THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2387, 30 November 1899, Page 60

THE NATURALIST.

Humming: Birds in Trinidad.

Lady Broome's colonial memories in the Oornhill continue to be very interesting. Beferring to humming birds in Trinidad, she remark's : " Soon after we first went there, I found a wee nest on a low branch of a tree close to Government House, with a darling little bird sitting in it. I peeped cautiously very often during the next few days, and the young mother grew so accustomed to my visits that she would let me stand within a yard of the bough. At last some inidroscopic fragments of eggshell appeared on the moss beneath, and on my next visit, when. the little hen was away getting food, I beheld a thing very like a bee Arith a beak. This object seemed to grow a-mazingly every few hours, so that in a week it looked quite like a respectable bird. Imagine my rage and despair v when I found one morning the branch broken off and the baby bird dead on the ground, so interesting as its -manners and customs the sake of the sixpence it would fetch, next time a tourist-laden yacht came in! ! A much happier fate attended a humming Bird which built its nest in a" small palm, growing in a friend's drawing room. I £aid many visits to that drawing room during the bird's occupancy, and anything so interesting as its mariners and cusoms cannot be imagined. Instead of bringing material from outside for the nest, the tiny builder requisitioned the floss silk from an

embroidered cushion apd the wool from a ball-fringe. The nest,* unusually gay in colour, hung down a couple of inches from one of the serrated points of the palm leaf ; but when I was first invited to come and look on, it was not quite completed to lift feathered lady's satisfaction^ fojr she

still darted in and out of the open windows and aftbut the room. The master of the house, at my request, seated himself in his usual armchair, and- opened his news--paper, and I made myself as small as I could in a distant corner. Out patience was soon. rewarded, "for. there was the little bird balancing itself with its vibrating wings just ' above . the newspaper. However, as no building material was forthcoming from that source, she flashed over to my corner, and quicker than the eye could follow, -had' snatched a thread of silk from a work table,- and was off to her work again. The little creature got quite tame, and her confidence was well placed, for nothing could exceed the charming kindness of her host and hostess. The eggs were laid and hatched in due time, and the master of the house told me he . used to get up at the day dawn and open his drawing room window to let the little mother out to get food for her babies. This necessitated his remaining the rest of the morning in the drawing room, as he said it would not have been safe to have left it. I naturally thought he feared for the safety of his wife's pretty things, but oh, no — what he guarded was the nest, lest it should meet the fate of mine and be stolen. It was on this, occasion I found out what humming birds' feed on. The popular idea is that they live on honey, and attempt's have often been made to keep them in captivity on honey, or sugar and water, with the result that the poor little birds died of starvation in a day or two. The honey theory has sprung from seeing the birds darting their long bills and still longer tongues into the cups of honey-bear-ing flowers. What they are getting, however, is not honey, but the minute inseck which is attracted and caught by the honey. "-

The Elephant. — The elephant has only one enemy — man. It fears none of the animals. In addition to intelligence relatively superior to theirs, it possesses strength, size, courage if "need be, and, moreover, a sense of touch more delicate than that' of any of them, even the monkey. It travels everywhere, swims like an amphibian and crosses ravines and rivers, forests and thickets, without distinction. Everything, gives way before it. It climbs 1 and descends hills which one would think inaccessibb to it ; it crosses whole countries in a night, like an undisputed master in his vast domains ; it is here, there, and everywhere, hiding like a mouse despite its great size, and noiselessly disappearing like an unseizable Proteus, much to the discomfort of »the hunter ; finally, if its life is spared, it is leady to become once more, as in former times when it fought by his side, the ally, the friend, the servant, and the protector of man. The elephant is the true king of animals. Compare this noble animal with tLo useless lion, that nocturnal prowler at \'.\a mercy of a pack of wolves.— Edouard Fox.

These Animals Climb.— Primeval man was not a climber, nor do animals take to it without a long course of development. African natives who have lived in one-storey huts ' show the greatest fear of climbing stairs, and will sometimes go up on hands and knees. Dogs often have to* be trained to • climb stairs, instinctively entrusting the upper storeys. ' It has been conjectured that this is because the dog"? forelegs break easily below the shoulder, and the beast seems to realise this. The fox has no such fear, and has been known to climb a tree with plenty of small limbs to the height of 17ft. Swimming comes easier than climbing to most animals, as well as to many races of men. Rats and guinea pigs can swim well, and do not climb at all. Bears can climb well if little, but the grizzly and other large species stay mainly on the ground. A bear always climbs down a tiee backwards^ as does ilie

domestic cat until she has nearly reached the ground, when she turns and jumps; but most wild cats ran down a trunk head first, even 'the heavy leopard being a more skilful -climber 'than the light hojise" -cat-,.. The tiger and lion, howevefr, do not climb, for no discoverable reason unless it be that they fear falling, on account of their weight.

A Dangerous Reptile. — The fer-de-larice is found on the islands of Martinique and Santa Lucia, where the natives counteract its virus with a decoction of jungle hemlock," and the basis of its gruesome reputation seems to be the fact that it does not warn the intruders of its haunts, after the manner of the cobra or the rattlesnake,' but flattens its coils and, with slightly vibrating tail, awaits events. If the 'unsuspecting traveller should show, no sign of hostile intent he may be allowed to pass unharmed within two yards of the coiled matadore, but a closer approach is apt to be construed as a challenge, and the vivoron, suddenly rearing its ugly head, may scare the trespasser into some motion of "self-defence ; he may lift his foot or brandish his stick in a menacing manner. If he does he is lost. The lower coils will expand, bringing the business end, neck and all, a few feet nearer; the head "points" like ' a levelled rifle, then darts forward with electric swiftness, guided by an un : erring instinct, for the selection of the least protected parts . of the body. And the vindictive brute is ready to repeat Its bite. For a moment it rears back, trembling with excitement, and if felled by a blow of its victim's stick, will snap away savagely at stumps and stones, or even, like a wounded panther, at its own body.