THE NATURALIST. INSTINCT IN BIRDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2258, 10 June 1897, Page 48

THE NATURALIST. INSTINCT IN BIRDS.

By Richard Hekry.

In the loneliest localiJ.y the robin is the tamest of birds. Though neither itself nor ita near relations could have seen a man in many a place hero for poSßibly a hundred yeare.' yet it hops into our tent to-day with a confidence and knowledge that cannot bs otherwise than inherited. It was not big enough to be killed for food, but was respectfully sociable and perfectly harmless, which begot; it the friendship of mem Their crumbs itt return bsgat them the friendship of the robin ; and thus they may have existed for ages, until Nature approved of the printing-, and though afterward they scattered all over the world and changed their colour and form, they carry that imprint still. My two gceae on Pigeon Island could not be induced to go a yard into tho bush — afraid of foxe?, I suppose, though there is not a fox in New Zealand ; and iv my absence during a spell cf extra dry weather they both died of thirst rather than go up to water holes a hundred yards in the bush, sodeen and so lasting was that old fear imprinted." The friendliuess of the Maori hens may also b8 the result of «a very old imprint, though it does not look likely at first on account of their value as food. Yet the id«a is very forcible that theira Js an inherited friendship like that of the robin's. Those thafc never naw a man before will not only como up and stay with up, but will follow us about in the bush if we do not hunt them away. To account for this we have fo hazard a dive into tha early history of New Zealand, with very little to start from. It is admitted that the Maoris are only comparatively recent arrivals here, and that they brought the dogs and rata ; that they found a people here when they came whom they either mixed with or ate, as they did the Chatham islanders, but we need not think that this is anything like the whole history of the habitation of one of the oldest pieces of dry land on eartb. This story may have been repeated time after time, with the excßption that each new arrival came almost without plants or animala, thoiigh some may havo brought the kiwia from Bourbon, the moaa from Madagascar, and the natornis from Norfolk Island — nothing impossible with the time and changes thafc we know of. We find nearly the same rough stone tools hore that ware found in tho caves of Devonshire, where Mr Pewgally thinks they had 4ain for at least 300,000 years. At all events there was plenty cf time for the old natives of New Zealand to make friends with the woodhona — that *i», if they had no degs, for a slight tasfce of hunting would havo mada them aB wild as rabbits. It was useless for the men to hunt them, and silly to do so, when they wera so ' easily decoyed with a bait and snared with a loop on the end of a stick. So thafc they were of necessity saved from tha greatest terror an animal can fee! — that of being buujfced. forifcs life. P.irts of the Canterbury plains used to bs swarming with grasshoppers and woodhens wherever there was matagouri or scrub for refuge. They were all H^ht-colonred and about twice the siza of the dark bush hens, bufc a little ohy, because dogs had been hunting them for years, so that their original tameness was almost proof that tha old natives had no doga. 1 Then as there was nothirg to eafc the scraps and refuse, the villagers would hava been glad of the woodhen's company for that alone, to say nothing about their value as food. An old uhark thrown on tha beach and well fly-blown would have made a whole company of hens fat and happy, and would have begot a friendly feeling for their entertainers which those tbat felt the onare had no power to counteract. Thus thay wars the most suitable domestic fovrla that could have been invented, for we have some slight evidence that the old natives may have had a community oE interest thafc dispensed with our necessity of private ownership, and tbat an eel or a waka was delicious to their taste ; so that Nature must have noted tha mutual benefit, and having proved it for ages, ordered that imprint for transmission to the woodhena which they Bhow now when they maefc us here in the buah ;and there -may thus have been domestic fowla in New Zealand before over a rooster landed in England. (

There ia a smaller percentage of light geld coins afloat in London than anywhere in the United KiDgdooa. In Paris there are 65,000 dressmakers and 70 000 persons who make artiolea of women's dress. The yearly amount earned in this business i« over £50,976,000. — Saws hays been discovered in Norway and Denmark which -belonged to the bronze age. The metal of which they were composed was cask into a thin shaft, and serrated by breaking the edge. Equally interesting discoveries have been made in America. It has been found thafc saws made of obsidian— a kind of lava produced by volcanoes— were used during tho stona age in Mexico. '