THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3148, 15 July 1914, Page 68

THE NATURALIST.

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE. NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY IN NEW ZEALAND. (By Jamxs Drummond, F.L.8., F.Z.8.) The movements of the shining cuckoo have engaged the attention of Mr A. W. Babbage, of Kawhia. Mr F. A. D. Cox has written to him stating that the migrant arrives regularly at the Chathams on September 17, a few weeks earlier than it appears every year at Kawhia, which is on the west coast of the North Island. Usually it is seen first at Te Whakum, the northeastern point of the main island of the Chathams, and when it reaches the land it has a Wet and tired appearance. .. “The parallel 44-deg south latitude passes through almost the centre of this island,” Mr Cox says, “ and therefore it is far more southerly, than Kawhia. This island is by no means as warm at Kawhia. Why should the bird come here first? I am sorry to say that it does not come in anything like the numbers in which it came previously. J think that the cause of this falling off is the rareness of birds, notably the grey warbler, in whose nests the cuckoo places its eggs. It leaves this island in March, presumably to return to Australia.” Mr Babbage, commenting cn this letter, says that it supports a theory that the shining cuckoo comes to New Zealand from the oast, not from Australia and the north-western islands. The geographical distribution of the bird shows that its winter homo is in the west. It has been reported from eastern Australia and from Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island, both of which are north-west of New Zealand, stretching out towards Australia. A specimen once was caught at sea between Lord Howe Island and this dominion. Probably it was on its way between the two places. The groups of islands north-east of New Zealand -are the Cook, Society, and Austral Islands, but the shining cuckoo has been reported from none of them, although its congener, the longtailed cuckoo, is found in all those groups. For the present, therefore, it is reasonable to accept the theory that the shining cuckoo comes from the west, where it 'makes its winter home.

Mr Cox, who has a deep knowledge of plant life on the Chathams, where he has lived for about half a century, agrees with a statement by Mr C. Nairn, of Cabbage Bay, Coromandel, that there is no evidence to show that the native flax dies after it flowers. “I cannot speak very confidently in regard to New Zealand,” Mr Cox writes, “ because soon after I arrived in the colony in 1863 I left it and came to this island. During my long residence here I never saw an instance of a flax plant dying after it had flowered. Our flax does not flower every year. In some years there are no flowering stems —the Maoris call them korari—then a year comes when the flowering is general." In Bishop Williams’s Maori Dictionary it is stated that the word korari is used not only Tor the flowering stem, but also for the plant, while harakeke is used for the plant alone. In this island the Maoris use korari for the flowering stem and harakeke for the plant. The prepared fibre is called muka.” Mr Elsdon Best has recorded Maori names for no fewer than 11 different vaieties of flax, but the general name, he says, is harakeke.

The flax of the Chatham Islands is slightly different from the forms common in New Zealand. The leaves of the former have a very graceful droop at the ends, and perhaps the Chatham Islands plant has a better appearance in gardens. On the main island of the Chatham group at one time it grew in great profusion in clear spaces. Thirteen years ago, when Dr L. Cockayne made a botanical survey of the island, he found that the flax supplied an exceptionally good illustration of the changes made upon a plant by constant burning and by the attacks and trampling of animals, After the fire went through the flax, he says, the young and succulent leaves that sprang up were eaten down by stock. The growing point of the leaf was destroyed repeatedly, and finally the rhizome, or root-like stem, rotted and died. Ho occasionally' saw young flax plants on the stems of niggerneads in lowland swamps, out of the reach of stock, but he pointed out that even that haven of refuge would disappear when the swamps were drained, and that the flax of the Chatham Islands, then almost extinct, would be found only on rocks and in shallow lakes, where, under the two opposite conditions, two new species might be evolved.

•At the end of May a paragraph was published in this column stating that rivers <n the western part of New South Wales are devoid of cels, while in the rivers on the eastern slopes, only a short distance away, eels are plentiful. A writer in the Australasian offered as an explanation the theory that eels must have direct access to the sea, which they cannot get in the western rivers. Writing of this strange feature of Australian natural history, Mr A. N. M'Kay. of Waipu, North Auckland, states that some years ago he worked on the Murray River, from Albury to Swanhill, and on many of its tributaries. Like other people, he was surprised that no eels were caught in these rivers, and he asked old fishermen who lived on the banks how they accounted for the position. They sa ; d that the tributaries of the Murray had no eels because all those creatures were destroyed by the Murray cod, a large fish, something like the New Zealand hapuka in appearance Mr M‘Kay saw a specimen weighing 361 b caught at the junction of the King and the Murray. He was told that other specimens weighed as much as 1121 b It is a good eating fish, and he suggests that as it has been shown in this column that eels cat trout, the Murray cod should be introduced into New Zealandrivers to eat eels. Residents of the Waipu district have tried for nearly 20 years to establish trout in the rivers, but without success, and they blame the eels and shags for destroying the young fish as fast as they are placed in the water. A correspondent at Onehunga, near Auck-' land, describes the habits of a small spider which spine its threads on cultivated ground. “Furrows on ploughed ground,” he says, “ may be seen sometimes lined with countless threads. These lines catch the, moisture and become very conspicuous on foggy, mornings. In sunshine a kind of halo often is formed on them. Lately I was harrowing a field and noticed that the spiders were specially active. I made tfib traverse of the field back and forth, and destroyed

the lines with the harrow, but I found that when I began the third stroke all the lines in the area of the first stroke had been renewed. All these lines were at least 12 inches long, and the industrious spinners renewed them in not more than four or five minutes. Each member of this mighty army of spiders had thrown out its little line to float in the breeze, after having been tumbled about by the passing of the harrow, and they persisted in their work no matter how often the area they inhabited was cultivated.

Some years ago Mr E. A. Dance, of Blenheim, stayed for a few days at a surveyor’s camp north of Te-ra-moa. The camp had been made in a' clearing, and opposite to the tent there was a treOj, in which a kingfisher had a nest. The surveyors possessed an exceptionally handsome male cat, which apparently had designs on the kingfisher’s family. One fine afternoon the cat, while basking in the sun’s rays, foolishly fell asleep at the foot of the tree. The kingfisher, seeing its enemy at its mercy, darted down with great swiftness and force, struck the cat between the eyes, and killed it instantly.

“The white-eyes paid us only a short visit this year,” Mr W. White writes from Te Kuiti, in the North Island. . “ The English thrushes and the skylarks were not so mych in evidence as formerly, and the same may be said of all our beautiful native songsters, whose haunts have been destroyed.