IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19011, 6 November 1923, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

AUSTRALIAN SWALLOWS FOR NEW ZEALAND. By J. Dkummoxi). F.L.S., F.Z.S. A suggestion is made by Mr A. J. Rutherfurd. Alfrodton, that an attempt should be made to acclimatise the Australian swallow in New Zealand. Like its relative in the Old Country, it has an annual migration, avoiding extremes of heat and cold. A few swallows pass the winter in Sydney, but most go north for the two coldest months. They are very plentiful in Sydney in summer. They hawk insects in graceful curves all day long, and are strictly insectivorous. It is staled that they are so indifferent to the presence of human beings that they circle around a cricket ground during a match, and that sometimes, late in the afternoon. when the light is weak, one has been mistaken for a cricket ball. The favourite site for the nests, made of mud or clay, reinforced with grass, is in deep clefts of rocks or dark caverns in places unfrequented bv Europeans, but "since settlement began in Australia sites have been selected under verandahs and eaves, in barns and outhouses. and occasionally in chimneys. The only objection to introducing the Old World’s swallows to New Zealand seems to be the probability that this country is unsuitable for their migrations. The family is almost cosmopolitan; there is hardly a country except Now Zealand that they do not live in. Australian swallows straggle over the Tasman Sea to Now Zealand at long intervals. Mr W. Townson. Thames, saw some on the West Coast many years ago. Air H. Cinthrie-Smith recorded some at Hahia Peninsula, near Gisborne. 30 years ago. In the same year, 1893. it was reported that a pair built a nest and hatched young in a mill near Oamarn. This is the onlv record of swallows having nested in Now Zealand. Mr Rullierfurd writes: teresting to show by actual experiment whether the two main islands in this country offer a sufficient field for migration to these useful little birds, or whether they need wider fields. It is difficult to keep them in captivity; they knock themselves about, and practically cannot be fed. Some might be netted near Svdney, placed in a dark box with ice and blanket lining, (he temperature b"ing sufficiently brut down in transit to make the birds sleepy and tornld. They could lie libor’ted imnu’diflteh- on their arrival in New Zealand. I* would be an interesting experiment, but would require care. It is “•'"'re that, the swallow family. the TTirnndinidfp. is renre--onf.g] in Australia, but not in New Zealand. Here is another nuest.ion for naturalists; V’h-- do snipe miss the mnin-i-ind o' New Zealand l-t .■-habit the Auckland. Campbell, and Chatham Islands, and the Snares?” A nesting colony of crested penguins, which breed on the southern coast of the mainland of this dominion, as well as on the Snares, was under close observation by Mr R. StUajt-SuthoiTand, lighthouaekeoper on Cuvier Island, for three consecutive seasons. He describes the upper surface of a newly hatched crested penguin as covered with down of a dull sooty black; its breast and abdomen are dirty white; its eyes arc bluish, sometimes greyish-blue, sometimes china-blue. The tail feathers begin to sprout near the end of the second month. There is a good growth of feathers at the end of the third month, and at the end of the fourth month the bird is fully feathered from the tail to below the shoulders. The canary-yellow crest, the bird s most showy ornament, comes at the end of the sixth month, in the form of a yellow line above the eye. At (he end j of the twelfth month, the young can be distinguish-d from the grown-ups bv only 1 the bill, which is duller. The crest usually is clear canary-yellow, and occasionally is finely streaked and tipped with black. On some vigorous young birds the full crests ;n-e five inches long. and are more profuse than on some adults, whose crests usually are about .four inches long. “A pair of pied fantails last year built their nest close to where a mate and I were working in a cutting. ’ Air G. K. Alarton writes from Halfmoon Bay, Stewart Island. “We watched them gather horsehair from the tramline to line their nest , with, and saw them relieving each other on the neat after tho eggs were laid. There were only two eggs. When the young birds were about 10 days old, a sncll of very cold weather came along, with showers of bail, and the youngsters died. The adults carried many insects to the nest after *b- death of I heir young. Tho pied fantail is more plentiful hero than the black fantail: also, I think, in other parts of this island! Tuis. bellbirds, and other ( native birds are plentiful. The tui is (he first, bird heard in the morning and the last at night; it is almost dark when the tui’s | last notes are heard. The native shrubs this year arc flowering early, and the cle- ( malis is a pretty sight,” ! “We hove been favoured by unusual visi- , tors this year,” Sifter Alison. Presbyterian Maori Alission, Taumarunui, wrote on October 10. “The hell bird, which I , have not seen before in the town, and , have heard comparatively rarely in virgin ( forest, has visited the gardens every morn- ( ing for weeks, attracted bv the wealth of bloom on flowering currants and tagaraste. } The robin and a rail, probably the marsh rail, have been reported in gardens on me ; outskirts of (he town. The birds I have mentioned arc seen hem so seldom, even in J the forest, that (heir appearance has made this season quite a notable one.” ' Fossil plants found in the bed. of the Mataura River, in the Mataura township, Southland, have been assigned by paleontologists to the Jurassic Period, about the middle of the Mesozoic Era. Most of the fossils represent fern-like plants. One of the plants, perhaps, the. most characteristic in the Mataura beds.. is identical with ok plant found in Jurassic rock in the Rajma- ! hnl Minis, India: -another old-time Mataura ] Jurassic plant is allied to a plant found in the same beds in India. Still another ‘ of the Alataura plants was abundant in ’ Middle Jurassic times in England. These 1 Mataura plants are interesting as they help ! to show tho plant covering ot that part of j this country hundreds of thousands of years * ago, but they are less interesting than the s Jurassic fossils at Curio Bay. Waikawa,' ‘ on the Southland coast, where in addition < to many fossil plants of the ordinary type, there is a petrified Jurassic forest, exposed 1 by the action of ttie sea on *hc shore line, f near high-water mark. Few fossil forests of < the Mesozoic Era arc known; (ho one at J Curio Bay is the mo.st remarkable of them { all | The trees that formed that Jurassic forest \ seem to have been mostly connections of ( the Norfolk Island pine, judging by the c type of structure shown in tho fossil wood. | On the ground around their trunks probably. . there were masses of a fern-like plant known ( as the groat Mesozoic weed, whose remains are found in rich abundance in Aleso- a zoic rooks throughout the Southern Homi- s sphere. It is, without exception, the most j abundant species of plant in New Zealand’s c ATesozoic floras. Amongst the places in f which it grow are Curio Bay, Owaka, Cat- [ liri’s River. Mataura Falls. Hedgehopc, p Alakarewa, Macrae’s, and Ifokonui Hills, in q Southland and Otago; AXount Potts, tho f, dent Hills, and Malvern Hills. Canterbury; and Waikato Heads, Auckland; and doubt- a less every other part of Mesozoic New <j Zealand. Associated with the Aleso- h zoic weed at Waikato Heads was a n primitive flowering plant. It left im- t] prints of three, of its leaves, mingled with the imprints of many fronds of , v tho Mesozoic weed, on a large slab of ~ Lower Cretaceous rock. later than the Jtt- tl rassic Period, but still in the Mesozoic Era. Its affinities, as far as the network of the t| veins on the fragments can be read by paleontologists, were with the banyan and n the breadfruit tree. Cf u Air J. R. Pratt reports that the white- ft head, or bush canary, and the rifleman p. wren, the smallest bird in New Zealand, vv arc fairly plentiful in the Rangitoto Ranges, west of .TV Knili, and in forests between n Alokai and Lake Taupo. “White-heads,” ot he writes, “always are very noisy, part.icu- (t larly when it is going to rain. I have | al counted os many as 20 in one flock, and (1 never less than eight or ten. These two ot species seem to bo absolutely insectivor- si A PENNY STAAIP. £ ■ ai OPEN DOOR TO PROFITS. 0 _ rn ai Big profits from timber—pinns insignis 1 trees can be milled in 15-20 years, and produce a big crop of useful timber for which (hero is an ever-increasing demand. Three A thousand acres are to bo planted near Bolgrove. 22 miles by rail from Nelson, by Nelson Pino Forest (Limited). A successful forest of this kind should nay, after hi 20 years, £IOOO for every £IOO invested. Now invest a penny stamp -write for free jj' booklet to Nelson Pine Forest (Limited), Nelson.—Advt, A