NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21224, 2 July 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

BEAUTIFUL ROSE-PETALS

IJY J. DRCMMOND, F.L.S., F.Z.S..

Rose-petals, whose pinky-red or orangered hues catch the eyes of people who stroll New Zealand beaches, have a history as interesting as their appearance is beautiful. Records in the flinty rocks show that this race of shells has come down from very early geological times, almost unchangeably. The group lias persisted from the dim, distant and mysterious Cambrian Period of the Era of Early Life down to these days. Attaining their highest development in seas of the Silurian Period, the rose-petals left countless individuals, classed in at least 2000 species, to witness to their .success and prosperity. Then they began to decline. In rocks of later ages their fossils are fewer and fewer. Only about 120 species are known in all the wide seas of these times. An English student of the rose-petnls, in view of their unchanging persistence and conservative adherence to the ancient type, lias conjectured whether in 50,000,000 years, when higher creatures are extinct, they will be the same sort of rose-petals as they were in the beginning and are now. A more feasible theory is that the ancient race is fast drawing to extinction, and will be numbered among other mighty creatures of the sea that have been blotted out. The rose-petals are easily identified. They are about an inch or an inch and a-half long, slightly less in breadth. They look like cockle-shells. Each shell is bivalved, often ribbed. In it, the owner shelters its soft body, covered with a skin-like mantle. Each individual has a digestive tract, which deals with minute creatures and plants used for food, a heart, a liver, blood vessels, a nervous system and 'muscles to close and open the valves of its shell. At one end of the shell there are two spiral organs that look like arms. It %vas believed that the arms were used for locomotion. Further acquaintance with the rose-petals showed that these organs are used for breathing, but the rose-petals still bear their old title, Brachiopods, meaning arm-foot. One of the valves is shaped like an ancient Roman hand-lamp, a flange representing the handle and a round hole near the hinge the hole for the wick. For this reason the rose-petals often are called lump-shells. The hole in the shell :is a passage for a sinewy stalk, by which the owner tethers itself to a stone or a shell or almost anything else in the water. A company of rose-petals fancied an old jam pot. They almost covered it with the shells.

Books on Nmv Zealand molluscs usually include the rose-petals. They are so like molluscs that they once were classed with the cockle, the pipi, the oyster and their allies; but the rose-petals now are placed in a group by themselves. Their position in relation to the rest of the animal kingdom is still in doubt., and it cannot be fixed until deeper embryological studies into the rose-petals have been made.

The life development of the common species in New Zealand, Terebratulina, has been thoroughly investigated. Each of these rose-petals has definite stages in life. It begins as a small oval creature, swimming freely. In its next stage it becomes pear-shaped and wears on its head a conspicuous tuft of long hairs. At the following: stage the body is divided into two sections. The young rose-petal then is very active, but »s it is still very small, it cannot swim far, and, unless it is caught by an ocean current, it comes to rest near its parents. Another stage sees it in sluggish moods. These increase in the following stage. The creature then ceases to wander, and permanently fixes itself by its stalk to a base, to*which it may remain fixed for tho rest of its life. There are still further stages until development :is< complete, and a large shell has been built for the relatively small body inside.

A lady at Russell states that she is surprised that nobody lias charged the pukeko with destroying young ducklings. " Some years ago," she writes, " I was staying at .Fairburn. The lady I was with told me that she was constantly losing her young ducklings through the pukekos. Her ducks were living in the swamp a lot, and while I was there one duck hatched out fifteen ducklings. They began to disappear, till only one was left. I was looking from a window at the back of thei house and heard a duck crying out. I then saw the cause. A pukeko had taken the only duckling left, and was shooing it ahead, while the poor mother was running and screaming behind. I ran out and called the dog, but by the time I reached the swamp the pukeko and the duckling were across a small creek and disappeared. My friends told me that they could nob explain the reason, as the pukeko did not seem to eat the duckling, only cracking it on the head. The only conclusion I can come to is that 'they might be like some of the hawks that have a fancy for brains. This is another pukeko crime against the farmer. Government protects the wild ducks, also the pukeko, and the pukeko kills the ducklings; and if they kill tame ones, they will do so to the wild ones."

Mr. Allen Bell writes from Kailaia: " It was reported in the newspapers that a song-thrush had tried to snatch an oyster from its shell at Tamaki and was found firmly caught by the beak, the oyster having closed iits shell on its assailant. Recently on the Ninety-Mile Beach a black backed gull was seen in an almost similar predicament, a tohcroa having closed its shell on one of the gull's feet. When seen, the gull was flutt€ring around vainly trying to rid itself of its unwelcome attachment."

A letter from Mr, E. Brown, Waiau, North Canterbury, shows that New Zealand's bats have been rare ever since Europeans came to this country. They probably never were plentiful, although they had few natural enemies. Mr. Brown has lived in New Zealand for fiftysix years, mostly in Canterbury and Westland, but has not seen a native bat. In any case, there are only two species ot' native bats. Both are retiring in disposi- t tion. One, the short-tailed bat, has not been heard of for many years, and may be extinct. The other, the long-tailed bat. is known to the Maoris as pekapeka. Early settlers knew it. Members of the species sometimes made their homes under bridges, even in towns and villages, but mostly lived in hollow trees in the forests, where there may still be some colonies. Tt. is hoped that this is so, as bats are New Zealand's only land-mammals, the native dog and the native rat ranking as introductions brought by the Maoris during the migration from Hawaiki.

Mr. Brown's-object in writing is practical, not sentimental. He states: "If bats were as numorous here as they are in my native Scotland, they might bo effective in destroying large numbers of the bronze beetle. The beetle being nocturnal, the bat would probably prove a nocturnal enemy, and thus help in lessening the enormous damage done to the pastures by the grass-grub, which is the larvae of the bronze beetle. Some years ago I read in the Journal of Agriculture, published, by our Government, that bats were encouraged to multiply in the Sacramento district, California, in order to combat the mosquito pest. The encouragement consisted of specially constructed houses as dayrookeries. From that, one would surmise that bats are considered harmless."