IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2923, 23 March 1910, Page 80

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN NEW ZEALAND. (By James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.) It is gratifying to know that the New Zealand frog, which was a somewhat mysterious little creature for many years, is still receiving the attention of observers. Major Mair deserves the credit for having recently " discovered" it and brought it out from its isolated position into public view. Since his note appeared some months ago the literature relating to this Dominion's only native amphibian has been .largely increased, and people know a good deal more about it now than they did previously. ' The latest addition to', knowledge on the "subject comes from Mr A. C. Jameson, of Fort street, Auckland. He states that during a recent visit to Coromandel he was fortunate enough to obtain some specimens on the eastern slopes of Tokatea. He obtained 16 specimens, but liberated 13, because of the reports that the frog is rare. The remaining three he sacrificed to the cause of science, and deposited them with Mr T. F. Cheeseman, curator of the Auckland Museum. Of the 16 caught none was larger than a walnut. The skin is covered with little lumps or warts, and they have horizontal bars of light yellowish brown on the front and back of the legs. When swimming they strike out with their hind legs alternately, the front legs being close to the head, and the hands open palms down. He found none actually in the water, and he concludes that they are not as aquatic as the common English frog, which is now found in large numbers in New Zealand. Apparently they prefer the shady side of damp and moss-co\ 7 ered stones. He believes that their staple diet is the ant and its eggs and larvae, as he nearly always found two or three frogs in the vicinity of every ants' nest, if the locality was suitable. The Hon. T. Mackenzie tells me that he was deeply disappointed when he visited the West Coast in the middle of February. The native birds of New Zealand have no more ardent lover than the Minister of Agriculture. He has made their acquaintanship. in some of the. wildest, and roughest parts of New Zealand, in all weathers and at all times, and when* he lays his plans to go out into the back country he looks forward to seeing numbers of his old friends. During his recent tour from Nelson in the north all through that part of the island to the Franz Josef Glacier in the south, he was impressed with the absence of birds' songs and of the glint of their plumage amongst the foliage. He saw no paradise ducks, no kakas, no kakapos, no kiwis, and no wekas. He describes the experience as a most depressing one. He blames the stoats and weasels for this state of affairs. He was told that these creatures had spread out over the district in all directions. They attacked even large birds like swans. He was told of one case in which a resident on the Coast had a tame black swan, half-grown. One day he found it dead, with a gash in its throat where a weasel had given it the death bite. ~Mr Sidney Weetman, of.,Remuera, Auckland, who has been acquainted with the shining cuckoo for about 4& years, states that he has heard it on the slopes of Mount Eden as early as September 15. That was in 1908. Mr A. Cooke-Yarborouoh, of Hokianga, told Mr Weetman that he heard one of these migrants at Broadwood, inland from Kohukohu, on October 1,1909, and at the latter place on October 5, and Mr Weetman heard one at PuTewa Ceme-

tery on October 7, in the same year. He says that it would be interesting to know the earliest date on record of the cuckoo's arrival in New Zealand. Mr C. L. M'Call, of Amodeo Bay, Coromandel, states that at the end of January last, as he was going through the bush, he heard a strange sound in a puriri tree, and was surprised, on makinginvestigations, to find that two young shining cuckoos were being fed by a grey warbler. They were full-grown and properly feathered, and they followed the warbler round. As soon as she fed one with hopper-moths, it would take a rest. Then the other would go squeaking after her until it also received a hopper-moth. The unfortunate foster-mother was having a bad time, and seemed to be exhausted with the work of feeding two hungry youngsters double her own size. Several days afterwards the same family was seen near the same place. Mr W. W. Smith, who has tuis in captivity in New Plymouth, writing in regard to Mr F. Williamson's notes on the varying calls and songs of these birds, says that tuis are very apt and able imitators of other birds, and readily acquire a number of notes, with which they often interpolate their own musical efforts. One of Mr Smith's tuis has the true notes of several introduced birds. He adds that when the young tuis come from the forests into the farming districts in March and April their calls and songs are natural for a time, but some of them alter considerably in a few months, when the calls or songs of the mynah, starling, blackbird, thrush, linnet, sparrow, and other introduced birds are heard. Mr W. Darit, of Timaru, in reply to Mr R. H. Matthews's question in regard to the breeding of sharks, states that he has caught sharks in a seine net on Rabbit Island beach at Nelson, with fully developed young, in the month of November. One shark 'which he remembers was about sft long, and had 54 young inside it. Last year, when he was in charge of the steamer Mullogh, he caught several in this condition just outside of Lyttelton Heads. On other occasions he has caught sharks with 80 young '.nside. ........ .. . Mr F. T. Frost, of Waimanuku, in the Auckland province,: is interested in the habits of whitebait, and he wishes to obtain information from- the West Coast of the South Island ) where 'these small fish are very plentiful! When he was in the Waikato district at the end of April and the beginning of May he saw whitebait going down to the sea to spawn. Maoris told him that r they. had caught large quantities in their,traps. In the South Island these fish ascend the rivers about six weeks later than in the Waikato, and he would like to know if the old fish in the south go to the sea later than the first week in May, which is the .time for the journey in the north.