat in rushes at the south end of Waipori Lake, Otago, heard the drip, drip, drip of two tiny feet on floating ing bulrush leaves. The sound caine closer, and soon, to his surprise, a beautiful little swamp rail walked on to leaves that hung over the gunwale of the four-teen-foot boat. Quiet, quaint, unsuspicious and fearless, it did not know of danger. As it walked toward tho shooting party in the boat, its short, stumpy tail tipped upward at every step and its wings quivered between each step. One membpr of the party, sat in the stem of the boat, and the other in the stern, and the rail stood on the gunwale between them. It stood still for a time. Then a snail on a leaf on the opposite side of the boat caught its eye. Its wings quivered, it stretched forth its neck, but. it did not cross over to take the snail. There it stood, with its long, thin legs, its short, chubby body, and its black tail banded with white. The whispering of the watchers seemed to distract its-at-tention from the snail and it turned and walked away, slowly and silently.

The domestic arrangements of (he marsh rail have not been recorded in New Zealand. Those of the swamp rail have been described by Mr. R. S. Bell, of Sunday Island, one of the Kermadec group of islands. There are very unusual features in the scheme. A pair observed by Mr. Bell first made a nest in fern on the land. They then went into a raupo swamp and built ten or twenty nesls. all at the same tune, a little being added to each every day. One was selected for the pink-ish-cream eggs, flecked with brown marks; another was used bv the male to roost in; the others were left. All the incubation was done by the female, while the male kept guard and warned her of danger. As soon as the young rails were hatched, the, whole family left the swamp and occupied the nest on land. The young remained continuously in it for a few days. Afterwards they roosted with one of their parents every night. A nest under observation was used in this way for more than three months until destroyed by rain. Bulrushes and grass are the building materials. They are placed in clumps of dead raupo about twenty inches above the water. Building on the Kermadecs seems to begin in September.

There is not space in this article to deal with' the pectoral rail, whose breast and abdomen are barred with white, or with the Macquarie Island rail. Auckland Islands rail or Mangare rail. Chatham Islands. Dieffenbach's rail, whose home was on the. Chathams, must be written down extinct, but there is a good drawing of it in the " Voyage of the Erebus and Terror." As far as traits go, the wekas are the most interesting rails in the world. The swamp-loving pukeko is a large rail, the rare and more famous Notornis a very large one; and the fossil remains of a massive extinct rail have heen found near Oamaru, near the Oreti River, at Olenmark, Timaru, and other south Island places.

Mrs. C. McGregor, Whanga.rei, pays a compliment to the starlings' talents as mimics. "In Gisborne some years ago, she writes, "an old gentleman never went out of his oflico without calling to his little spangled friends. They seemed to wait for him, and they answered him in their own way. Starlings certainly are splendid birds for checking our insect pests. When I lived in the Bay of Plenty an army of caterpillars came across the country, eating every blado of grass on their route Then, it seemed from nowhere, huge flocks of starlings appeared and devoured the insects, which, no doubt, would have done .incalculable harm if allowed to go further.

Perhaps Mr. W. R. B. Oliver, Director of the Dominion Museum, Wellington, is somewhat pessimistic when ho states that it seems clear that the starling has reached the peak of its usefulness in New Zealand. and that, if its numbers are not checked soon, it will become at times a serious pest in orchards and on farms, and an irresistible competitor among all kinds of native birds. It takes some fruit and grain, and Mr. Oliver states that its depredations, no doubt, will become more serious as the numbers of starlings increase. He points out that they aie aggressive and that they are ousting both native and introduced species of birds by occupying their nesting places and taking their food, tuis, kingfishers, quad and pheasants suffering Against this, as Mrs. McGregor points out, the starling destroys large numbers of insects. It picks "ticks off sheep and takes the eggs of skylarks, which, in spite of their wonderful songs, do a great deal of harm. The most graceful tribute to the starling comes from Mr. H. Guthrie-Smith: A crop of oafs was attacked by an army of caterpillars; millions of them had appeared as if bv magic. At once I rode out to note the horrid depredations 1 was surprised to find in the ascendant not caterpillars, but starlings, which in a few hours bad collected in such numbers entirely to save the threatened crop."