IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18750, 2 January 1923, Page 3

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

WATCHING A PARASITE. By J. Drummond, E.L.S., F.Z.S. ■ » Pad a very good view of a long-tailed e.ickoo at work rubbing sparrows’ Hosts, mi H. it. llaeusler wrote from Opouriao, Kay of Plenty, on December 11. ‘"1 was attracted first by tlie fowls, which evidently thought that tho cuckoo was a hawk, and became very disturbed. On going to investigate, 1 heard sparrows in two large willows twittering very excitedly. Loosing up, I saw a long-tailed cuckoo slipping along a branch towards a nest. 1 saw it. go from nest to nest, making a careful examination of each, until it found tne opening. 1 coidii not see clearlv. what it was doing until it reached a nest unite close to me. about ten yards away. It went through the same pertornianeet there until it found the opening, it then inserted its head ami extracted an egg. w,iicii it swallowed. After sitting there for a few seconds, it flow to another tree. I climbed to fhe nest, and found one egg Jett, j ffo robber apparently leaves a nestegg in order that each victim will have some refreshment ready when the parasite calls again.” Mr W. P. Ward. Kawhia, West Coast of the North Island, has supplemented notes by Ids brother, Air T. 1.. Mard, on the habits of penguins in that part of New Zealand. He wrote on December 10: “My boys, when out over the sandhills with dogs after rabbits about, a week ago, looked lor the burrows, scraped away the sand, and caught the rabbits inside. While doing tins. they discovered a penguin, which disclosed' ns identity by the noise it made before they came to it. The burrow it occupied was six feet long, just wide enough t.» allow Ihe owner to get along, with a chamber at tho end. The burrow was under some small scrub. As Ihe boys arc interested in birds’ eggs, they brought one of tiie eggs of the penguin home. In the egg there was a young penguin, which, 1 should say, would have been hatched in about a week. If incubation takes ' about 21 days, the eggs were laid about the middle of November. The burrow is about half a mile from the tea. and there is little except bare sand between. The site is about halfway between Kawhia and Aotea Harbours.” "I saw,a remarkable sight at Taupo when 1 visited that place of many attractions some umo ago,” Mr. H. Hill writes from Napier. ‘‘On reaching within twelve miles off 'laupo wo ran into a part that formerly was heather country. Tins heather was taken to Opepe, about ten miles from ’laupo. by soldiers wno settled there alter a massacre by Maoris in lebtt. The Scottish heather lias disappeared. In its place tho English broom reigns supreme. In whichever direction wo it.oked, there was the broom i n full flower uur car seemed to puss through a narrow yellow lane—primrose yellow, straw yellow, line golden yeitow. with manv shades and gradations. The landscape was aglow for twenty miles. 1 do not know of anything of the kind that exceeded the grandeur of nit seen". I nave been in the Torrid Zone and have seen the gaudy flowers that grow there; I have been in tho summer through Canadian forests, and where glaciers meet the Gardens of tho Lord.’ I have seen more yai’iety and more majesty; but nofhing ever impressed me so oeeply as did the fairy golden bloom’ of the Old Country’s Cvtisus neur Xaupo this season.*’ Mr J. Loundes, Auckland has written protesting against, tho nikau’ palm being called the cabbage-tree. It does not seem to be a common mistake. Ho explains that some confusion has arisen on account of Parts of both the nikau and tho real cab-bage-tree being edible. As a. matter of fact, the name is very inappropriate to any native plant in New Zealand, particularly to the plant that has been definitely and permanently saddled with it. Mr Loundes supplies the reason tor this. “More than 30 years ago. ’ ho writes. ‘‘l was employed by a squatter who had a sheep station in the southern part of the Auckland province. His wife was a Maori, and. as was not unusual at that time with members of her race, she was a naturalist of no mean merit, and was versed in forest lore. Close to the homestead there was a large swampy flat, on which grew the remnants of a, kahikatea forest. Intersproad with the Icahikateas wore many young cabbage-trees, and from them she obtained a substance which she cooked and which was very palatable. She told me that the plant was called the cabbage-tree because it provided that substance A similar substance is found in the nikau.” Blame for misnaming ’Near Zealand's large palm-lily the cabbage-tree has been laid at the early colonists’ door. 'They doubtless perpetuated the mistake, but it seems to have originated with Captain Cook and his naturalists, Banks and Solander, during Cook’s first voyage, 153 years ago His diary records that, when the Endeavour was in Tolaga Bay, near East Capo, from October 23 to October 30, 1769, ‘‘we likewise found one Cabago 'Tree, which we cut down for the sake, of the Cabbage.” This probably refers to the cabbage-tree of the present day, not to the nikau. The note is followed by the words; “The country abounds with a great Number of Plants, and the woods with a groat variety of beautiful birds, many of them unknown to us” Tho nikau is New Zealand’s only representative in the palm family, if the nikau of the Kermadec Islands, a distinct species, is excepted. It is related to the betel-nut of tho East. It is tho fleshy top of the stern that is eaten. Mr R. M. Laing, a Christchurch botanist, has expressed regret that nikau huts have been banished by the ugly, if serviceable, corrugated iron. Describing the pretty and picturesque old style, ho says, ‘‘A framework was made of manuka stick’s, and nikau leaves were used for tho roof and walls. They formed a cover as watertight as if the hut had been made of iron. The leaves keep out the wet marvellously. Each leaf-division is a little channel that conducts (he rain-drops to (ho ground outside. Bushmen still occasionally make nikau huts for temporary purposes.” 'JJic cabbage-tree is the largest member of the lily family. It is related to tho dragontree of older countries. Now Zealand’s most beautiful native orchid, Dondnobium Cunninghamii, should ho in the perfection of its bloom now in forests in lowland districts. A many-flowered raceme of the white and pink, scented bloom, has been sent by M. E. .fames, school teacher at Rowan, 'laranaki. The blooms probably will bo in evidence well on into the Tsow Year. Inis orchid, usually found growing mi trees, has been mistaken for a parasite. It i? merely a perching-plant, an epiphyte in botanical language. Occasionally it selects a rock instead of a tree as its support. The spongy tissues of its rooks are adapted to absorbing any moisture that falls oiy it. Because of its perching habits, its wiry, rigid jdoina usunllv stiro pendulous, banpuiK as far as'three feet, but they arc erect when it grows on rocks. The flowers seem to be adapted for cross-fertilisation by means of insects. The germs Dendnobmm, has about 500 species, New Zealand s single species is found in no other country-. of .the 300 are in the Malay Archipelago and some areas as far north as Japan. The New Zealand species is allied closely to a. Polynesian form.