IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14857, 11 June 1910, Page 5

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN

NEW ZEALAND,

(Br James Drtjmmond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.) It is with pleasure that I send you, for your natural history column in New Zealand, somo notes oil Notornis hoch(Mien," write, Dr A. B. Meyer, of Hohenxollem street, Berlin. Dr Meyer was formerly director of tho Dresden Museum, which is the fortunate possessor of the third Notornis, and it was he who changed the bird's specific -name from niantelli to hoclustetteri. " The specimen m the Dresden Museum," he says, "was captmed alive by a dog tow-aids the close' of the year 18 f9, arid was on sale in Dunedin, but tho New Zealand Government of that day was not up to its task, "ap]),aieirtly becauso no naturalist put the inatter in tho right light, Tho skin and skeleton were then sent to London, whero thoy wero on sale for two years without finding a buyer At last they were offend to me for the Dresden Museum. The institution was known in England, whei-e I had many personal friends, as a museum with an ambition to rise. I did not dare to spend the money of the Government in purchasing the specimen of one bird, although nearly extinct, but I found a patron, yrho furnished mo -with the funds. •As far as I remember, I bought the Notornis for£llo, but I do not remember whether it was by auction or in the ordinary way of a transaction. Some time after it came -iqto the possession of the museum as a gift of tho patron who supplied tho funds I received a letter from the New Zealand Government, asking me to surrender the specimen for the price at r, y , • lrmseu m' and) a collection of Aew Zealand birds as well. Of course, I lefuscd the offer. I n any case, the rules ot tho. museum would not have allowed mo to accept it. I named the species Notornis bochstetteri, and described tho skeleton and the skin in scientific journals. Hie bird has also been dealt with by tho late Professor T. J. Parker, Dr W. B. Benham, Sir Walter Buller, and Messrs Hutton and Drumniond, and the Hon. ■gliomas Mackenzie wrote a letter entitled, J.he Bare New Zealand Bird,' to the London limes in October, 1898. You will probably find something of interest in niv paper 011 'Tho^ Eggs of the Moa' in Tho iois, 1903, which has been revised and annotated' by Professor Benham in tho same journal of the same year. Mr Travel's, of Wellington, wrote to mo iti February, 1903, stating that a new moa's egg InioA » n * price was £180.

Mi D. Hutton, ot tho Caxton Printing Company, Dunedin, reports that some days ago a_ fantail fell into a washing boiler containing tepid water at Ins residence, Mrs Hutton lifted tho bird out ana placed it in a. disused dog kennel closo bv, standing it on its logs, propped up by its tail, so that it might recover. Iwo hours afterwards, going to see how the bird was progressing, she found it in tlto position in which it was left, but it was dead. laying beside it was another faiitml, also dead. Mr Hutton believes that the second bird 1 died of a broken heart.

The native crows of the North and South Islands aro amongst the birds upon whom a good deal of commiseration has been wasted, For -nearly 20 years'-they have been reported to 'be extinct, but lately information has been supplied showing that in some parts of the Dominion they are as plentiful as ever. During my visit to Stewart Island at the end of April Mr J, AY. Murdoch, Mr J. Bragg, and other residents told mo that the orange wattled crow might be seen almost any day in . the north-western parts' of the island. Mr Bragg lias freaueiitly brought them down from the trees by imitating their cries, which, he 6ays, on a fine winter morning havo a charming effect. As to the blue wattled crow of the north, Mr C. Nairn, of l'ort Charles, on the Cororaandcl Peninsula, says that they are found in most of tho deep gorges back from the coast and humanity. Standing on v- clear spur, on which the undergrowth is very open, or altogether absent, he has often watched these birds coming up the side, progressing by a kind of running through tue tops of tho trees, and l making flights of only a few feet, where tho branches wore toe far apart for them to bridge the space by jumping, "I do not know if the native crows aro mimics," Ml' Nairn writes, -'but some time ago I happened to be sheltering from a shower m the bush, wlien I heard what I thought was a tui. As the rain was falling heavily and had been doing S9 all. day, I won' dered «it a tui being in such a musical mood. I went to the trouble to look him up, arid you can imagine my surprise when I saw a crow perched 011 tho top of the treo, sending forth a tui's notes, and at times giving himself a shake to get rid of the water."

The kingfisher is found -all around the coast in Mr Nairn's district, or, at anyrate, wherever it can find a means of filling itself. lo show the fearlessness of this lordly fisherman, Mr Nairn slates that about 6ft from one of his fences thero is an uprooted willow-tree, and between the fence and the treo there is a path which is used regularly three times .a •lay, sometimes 12 times, 'in spite'of the traffic, and of many examinations of the homes, a pair of kingfishers dug a hole in the willow stump and hatched five chicks and reared four of them. Another pair made a _ hole in tho solid clay bank of a road which carries heavy traffic every day. Tho nest was nbout tho height of «• man's kneo when on horseback, but the number of young was not ascertained, as the nest had a very strong smell, and did not invite inspection. At times a dozen tuis may be counted in a small space, and-they mako the forests lively with their notes before the sun becomes too hot. At other times n. person may go through the forests for an hour or more and never hear a note of any kind. Around Mr Nairn's house there are many large gum-trees and pohutukawas. When they are in flower, the tuis ,go right up to the house, and live there for weeks at a time. Tho weka is another bird that is well represented' in the northern part of the Coromandel Peninsula. A few years ago a person _ might havo tramped the forests there without hearing a weka once, but during tho past' decade thero have been 110 largo bush fires, and the weka, together with the pheasant and the Australian quail, has taken advantage of the opportunity to.increase largely.

In swamps and l oll fernhills of the peninsula, tlio little fernbii'ds ave found in twos and threes, but they are not plentiful. A bittern, is seen occasionally; marsh rails live in the swamps that run down to high-water mark; tho pukeko is sometimes, but not often, eeen in the raupo swamps; grey warblers aro scattered over tho district 011 tho odgo of the bush; pied .font-nils and native larks aro plentiful; a. few months ago a, bell-bird alighted on a tree about 11 chain from the house, and sang for several minutes beforo disappearing; in autumn last year Mr Nairn saw a (lock of whito-oyes, jmmbeving several hundreds, hard at work 011 a large figtree, and 110 has lately seen smaller flocks of 20 or 30 yellow-heads mako occasional visits; the green parrakeet is rare; pigeons, which were so plentiful two years ago that 35 were counted 011 two solitary kahikatea. trees, which they stripped' of berries, are now present 111 very small numbers; kakas have also become rare; and both cuckoos arrive in the proper season.