IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18467, 31 January 1922, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN NEW ZEALAND. 'By J. Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S. • On the Rotorua-Tirau road on January 9, a slight engine trouble brought a motor car to a standstill. Mr A. G. Yardley, who was in the car, saw a tui fly on to a Hugh stump, which brought it almost directly overhead. The tui seemed to be inquisitive. The members of the party were astonished to hear it utter two sounds, ■' for alt the world like the sound of a motor horn,” which the driver had sounded at a bend soon before the stoppage. Mr H. J. Moore-Jonea, who was attending to the engine, looked up, expecting to see another car coming along. When ho sounded the horn again the tui promptly answered with an imitation. _ It answered four times out of six, and in several instances it gave a single hoot between the soundings of the horn. Mr Yardley, in sending an account of this incident, adds: “ This usually utter five distinct notes, with a very faint trill between the first note and the second/: The inquisitive tui I have mentioned is the onlv one We heard make any sound resembling the sound of a motor horn. On our trip, we , saw quite a number of tuis. and wood pigeons, and two male pheasants near Mamaku. Mr W. Wright, proprietor of the Lake Tanthe Hotel, 'South Westland, some years ago watched a robin that made friends with a gang employed on a bush tramway. It always was in evidence at meal time, and it followed -the gang from, place .to place. The total pieces it received from the members of the gang at one time might represent about half a loaf, which it took away, instead of eating. On one occasion it was seen gathering many earthworms and Hying off with them. It was traced to its resort, the top of . a hollow tree-fern, into which it had dropped scores of earthworms in order, apparently, to store them. The bread, probably, was hidden in the same place. Robins still are plentiful, in' the dense, forests near Mr Wright’s hotel. They may bo seen amongst small groves of kamahi, which make fairy halls in the forest interiors. A very slight noise—a heavy footstep, a snapping twig, or a subdued voice—is sufficient to bring them silently through the magic casements, with obvious Inquisitive and friendly intentions. In a wooded -valley on the ..western side oF the Bay of Islands County, the Hon. D. Buddo, during a visit to that district-, recently, found manuka trees with flowers' of. all shades of red. . They were scattered amongst trees of the common white manuka. “I do not tfijnk that any of the flowers I saw there wore as deep a red as _ the flowers .of' the crimson manuka described in -your column a few weeks ago,” Mr ■Buddo. wrote. “ I .think that the different shades of red are the result of cross-fertilisa-tion. "I will have some of the - Bay. of Islands plants sent to Heaton street, St. Albans, Christchurch, in the au'jtinhn, and hope to succeed in growing them there.” When riding in the Bay of Islands early in the morning Mr Buddo heard many birds in the bush. He continues: “Tuis .yore much in evidence. The notes of the shining cuckoo and of other birds you wrote of were -distinguishable clearly. I don’t think that ,1 ever heard such a wealth- of woodland melody since the Oxford Bush, was cut out or destroyed by fire in 1898. The same morning I passed seven coveys of quail—four Californian quail, and the others, T'am" confident, New Zealand snail; which.-ard- -described as extinct by a label; on‘ a 'specimen in the Dominion Museum'. Wellington. - I-was suite close to them as thev trotted off the track, and I saw one in the possession ot a farm cat.” Mr O. P. Roberts, Bromley Road, six miles from Christchurch, has drawn attention to the ' fact that humble-bees out flowers of the broad bean in the same way as Mr J. P. Morale saw them cutting snapdragon flowers at the Pukeora Sanatorium, Hawke’s Bay, that, is, instead of entering the tops of the flowers, they go to .the base cut a petal over or close to the nectaries, and, make, a short-out. to the honey. “On account of this change in. the habits of humble-bees,” Mr Roberts writes, “I have for many years lost all my early beane.” The effects of the bees’ activities are not as noticeable later in the season, when other stores of honey are more plentiful, and. perhaps, more available. This easy method of gathering honey prevents cross-fertilisation by the flower. 3 attacked. Mr Morine suggests, that-epeciee of plants affected will develop-some means of 'protection against the hoes’ irregular,, ■ontry;■ hy /ihaiHghtianiiiir of a-flhre,.-o£-by-a modification of-shape, which would render cutting unnecessary. Mr Roberts expresses an opinion that,, as the flowers out have no seeds, and, consequently, do not reproduce, the species are not likely to develop, modifications To. meet the emergency. Humble-bees have been seen attacking flowers of the scarlet runner,' bean, favourite ornament to many gardens, in the same'way os they attack flowers of the snapdragon and the broad bean. They have, to some extent at least, abandoned their practice of diving into the open side of. flowers of the scarlet runner bean, .in order to,reach the nectaries at the bases of the flowers. When they did that they brushed against protruding anthers affa, " stigmaand helped to bring about cross-fertilisa-tion.. In many cases now, as soon as they alight on a flower, they out' the calyx and the sheath dose to the nectaries, which they quickly empty ‘of the_ stores of honey. Fairly cKo.se observation of flowers of the scarlet runner bean cut in-this way seem to show, that- the change of.‘method bv bees causes the flowers loss: of cross-fertilisation, reduces the quantities of pollen formed .by the flowers, and quickens the fading and the falling qf the flowers, which results in fewer pods setting. Charles Darwin drew attention to a slight lock of symmetry, in the growth of the perils of scarlet runner beans, which offered an - advantage, .to, bees in their-.lefforta to reach the hoftey on the side of each flower, where fertilisation would be helped by the bees’ visits, hut the bees, apparently, prefer the direct path to the nectaries through a hole at the flower’s base. Three delicate greenish-blue eggs in a small oup-shaped nest, _ neatly made with crossed and reorossed pieces of grass, ornamented with leaves of manuka,/'.held"to-, gether with spider web,“and lined with horse hairs, belong to a pair of white-eyes. The nest and its contents were-sent by,Mr J. Ostler. Stratford. Taranaki, for idenMfication. He states that the nest is. different from a white-eye’s nest photographed recently, and he asks if .hava. d’f . ' forent styles of architecture in different districts. Two distinct stylos certainly are favoured by those birds, and there ■ seems, in a general way, to be one style for each district. In some districts all white-eyes build round nests almost identical with the nest Mr Ostler has sent. In other districts the nests are like toy cradles, canoe-shaped. Nests of this style sometimes are swung to twigs or branches from their ends, and resemble tiny hammocks. In ;a ;; Igrge manuka grove on a Maori reserve at Little River, Banks Peninsula, this style is common. On Mr H. Guthrie-Smith’s station, Tutira, Hawke’s Bay, white-eyes’ nests almost always are cup-shaped, but all the nests he has seen from and near the Taupo. district are cancc-shaped. He has described in pleasant and graceful words the pests on Tutira. “The two or three eggs of pale, blue hang in the frailcst-looking fairy basket imaginable —a diaphanous cradle, woven "on to frond or branchlet, and stirred by every breath of wind. The nest, though so slight in appearance, really is sufficiently strong, and is firmly fastened on' to the supporting bough with web and wool, and lined with long pliable bents and horse hair; for further ornamentation it is striped and crossed with fresh-faded leaves of soft meadow, grass, their pale pilose surfaces, flat on the exterior, blending exquisitely with the bluish cocoon wool and grey spider web.” He states that at a later stage manv nests on Tutira hang quite awry, although they are secure, the parents do not seem to have allowed for the fledglings’ growing weight. The nest becomes tilted and loses its earlier eminently firm and dainty appearance, lie has seen whitocyes, when they had mated, showing great affection for' each, other, stroking and preening each other s feathers and cuddling together on a bough. At the peep of dawn, while waiting for the sheep to gather, he has heard white-eyes, “deeply hidden in a dewy tutu, singing what can be termed only a whisper-song, the note* so very soft and low as to be inaudible at even a few feet.” In showers of ram he" has seen an adult white-eye sit with wings outstretched over the neat, keeping