IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2929, 4 May 1910, Page 13

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN NEW ZEALAND. (By James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.) Mr F. S. Whitcombe, a son of Mr C. D. Whitcombe, at one time Commissioner of Crown Lands in Taranaki, writes from Laulala, Fiji, where, he says, these notes are read with much interest. Some months ago he read a statement by Mr A. Aitken, of Waihi, that fish in Central Australia possess some unknown power of continuing their species. He has observed the same peculiarity in the islands in which •he lives. After a few days' rain, sometimes after only a few heavy showers, following upon a dTOUght, eels and " koras," fresh-water crayfish, are found in large numbers. He states that he has dug up eels from absolutely dry swamps, from 4in upwards. He believes that eels, koras, and other fish, called " bales," remain dormant until the rain falls, sometimes for several months. Mr Whitcombe joins with Mr W. W. Smith and other correspondents in giving the kingfisher a bad character. " I used to love that bird,'" he says, " but since I have lived down here I kill all I can. It is a perfect pest. It is the chickens' worst enemy, with the exception of the mongoose. It sits on a tree near a brood of chickens until one is separated from the •hen. Then it darts down like a flash of green lightning and either kills or blinds its victim."

Mr A. F. Basset Hull, of Sydney, who visited Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island some time ago, informs me that several birds well known in New Zealand are natives of the islands.^The kingfisher is as plentiful there as it is here. On the sides of the main road, close to the township of Kingston, on Norfolk Island, its breeding-holes, tunnelled in the clayey or sandy banks, may be counted by hundreds. In one bank, which is specially suitable for boring, he counted no fewer than 40 holes in a space of 6ft by 4ft. On Lord Howe Island the kingfisher bears as bad a reputation as in New Zealand, and is usually shot at tight when it approaches •too near the fowlyard; but on Norfolk Island it is looked upon as a harmless bird, and is even held in affectionate regard. It is. called " Norfolker," shortened to " Noffka," a name given to it by the Pitcairn Islanders when they settled on the island. Another Ne-.v Zealand bird, the pectoral rail, also breeds on both islands. The pukeko and the swamp rail breed on Norfolk Island, and the latter ia a casual visitor to Lord Howe Island. Two Norfolk Island parrots, the only members of the genus Nestor besides the kea and the kaka, are believed to be extinct. A Lord Howe member of the great Notornis genus, Notornis alba, or the white Notornis, has been given a place in the Hon. Walter Rothschild's. "Extinct Birds," but Mr Basset, Hull says that he would not be surprised to learnth?t a specimen had been found in the recesses of the mountains, many parts of which have not been explored. On Lord Howe Island there is a wood-hen which is closely alli3d to New Zealand's wckas. The godwit has been known to visit Lord Howe Island, and the shining cuckoo and long-tailed cuckoo have been recorded on both islands. On Norfolk Island the Pitcairn Islanders called the long-tailed cuckoo the " home owl " on account of its habitat extending to their old home on Pitcairn Island. They regarded it as an owl, apparently, because it* is semi-noc-turnal in its habits-

Mr Elsdon Best, dealing with the position occupied by "eels in the folk lore of the ancient Maoris, says that, according to belief, eels, inanga, and some other riverfish, as well as the koko-bird (the tui) were the offspring of the star Rehua, ■which Mr Best thinks is Antares. When the cold of autumn arrives, but before the commencement of the new year —the Pleiades year of the Maori—Rehua sends out the sign that calls uoon those fish to migrate to the sea, to bring forth their young there, in the presence of their ancestress, Wainui, the Ocean. The sign is a red gleam in the sky. There aire three migrations of the inanga to the sea. One of them is marked by the star Takero. After spawning, the old inanga return first to the rivers, and leave the young ones behind, to follow them some time after. The first inanga migration to the sea is that of Kohi a Autahi: the second is known as Takero, from the name of the star.

In regard to a note from Lieutenant Cox. of the Chatham Islands, published on March 9, referring to the plant Ligusticum dieffenbachii, which grows there, | Mr Henry H. Travers writes stating that he is the discoverer of the plant. He first found it, in 1863, on the sides of a cliff at Tiki-tiki, near Waitangi, on the main island, where it was not very plentiful. Sir Ferdinand von Mueller, to whom Mr Travers sent it, with other plants, called it Ginsidium dieffenbachii, in honour of T)r Dieffenbach, who was the first to bring into scientific notice plants from the Chatham Islands. It is described and | figured in Mueller's " Vegetation of the , Chatham Islands." The material sent by Mr Travers was not very satisfactory, | but was all that cr.uld be obtained. Muel- i ler mentions that it and other plants then j called Gingidium needed a more extensive scrutiny in the field before their specific j values could be ascertained. Sir Joseph; Hooker, in his " Handbook of New Zea- j "•and Flora." calls it " Ligusticum Dieffenbachii," and it is now-called " Aciphylla ; Dieffenbachii." When Captain Dorrien j Smith visited the Chathams in December ; last he found it fairlv common on the sea | coast not far from the Horns. Mr Tra- j vers believes that the actual place is called i the Tuku, near the residence of Lieutenant Cox's daughter. He also states that a few specimens still exist on the side of the cliff on the eastern side of Flower Pot Bay, j Pitt Island. He describes it as a very handsome plant, well worth cultivating. j