NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20958, 22 August 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

A MYSTERY BIRD.

BY J. DRUMMOND, I'.L.S., F.Z.S.

A few years ago Southland Maoris, when mutton-birding on islets in the Stewart Island group, reported that the mystery-bird, tlie hakuwai, was plentiful. Mr. E. H. Hobson, Takapau, Hawke's Bay, states that whatever bird may have been heard by the Maoris it was not the hakuwai. He explains that the hakuwai is identical with a mythical bird which the old-time Maoris of Southland called hakuai, and which they described as a kai-tangata, a man-eater. Northern Maoris'whom Mr. Hobson knew believed in the hakuwai, but not in its liking for human flesh. He believes that it is none other than the ha-koakoa, the sea-hawk, no connection of the common hawks, but more merciless, ferocious, and audacious, Mr. Hobson does not know of any bird from North Cape to the Bluff tha; might be called sea-hawk. This is not surprising, as the sea-hawk's realm is in the sub-antarctic seas, from New Zealand to south of South America. Occasionally it visits Cook Strait and the west coast of the Wellington Province. It is fairly plentiful on Stewart Island and on the islets round about. On the Auckland, Campbell and Macquarie Islands, and on the lonely Snares and Antipodes, it is plentiful, much too plentiful to be popular with penguins, gulls, terns, petrels and albatrosses. It steals the eggs and young of large birds, swallows small birds whole, makes horrible meals of dead seals, and in every way behaves most repugnantly. It searches for. birds caught in thick scrub or injured in landing on an island, continually frequents the community homes of penguins and petrels, stands by albatrosses' nests waiting to take young or eggs, and pursues kakas, pigeons, and other birds that pass from island to island, ferociously downing them into the sea, when they are easily caught, killed, and eaten. On Campbell Island, it pecks out the eyes of fallen sheep.

On bare rock on the Snares, handy to a penguin colony, Mr. E. F. Stead found a sea-hawk's larder. The remains of mutton-birds, whale-birds and mottled petrels evidenced the feasts. The bones had been picked bare. Only the wings remained. Small diving-petrels, doubtless, had formed part of the feast. Of these there were no signs whatever. They had been swallowed whole, feathers and aIL Little white-faced storm-petrels, gentle and inoffensive as any birds that fly over land or water, seem to be the favourite victims on Cundy Island. These also are swallowed whole, the sea-hawks spitting out neat balls of feathers, each with two legs attached.

The sea-hawk wastes no time or attention on building. Unlike many small land-birds, it is neither a builder nor an architect. Its nest, always on the ground, is shallow, sometimes merely a depresssion in the turf, crudely furnished with grass and leaves. The only foresight shown in this respect is in selecting a site, which often adjoins the nesting-place of a colony of penguins. Each nest has two or three richly coloured oval eggs, dark stone in ground colour, garnished with dark brown and light brown.

Mr. H. Guthrie-Smith, on mutton-bird islands, watched with deep interest the ceremony of feeding the young. Two adult males and one female always attended at each nest. All took turns at sitting on the eggs, but the female was more eager than her mates. All attended when a y.oung was fed. They manoeuvred the young into the centre, and one disgorged food, which the young immediately devoured. The adults shared between them anything the young did not take. During the whole ceremony the adults lowered their necks to the ground and stretched them to the limit, an undignified attitude in keeping with the seahawk's unlovely character. One thing in its favour is that it has sufficient courage to defend its home. From the time the eggs are laid until th 6 young are reared it attacks intruders fiercely, swooping down on them and trying to strike them with its wings.

Sixty-eight years ago Mr, Hobson camped at the foot of the Bridle Path, near the mouth of the Lyttelton tunnel. He often, on dark nights, heard a bird calling as it flew over the hills. Living at Purau, Kaituna and Ahuriri in the seventies, he heard the same weird notes, not often at Ahuriri but "very often at Kaituna and Little River. He knew the notes of all coastal birds that fly by day. None was the sama as those nocturnal notes. They were heard at Waimate and were known at Oamaru, but Mr. Hobson has never met a European or a Maori who saw the bird. He often asked Maoris where it lived. They always said that they did not know He sometimes heard the notes apparently, at a great height. They always were very weird and not to be forgotten. They were uttereH, no doubt, by a species of petrel that had spent the daylight in a dark burrow and was wandering through the night.

The latest complaint of the destructive wood-borers is from Ngatea, Hauraki Plains. A resident writes:—"Since you published an article on the borers a few weeks ago, we discovered that our house had been attacked badly by the insect you describe. Joints, floors, lining, even doorframes, are affected, yet our house is only seven years old. We are taking out all the affected parts we can find, replacing them with creoso'ted timber. One feature is hard to explain. A hole appeared in a door-facing dressed on all sides. We split it up after carefully examining the surface, and found that it had been riddled from end to end with large channels. There was no connection with the surface except the single hole, and it appeared only a week or two ago. How did the borers get into a piece of dressed timber ? We have found several adult insects, but no grubs in the timber. Our house is built completely of rimu. Other houses here are affected." The borer may have been in the timber before the house was built.

A North island correspondent, whose letter has been mislaid, several weeks ago sent a particularly handsome, large centipede for identification. Sir. G. Archey, director the Auckland Museum, who has studied native centipedes, has identified it as Cormocephalus rubrieeps. " I expect that members of the species can give a person a severe nip, although, up to the present, I have avoided the experience,'" Mr.. Archey states. He adds: "It is a common North Island large centipede. I believe that it may be found in practically every garden in Auckland, as well as in the bush. It is replaced in the southern portion of the North Island, and in the South Island as far south as Kaikoura, by a small f-pecies, Cormocephalus violascens. These two species are the only members of the family Scolopendridae in New Zealand. All the other New Zealand centipedes, and there are several species, are much smaller. Hit* smaller creatures are quite harmless."