THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3100, 13 August 1913, Page 68

THE NATURALIST.

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN

NEW ZEALAND

By James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S. A spider which kills large moths has been brought under observation by Mr W. W. Smith, of New Plymouth. It is a large native spider named Epeira corrugatum, with a chocolate-black head and a black body bearing corrugations and blackish-brown and greenish-brown markings. Mr Smith has found it in the interstices of window fittings in an old house. It lives in concealment and subsists chiefly on nocturnal insects that become entangled in its strong webs. These usually are spun across corners of the window-panes, several long threads fastened to the window frames giving the webs strength and buoyancy. While Mr Smith was catching large moths at night in the old house he found that several moths became entangled in the webs. A spider, concealed in its niche, felt the movements of the web caused by a moth’s struggles, and came slowly and cautiously along the outer strands towards the captive, which it seized. It then applied its powerful poison-fang to the right side of the moth’s thorax. The moths have powerful wings, and the body of a large and healthy moth would weigh as much as the bodies of seven or eight spiders: but every moth caught and bitten immediately collapsed into a state of amesthesia. For several seconds the wings gave a few faint vibrations or tremulous motions, and then the moth seemed to be quite still.

In order to ascertain how long signs of life remained in the insects after they had received the venom, Mr Smith collected several and placed them under an inverted glass. He found that with some males there were faint signs of life in the antennae on the second day. The females lived longer. With them, by the help of a strong lens, lie detected very slight twitchings of the antennae and of the extremity of the ovipositor on tiro third day. The remarkable potency of the venom preserved the large bodies! They were fit for food for several days, and during that time the spiders were able to subsist upon them. Many of the moths killed were not oaten. Mr Smith believes that the moths he describes, which belong to the genus Pormina, are the largest species of insect destroyed by a native spider. He points out, by the way. that spiders are attacked and destroyed by almost exactly the same methods as they adopt towards their victims. The two large and beautiful species of native wasps—Salius fugas and Salius carhonarius—hunt large spiders, sting them, cause them to become torpid, drag them to the nests, tear them to pieces, and place them in the wasps’ clay colls to feed the wasps’ larvre that emerge from the eggs. Mr Smith also describes a remarkable case of reciprocal parasitism. A small fly, whose species is unknown at present, is eaten by a spider, which swallows the eggs that are in the fly’s body. The eggs develop into larvte, which grow- rapidly, and in their turn destroy the spider. Mr H Mair. of Whangarei, has, sent a newspaper clipping recording the presence of an albino bittern in a swamp at Onerahi, about five miles from Whangarei town At first the bird was mistaken by a local resident for a piece of paper amongst the tea-tree bushes, but when it gave a booming note he realised that it was a bittern. Fortunately' he tad not taken his gun with him, and the

bittern, fin-ding concealment amongst the vegetation, eluded his efforts to capture it. Onerahi is the point of a peninsula which juts out into Whangarei Harbour. It is devoid of trees, but contains several swamps, and at one time was a resort of many of these birds. About -40 years ago a settler shot 12 bitterns at a place which rs now on the boundaries of the town. As far as my knowledge goes, this is the first occasion upon which an albino biltern has been recorded in New Zealand. Iho tendency towards albinism has been noted. In" the Hon. Walter Rothschild’s museum at Tring, tor instance, there is a skin showing a lighter plumage than the blackish brown and buff of the common bittern, and many years ago a specimen obtained at Foxton had a large white patch on each shoulder and on the back of t lie neck. But a pure albino bittern, evidently, has not yet fallen into the hands of a collector or museum, curator.

While tn thing on the bittern. I am tempted to quote a paragraph from Sir Walter Buller’s “ Supplement,” published in 1905, as it shows how death was dealt out to the native birds before a cry was raised for their protection. Sir Walter describes the west coast of the Wellington province before the Wellingtou-Mana-watu railway ran through it, and lie says;

“ From the Uruhi Swamp, near Waikanae, I obtained a never-failing supply of fine specimens of bitterns, always generously assisted thereto by my good friend the old Waikanae sailor, Bill Jenkins, who was himself a keen sportsman, and loved to flush a bittern, for the bird never escaped his sure aim, although even at that time he was quite an old man. J remember on one occasion shooting an adult male bittern on the border of this swamp, and the wounded bird, with a broken wing nearly deprived me of one of my eyes by a well-directed thrust of his stiletto-like bill. I had been warned by Jenkins, who was an expert, but this personal experience made me far more careful afterwards. Now nearly all this country is covered with smiling farms supporting contented homes, and old Jen kins sleeps with his race in the picturesque churchyard at Otaki. What bitterns are left have retired to the great Makercrua Swamp further up the coast, but this, too, is rapidly yielding to a great system of drainage. A few have taken refuge with me at Papaitonga, and these will receive all the attention they need.’’

Dealing with other birds near Whangarei, Mr Mair states that on an island near the Heads there is' a colony of the small heron, probably the white-fronted species, which has a bluish-grey back, white on the throat and forehead and over the eye, and a tinge of pink on the breast. The colony has been there, to Mr Mair’s knowledge, for more than 20 years. At one time, also, some species of penguins nested on the island, as well as at Onerahi, where one of the sites was a hollow puriri log. “ Fantails,’’ Mr Mair says, “ still hold their own about rny house and shrubbery. 1 have a swinging chair gn the verandah, and they perch on a wire just above my bead. Sometimes they enter the drawing-room through the window. Kingfishers have bored holes in an old willow stump, and there they hatch their young. Tuis come occasionally, especially when the pollutekawa trees are in bloom. The town is rapidly surrounding rny residence—l still have about 30 acres, 10 of which are in native bush—and these are the oulv native birds that visit us now.”

From Te Mahoe Maukn, in the Auckland province, Mr Melvill Crispe writes stating that, amongst many other duties, he rears large numbers of poultry. A part of his poultry farm is set aside for a duck-run, which has a continuous stream of water. There are usually about 200 ducks in the run. For some reason most of the eggs laid are found in the. water. The creek is shallow, and as the water, which comes front a spring, is bright and clear little difficulty is experienced in securing the eggs. Mr Crispe, however, has been greatly annoyed by finding that many of them have been sucked, sometimes only a piece of empty shell being left. For some time be attributed the depredations to rate and wekas, both of which are a “ veritable pest ” to him ; but one morning, when gathering the eggs, he saw a large fat eel lying lazily beside the bank. The thought occurred to him that the eel might have some knowledge of the affair, and lie pinned it with a digging fork and brought it to land. A post-mortem examination showed that it was full of yolks and whites of eggs, and also contained several pieces of shells. Since that discovery was made more eels have been caught, and in all of them there have been eggs. “ I think that these facts mav interest your readers,” Mr Crispe adds: ‘T do not suppose that eggs are amongst the usual items of eels’ diet. but my experience shows how quickly they can adapt themselves to new food. Frequently I have known legs to bo taken off young ducks. On one occasion I found a full-grown runner with a foot missing. I caught the eel which had committed the offence, and found the foot inside it. At this time of the year, July, wekas are specially troublesome. Eggs laid outside of the netting yards are immediately sucked. 7 have seen wekas waiting close to nests until the hens come

off. These birds are easily trapped. An ordinary rat-trap placed at the approach to a rest full of china eggs never fails to catch the thief. Tn your columns some time aero there was a note in regard to hens killing young ducks after sitting on the eggs for four weeks. I have experienced this annoyance with my hens also, hut as it often happens in respect to ordinary chickens. T think that it does not disclose any evil disposition towards the young ducks, but merely shows that some female birds have an unnatural inclination to destroy their own offspring.’’