IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 2915, 26 January 1910, Page 13

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN NEW ZEALAND. (By James Diujmmond, f. 1.5., f.z.s.) Mr Edward Tregear, author of " The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary," " The Maori Race," and other works dealing with New Zealand, is the latest contributor to the information that has been collected in regard to the Dominion's native frog. Writing from Wellington, he says : —" I have been interested in your articles on the New Zealand frog, and I may be able to clear up one point—namely, as to the frog's Maori name. I was for some years surveying on the Coromandel Peninsula, the peculiar habitat of this species of frog, and I am one of the few men who, like Sir Percy Smith and Major Mair, have seen the little creature. My survey parties in those days always consisted of Maoris, and on my referring to an old Native friend to learn the frog's name, he gave it to me; but it is 40 years ago, and in the many chances and changes of an adventurous life it slipped my memory. Your remark about its name being ' keneturio' touched some chord of my memory and woke remembrances. It could not be ' kenetunio,' because that is a coined word, an attempt to render in BibleMaori the English word ' centurion,' a Roman captain of soldiers. The word given me was 'very like it, but was ' kaniturehu.' It is almost certainly a compound of ' kani,' 'to dance'—' kanikanf,' a kind of swinging or swaying dance—and ' turehu,' a sort of fairy, a gnome, or an elf. The word would thus mean ' elfin-dancer,' and is really Maori, 'which the other is not. The word is not in my dictionary, or in any other, for it lay asleep in my memory till the. other name, somewhat like it, awoke the recollection." Mr Elsdon Best states that Maoris say ±hat ro eels have ever been seen or taken in <&e lake of Waikarauoana. The only fish in that lake before the introduction of trout was the diminutive maehe. Very few eels have ever been known in the upper waters of the Whakatane River, that is, above Ohaua-te-rangi. They are much more numerous in the head waters of the Waiau River, just across a low .watershed, and of the same altitude as the Upper Whakatane. Both rivers run through similar forest country. ; Are some waters too cold for eels, or ! what? Mr Best asks. Another question he puts to naturalists deals with the upo- | kororo, 'or grayling, scientifically Protot- , roctes axyrnhynchus. This fish, formerly, I was plentiful in rivers on the east coast of the North Island, but none, or very few, have been seen there for years. Mr , Best has seen only one in the past 10 years. That one was caught at Opotiki, in the Bay of Plenty. He wishes to know why this fish has disappeared. The bird life on Mr T. D. Burnett's Mount Cook run, which lies in the fork of the Jollie and Tasman Rivers, writes Mr Johannes C. Andersen, of Christchurch, is not greatly varied, the paradise 1 duck being largely predominant. These , finely plumaged, large birds are very com- | mon, and when he visited the run recently all'he saw, either Hying or on the river flats, were in pairs. Once, in coming down the Jollie,' a duck started up before him, and-laboured along with flapping wings as if it was wounded. " There's a nest somewhere round," said his companion, and after they had followed a short distance the duck rose in the air and flew off, as if satisfied that she had deceived them. The Native name of this duck, <; putangi tangi," is said to have reference to the call which is likened to a lament. If this is so, Mr Andersen says, the notes of the tangi are easily distinguished from the variety of notes uttered. When he heard the notes which are B and B-flat in alt, the bird was flying. The B is short, and _ is slurred to B-flat, the latter note being sustained longer. These two notes are repeated several times in succession. Utner cries of the duck are A in alt several times repeated, with a pause between every two notes; and C in alt, more quickly repeated; and C in alt slurred to D, theT), as in the case of B-M m the tangi, being more drawn out; and * trio of notes, A, D, A, in alt, the A being about half the length of D. In all instances where the «ry consists of more jthan one note the intervals are slurred. The drake's note he did not hear varied; it was always C in the treble stave, and the sound was like that produced with a comb and a piece of paper There was a curious " overtone " sounded with the C. This overtone, E, had not the husky sound of the C, but was. a clear open mote, more like the duck's. It was very faintly sounded, and until he had repeatedly heard it, he suspected bis ea* of playing him false. The duck often Uttered the tangi whilst the drake produced this lower note, both birds flying at the time ; and the mournful sound of the duet induced him. to imagine that the duck was lamenting a lost brood, and that thej drake was doing his utmost to •comfort iier. The ideal place to see the paradise duck is at the Blue Lake Stream, between the Mount Cook Spur and the Tasman Moraine. There groves of varied veronicas, mountain ribbonwood, gaultheria, and other low-growing sub-Alpine trees, form a lovely mountain shrubbery, in a garden of silver-leaved eelmisias, and glorious clumped mountain lilies, as pure white, as the' virginal, autumn, anemone. "When seen in this place," he adds, tT the birds well deserve their.. English name, and may their tangi never cease in the land as was remarked by the owner of the Mount Cook Station, ' they look better on the rivers than on the tables.'" The kea, apparentlj', is regarded with altogether different sentiments there, having been responsible, during the earlier days of the occupancy of the run, for

• the loss of an average of 500 sheep a year over a period of 13 years. Consequently, a kea makes his appearance at his imminent peril. Mr Anderson was fortunate enough to obtain an interview with one I bird, at the edge of the snow on the ' eastern slopes of Mount Burnett, and was 1 able to record its charaeteiistic note. This j was a short E in alt, quickly slurred down ! to G, the G being slowly slurred to G ■ flat. The E had the sound of " kee," ! the G the sound of "ah " ; and the cry is well represented by " keea-a-ah." Sometimes the E was the sustained note, with a quick slur to a short G ; the sound 1 w then " kee-e-e-ah." The former cry i was much more plaintive. The interval j constantly differed, and at times the cry : sounded like the mewing of a lost kitten, | and was so plaintive that one would supi pose the bird to be the injured party, j Mr Anderson and his companion heard ; two or three whilst on the Tasman 'moraine, crying " kee-a-a.-ah " away in , the distance. When flying close at hand, | he says, the bird looks most beautiful seen from below but he could not help connecting the lovely red of its underwing with the blood of its victims. He heard only one grey warbler, and its song showed a slight variation from the song of the warbler in the bush at Stony Bay° Banks Peninsuia. The general theme was the same. Another common bird on the l-iver-bedif, is the dottrell, or " snndlark." Its unvarying cry is a long A in alt, slurred to A flat. Mr C. Curtis, writing from Moeliau, Cabbage Bay, Coromandel, states that he has had both the laughing owl and the " laughing jackass " in captivity. He states that the latter is full cousin to j the mutton-bird, and, in that way, sup- ! plies additional evidence that the " laugh- ■ ing jackass," which ; s? surrounded with a little mystery, is one of the petrels. j He states that the mutton-bird and the j " laughing jackass" make the same kind ! of nest, but that the mutton-bird is"much , darker, and has dark eyes, while the I " jackass " has grey eyes. "As regards i the owl, he says, "the only cry it ever . gave in my hearing was when my dog i must have mistaken it for a rabbit in a j dry, underground watercourse, and started ito worry it. It screeched like a. hawk | caught in a trap. It is wonderful the , speed it can .am with its wings half spread out. The one I had was larger than a ! hawk in bulk, but shorter in the wing, j with legs that looked as thick as a man's i finger, and the only cry I thought made : by the owl was a constant sound like j ' Moke, moke,' slowly, but repealed hour j after hour. As for its crying like a j ' laughing jackass,' I should say it does ~ not do so. I believe it is only the female I ' jackass' that gives the cry, for I have seen many pairs at night, but only one : bird would cry at a time."- " I have heard it stated," writes Mr F. Williamson, of Heiekino, north of Auckland, "that, when pressed for food, crickets will commit cannibalism, but I never saw them attack one that was not injured. I have put a few oats on the i ground and watched these insects carry . them into their holes. I remember, when a boy in the Old Country, digging one i out from the sound of the whistling, j which resembles a penny whistle with a : pea in it, and I think the cricket here lis the same inseet. Although these in- ! sects have wings, they content themselves i with hopping about in the daytime, but at night they begin to fly, and manage to travel a few yards. Now and then one ' alights on an iron roof, 9ft or 10ft high. | Water buckets or tins left out at night j will contain many crickets in the morn- | ing. Finding about six in an empty kero- ' sene tin one clay, I poured some water on | them. They sat on the bottom for a j minute or so, thinking the matter out. j and then walked slowly up the sides and I bobbed their heads out as though nothing | had happened. The this out of which the ! dogs had been drinking milk generally ■ contained two or three crickets, cleaning ' out the quirks. There was an unusual j absence of small birds here in the early : autumn, which no doubt accounted for ■ the number of crickets, but the pheasants 1 and kingfishers waxed fat without doing ! much work until the end of May, when hardly a solitary whistler remained. I There were several larks here feeding on ; the ground all the summer, but I do not i know if they were eating crickets. I noticed that one lark, instead of soaring to sing during the breeding season, as the others did, sat on a post and sang for about 10 minutes at a stretch. It was the best melody heard about here, not ex--1 cepting the song of the tvi."