IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18946, 21 August 1923, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

A SINGULAR NATIVE SHRUB. By J. Drummond, E.L.S., F.Z.S. A spray containing a singular and handsome seed-pod has been sent by an Aponga correspondent, Wbangarei County. Tho purply black seeds are embedded in thick gluten, and He in a pod of a showy, deep orange colour. Tho contrast of colours is very conspicuous. The pod has two valves or flaps. When tho gluten dries the seeds become detached and fall. This takes place in the winter months, usually in dune, July, or August. Mr 'll. -M. Laing, Christchurch, has expressed an opinion that the colours probably attract birds, which cat the seeds, but no observations have been made in this direction. The bright green leaves ot tho plant are delicately veined. The plant is a slender and beautiful native shrub, with fragrant flowers, pale purple or Ltnged with crimson, but less conspicuous than tho seeds. It is an epiphyte, 'that is to say, it grows on other plants, using them as supports, but not, like a parasite, sucking their juices. The Apon"a correspondent found it growing on an old rata, in the centre of a clump of Astelia, known usually as the kio-kie, or, to use a corrupted name, tho gie-gie, which is another epiphyte. It is not unusual to And these' two epiphytes in association on a third plant in that way.

The plant with the bright seed-pod sometimes finds that a rock, instead of another plant, meets its needs. It never is truly terrestrial, like an ordinary plant. It belongs to tho family of the matipos. Officially, it is Pittosporum cornifolium. The first word, “pitch seed,” refers to iho gluten in which tne seeds are buried, the second to tho resemblance of tho leaves to the loaves of tho cornel. Maoris know Ihe plant as piripirn and karo. Perching kbhulm is its popular name. It grows in almost all parts of the North Island: in the South Island it. has been recorded on 1 v at Pelonis Sound, It is one of tho New Zealand plants that have been introduced into the Old Country’s gardens. _ All the Pittosporums have handsome foliage. Pittosporum temiifolinm is _ of the most favoured hedge-plants in New Zealand. It is commonly Known as matipo. Mr Laing states that its Maori name is tawhiwlu - other authorities state that it is kohtilm. ’ Tho Maoris’ matipo is a small tree, a member of tho myrsino family, which resembles Pittosporum tenuifoliimi, but has reddish-brown leaves. The fashionable hedge plant is known so generally a? matipo that it is useless to try to deprive it of that usurped name.

'Tlie font ail is one of tho most friendly and entertaining small birds of these parts, ’ Mr 11. F. Cliaffey wrote from Pokaroro, near Mount Arthur, Nelson, on Juno 15. "Last spring, when 1 was working on my claim on the Takaka River, opening out a (erracci, I had lunch there every day. Two fantails decided to build their neat where 1 boiled the billy. There were hundreds of better places, but they chose a small branch of a kroadleaf, about a yard to tho right of whore 1 always sat. On standing up, I could roach the place wiin my hand. All the building operation? were carried out by tho pied one of tho pair, the female. She was much the. more friendly of the two. The black one —It was a case “of pied and black mating again and making a.union nest, not an.unusual proceeding with the fantails—seemed always to bo flying about and feeding; it paid no attention to its mate’s work. The pied one was very busy gathering cobwebs for lining, small pieces of sticks, lichen, moss, and other materials. Every time she came with something she announced her return with a little twittering tong. I gave her a gentle whistle of encouragement. When the frame was finished and she began to lino the inside she stepped inside and twisted herself around the nest, twittering all tho time.

“Tlie job was finished in about 10 days. After the first egg was laid the black male went occasionally to have a look at them, to see if they were safe. The female laid five eggs, feho immediately sat, and the male then made himself useful, relieving her every 10 or 15 minutes. I do not know how long it. look-to-hatch the eggs, as 1 was away for some time. When I came back there were live little fantails, almost ready to fly. Three were pied and two-wore black. There, was a fantail’s nest on the -opposite side of the, river. x-our auults —two pied and two black—were very busy there getting food. Soon afterwards all “were on the wing, and I cental numbers of pied and black. 'I hey stayed about there for quite a time. During tile past? two months a. pied fantail has accompanied me along tho track every morning. I go to work about two miles, and back at night. If I don’t take notice of her she flies in front of my face, and if I hold out my walking stick she sits on the end and sings her subdued song. As far as I have observed these charming little birds, the pied always is a female and the black a male.”

Works published until a few years ago credited the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society with the first effort to introduce bees into New Zealand. Its object was to bring about fertilisation of the red clover, which, before bees were introduced, produced -00. lin only very small quantities, native bees giving no help. Hie Canterbury Society’s first experiment was, made in 1876. Early in that year Mr S. C. Farr, secretary of the society, received a note from bur John Hall, who just had arrived at Lyttelton in the Orari. stating that, he had brought a- consignment of bees from Mr Frank Backhand, the English naturalist. Mr Farr went aboard at, once, but when the package was opened he found that all iho bees were dead. In later years the society was more successful. Mr I. Hopkins, formerly Apiarist in New Zealand, has made inquiries, which show that the first introduced bees brought, to New Zealand were landed from the James. Captain M. Todd, at a mission station at Maiigunga, Hokianga, as far back as Marco 13, 1939. They were brought by Miss Bumby, sister of the Rov. J. 11. Bumby, both of whom came in that vessel with a parly of missionaries. • The two straw hives in which the bees lived during the- voyage wore placed in the. mission churchyard.

The late Mrs Gltlos, wife of the Rev. W. Gittos, and daughter of (ho Rov. J. Hobbs, when a girl of eight years, was taken to see the bees. As her parents went, sent to another station she lost sight of the new arrivals, but not before she and her young friends, for the first time, had tasted honey in the comb, which Miss Bumby sent to them. Later on Mrs Gittos was an enthusiastic, bcc-kecper. Mr Hopkins states that Jjady Hobson, wife of an early Governor,’ brought bees to Now Zealand from New Soirii Wales m 1840, and that, the Rev. W. C. Cotton Drought sonic from England when he came out in 134?,. Mr Hopkins gives the credit for first: introducing bees to the South Island to Mrs AI loin, wife of Mr A. J. Allom, of Parnell. She sent, thorn from England consigned to Captain Wakefield, who was in charge of the Nelson settlement. They came m the barque Clifford in May, 1842. For her successful effort the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, London, in 1845 awarded her the silver Isis medal.

■V completely follow blackbird, seen near Mr A. J. Symons’s residence, Bailing I on. a Chrislehtireh suburb, is an ornithological orielity. Partial and complete albino blackbirds are seen occasionally wherever blackbirds lake up their abode in largo numbers. Their abnormal colouration seldom takes a yellow form. Abnormal yellow on birds’ plumages usually displaces green. It is commonest m parrots and parrakects. In those cases, il is believed, the yellow is a reversion to a former colour, or is a case of arrested development, caused by the absence of (he green-making supers!ruelure of the feathers affected. The abnormal replacement of another colour by yellow is known technically as zanthoehroism, literally "yellow colour.” Birds in New Zealand ■.seem to have a greater tendency towards •/.nnlhochroisni than has been noted in llto birds of any other country. Perhaps the most brilliant example of the principle is (he skin of a kakapo formerly in one of Sir Waller Puller's collections of New Zealand birds, and now in Canterbury Museum. The kakapn’s regulation dross is metallic green, varied with brown. The .specimen m Canterbury Museum is a, light, bright, and very beautiful yellow from the top of its head lo its tail.

Two olh'T New Zealand parrots, the ken and the kaka. are subject, In zauthocliroisni. A beautiful kea shot by kea-hunters at the head of the b'hotover River. Otago, hail a plumage of vivid orange yellow. A kaka -old to a collector many years ago for £lO 10;. bad a plumage generally of canary yellow, with brighter washes of yellow on the breast, shoulders, and upper surfaces of the wing.-. The lower par! of its hack, its rump, and its upper (nil-coverts, by wav of sham eoiilf««t. were bright scarlet, (some ornithologists have placed about six or eight samples of vivid kakas in n variety of their 'own, named the belled kaka, and ‘ bearing, in' ornithological literature, the

name of Prince d’Essling, of Paris. In members of that family there is faint yellow on the crown of (he head. The check feathers are wine red, the feathers over (he ears orange. The most conspicuous colours are on the breast feathers, which are arterial red. with orange borders. Below them there is; a bright belly-band of canaryyellow, 2t,in wide, which has given the variety its popular name. Sir Walter Buller heard that a member of this interesting variety had been shot at Collingwood. lie instructed his agent to buy it, hut was (old that. the. young- man who shot the bird hod presented the skin to his sister, who would not sell it. Following the tactics of Canon Tristram, a famous English ornithologist, who secured a rare bird skin from a lady by giving a handsome Paris hat in exchange. Sii- Bailer Buller offered an exchange of the same naiure. lint without success. A short time later there was a death in the young lady's family, and Sir ’.Valter's agent induced her to accept- a mourning costume (or the gorgeous “Nestor Failing ii.’