IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 3662, 20 May 1924, Page 6

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

By

Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

THE WOOD-PIGEON’S NEST. A rare sight in New Zealand was noted by Master R. A. Creswell, Koutu, Pari/tanapa, near Gisborne, last summer. It is a wood-pigeon’s nest. The wood-pigeon is one of the birds of New Zealand which have been ruthlessly destroyed by the gun, but which, happily still are plentiful in p.aces. Its nest is so inconspicuous, on account mainly of the simple style of struture, that many people who have lived in New Zealand forests all their lives have not seen one. Master Creswell supplies the following description of the nest he saw: ‘We were riding through a fairly large piece of bush at the back of our station, when we were surprised to see a wood-pigeon sitting on a nest. When the owner saw us looking, it purposely pushed ! ts three-day-old chick off the nest with its bill, watched it fall, and then calmly flew away. We found that the chick wa - covered in places with soft, hairy down, and had a very coarse appearance. I climbed up the kowhiv.hi tree, in which the nest had been built about 15ft from the ground. It rested on a natural platform, made by a small branch being snapped off and by sprouts that grew at. the sides of the branch Sticks hail been placed on the platform, and light sticks on top of them. •vim wa 3 frail-looking, but. strong. When wo placed the pieces of shell tothey made a white egg, almost round. On the same day, rifling close to tno same piece of bush, Master Oreswell heard a sudden twittering. Dismounting from 1113 horse to inquire, he looked into a glade and saw a young shining cuckoo, which two grey warblers were feeding.

The cuckoo, which was embellished with very pretty bars on its breast, seemed to be enjoying itself.

Mr ii Guthrie-Smith, Tulira, Hawke’s Ray, whom Fortune favours above all other New Zealand ornithologists, found no fewer than four wood-pigeons’ nests in one season. He describes the type of nest as not unlike a heaji of magnified spillikins, well spread, out and flattened,” and adds that only sticks are used, and the white eg' may be seen distinctly through them from beneath. Professing to look more obser- | vantly into the structure, Mr T. H. Potts, Governor’s Bay, saw in it remarkable skill m construction“ The materials of the slight fabric, which appear at first together, are so nicely adjusted as to bear with perfect safety the heavy builders. In the slight depression of the platform, the egg or the young lies undisturbed by the "swaying, caused by passing winds.” It is somewhat strange, perhaps, that, although the woodpigeon of the Old Country is related to New Zealand’s wood-pigeon only very distantly, a description of a wood pigeon’s nest in the Old Country may be used without alteration for a description of a New Zealand nest: —“It is a slight platform of slender sticks laid across one another on the smaller branches or twigs of a tree, usually at a good height from the ground.” This was written by Mr W. 11. Hudson, perhaps the most charming writer on natural history since the time of Gilbert White, in England, and of Henry Thoreau, in America. The sable Australian wasp, Polistes Tasmaniensis, which has spread over almost all parts of North Auckland, is reported from Mullet Point, opposite Hawaii Island. A consignment of about 20 from that place, sent by Mr C. Goldsworthy, Hepburn street, Auckland came to hand very much alive, and made good specimens, when dead.

“They , appeared in my father’s orchard,” Mr Goldsworthy wrote on April 22. “They were not observed in the district before last summer. I hey live in colonies, seem to go about in small swarms, and make tneir nests exclusively in fruit trees, as no nest has been found in any other tree, nut preference is not given to any particular fruit tree. About 24 wasps clustered o\ er the. nest 1 have sent to you. When disturbed they flew ground wildly! One of them stung me on the hand when 1 was tailing tne nest. The sensation caused by the sting is similar to that of a bee’s sting, but not nearly so severe, and the wasp did not leave its sting benind. After the nest had been removed, the disturbed insects settled on the pear tree again in the. same vicinity, bunching together. I cannot say anything as to the wasps’ habits as I have not had an opportunity to observe them.” It is reporteu of these wasps, to their credit, that they attack many species of insects’ particularly the pear leech or fruit fly! It is more than 30 years since they were reported for the first time in New Zealand, and they were stated then to be common in the Hokianga district, Nothing is known of their introduction from Australia to New Zealand. It probably was accidental. The family to which they belong, the Vespidas, is almost cosmopolitan. Members of the particular species that has found a home in New Zealand are the most social wasps in Australia, that is, social from the wasps’ point of view. An exhaustive search for an obscure but very interesting colony of shells that live under a large flat rock at Mount Maunganui, at the entrance to Tauranga Harbour, Bay of Plenty, has been conducted by Dr O. E. It. Bucknill and Mr A. W. B. Powell. The colony was discovered about 19 years ago by Mr E. G. B. Moss, a member of Parliament, who found a delightful hobby in conchology, and who wrote a

small book on the subject, of great value to beginners. The result of the search proved very gratifying. To make a thorough examination, the searchers had to crawl for 7ft or Bft into caverns about only 18in high, and then had to bo in water, whose, depth varied with incoming waves. T hey saw hundreds of specimens crowded together on the cavern roofs. Those near the edges of the colonies were flat, those near 'the centre, because of overcrowding-, had an irregular hexagonal shape. About 250 specimens were gathered, covering all stages of grovvth. The only other members of this species of shell, Gadinia conica, recorded belong to a small colony at South-west Point, Bluff; they were collected by Captain J. Bollons. Mr Powell has had the good fortune to find at Cape Colville, in Jtiauraki > Gulf, at Motutara, on the west coast of the Auckland province, and at Mount Maunganui, Bay of Plenty, members of a species, Tritonia incerta, which, previous to 1920, was known from a single specimen, obtained by trawling between Kiapara and New Plymouth. This is a very brilliant shell, its colours ranging from orange to vermilion, yellow, greyish-white, and semi-transparent grey. Mr C. Osborne, Trypliena Bay, Great Barrier Island, is the happy possessor of the only specimen recorded in New Zealand, of another handsome shell, Hydatina physis. This is the only known specimen in New Zealand, but the species has a wide distribution, its homes including Natal, Mozambique, Mauritius, Rodriquez, Reunion, Seychelles, the Red Sea, the Philippines, Japan, several parts ‘of. Australia, Cuba, Guade-< loupe, West Africa, and Norfolk Island. Mr Powell has found great numbers of a species. Monodonta nigerrima, at Motutara, but only in March and April, each year. Their whereabouts at other parts of the year are unknown. They seem to be actu-

ated by a mysterious migratory instinct, which sends them wandering into the wide ocean.