IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 3713, 12 May 1925, Page 6

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

AN AUSTRALIAN VISITOR. By J. Dbummond, F.L.S., F.Z.SL Paina have been taken by Mr E. L. Kehoe, of Greymouth, and his friends to identify a stranger, whose presence was reported by him at Cameron’s, on the West Coast, a few weeks ago. He has §ent a photograph of the bird, snapped at Rotomanu, on the western shore of Lake Brunner, some twenty miles by road and launch from Cameron’s. The photograph disproves a surmise that it is a •tilt belonging to either New Zealand or Australia. Mr Kehoe believes that it is an Australian white ibis. He is guided in this by a description of that species by Dr J. A. Leach, an eminent Australian ornithologist, and he suggests, on the the principle of auguries from the flight of birds in ancient Rome, that this Australian timed its flight across the Tasman Sea with the Victorian cricketers’ visit to New Zealand. In this utilitarian, work-a-day world, augurs have no credit; wars and cricket matches are undertaken without consulting “the immortal, illustrious lords of the air,” as Aristophanes described birds, but the white ibis should be welcomed in a land that has no ibises of its own, because It it a bird of good report. It protects crops and destroys insects wholesale, cleaning districts of locusts, "rake-alls,” har-▼est-caterpillars, and other enemies of the Australian farmer. A flock of white

ibises suddenly appears in a district and settles on an area of ground cracked by the heat, which crickets have found a suitable abode. The ibises feed on the insects for hours. Crickets that escape disappear into the cracks. The ibises go to a fresh area. The crickets in the first area, finding that their destroyers have gone, come out to graze. Back come the ibises, to make a further clearance on that area. Working in that way forwards and few crickets remaining at the end. In a district near a Victorian railway station, there was a splendid crop of malting barley. When it was almost ripe every head was cut off by harvest caterpillars. < Ibises in the autumn came, not in battalions or regiments, but in army corps, and stayed for the winter, and foT three years hardly a single harvest-caterpillar was seen in the place. This tribute is paid to the white ibises not by a soft-hearted lover of birds, but by a hard-headed farmer and politician.

When Mr Kehoe wrote on April 9, the visitor seemed content to stay near Rotomanu. It was very tame or very tired when photographed, and the camera was within about sixteen feet of it. For those who like Greek words better than English ones, Mr Kehoe supplies its other name. Threskiornig Moltuca. His letter contains a quotation which seems to show that modern investigators regard tho white ibis as identical with the sacred ibis of Egypt, a venerated bird, dedicated to the moon-god and well worthy of the honour of mummification and of a place in ancient temples with kings and queens. Storks are the ibises' closest connections. Even they are not represented in the strangely-

assorted avifauna of this dominion, which is excluded from one of the prettiest of the Old World’s fables, as the arrival of the stork can carry no conviction to young minds in a land devoid of storks.

Last week's notes on the confusion caused by some observers using "bellbird” for the North Island crow, instead of for only a smaller bird, which may be described as the true bellbird, have been supplemented by Mr A. E. Clark, Waihi, who refers to tne crow as the "New Zealand dove.” There can bo no mistake as to the bird he means. His description is Iquite clear: "A bird larger 4han the tui, with a slaty black colour, blue gills and long legs." ‘lf a Chatham Island species is not counted New Zealand has only one member of the pigeon and dove family. This is the lovely wood-pigeon, the largest pigeon in the world. The dodo was a larger pigeon, but the term "as dead as the dodor has been justified for many a long year. The dodo was as unlike New Zealand’s pigeon as Caliban was unlike Miranda. It was flightless, unwieldy, awkward, ugly, crookea, and uncouth. The flesh of tne New Zealand pigeon is very delicate, especially at this time of tho year; when Dutch navigators discovered the dodo in its home in tlie Mauritius more than 300 years ago, they named it Walghvogel, nauseous bird, because its flesh was so unpalatable. This monstrous pigeon had no attractions, but ornithologists speak regretfully of its extirpation, which was brought about by two destructive creatures that consorted to threaten with the same fate as some of New Zealand’s flightless birds—namely, pigs and men. Mr Clark’s object in writing is

to settle an argument as to the North Island crow’s Maori name. One party to the argument, evidently had m mind the crow, the other the bellbird. The crow’s Maori names are kokako and pakara, sometimes honga and honge. Two names submitted by Mr Clark, kororo-himako and titimako, belong to tne true bellbird. That sweet melodist has no fewer than 24 other Maori names.

Motoring along the Te Wairoa raid in the first week of last month, Mr A; H. Gloeson, of Rotorua, saw, sitting on a fence, a "strange white bird,” which, undoubtedly, was an albino kingfisher. It was not a perfect albino but a partial one. It had white head, wings, and breast, but a very pale smudge of fawn on its back. As it was quite tame, Mr Gleeson stopped his car, had a good look at it, and threw a stone to make it fly. Albinism occurs in New Zealand’s king fishers as well as in almost every other species of native birds, but is rarer m kingfishers than in some others. It seems to do more marked in New Zealand birds than in tho avifauna of any other country. The most remarkable instance recorded was a perfect albino kiwi—snow-white plumage, pink eyes, pink legs and feet—given to Lord Kitchener when he visited New Zealand. It would bo interesting to know where that exquisite specimen of a kiwi, and of albanism, is now.

An explanation of the association of the lofty kauri and the mairehau. a shrub, is offered by Mr C. H. Holland, Arapuni. It was stated in previous notes that the mairehau almost always, is found q]ose to a kauri. Mr Holland's theory is that the two plants,, widely separated by systema-

tists—one is a pine and the other a member of the rue family—grow together because both like the same kind of soil. This is clay ground from sedimentary rocks of the Mesozoic Era, and sometimes clay ground from acid igneous rocks, “There is many a hillside in North Auckland where the kauri and the mairehau were plentiful cn light-coloured laud,” Mr Holland routes, "but if you take a single pace across a creek on to the red volcanic earth you will find neither kauri nor mairehau. Some years ago I brought a dozen mairehau plants to Auckland, The bundle was divided. One-half, planted in soil of the Waitemata series, grew. The other half, planted in basic red volcanic earth of Mount Eden, died.”

Supplementing a report of the vegetable caterpillar fungus attacking a beetle’s grub, Mr H. E. Bellringer, Vogeltown, New Plymouth, states that he found the fungus on the top of one of the ridges that radiate from Mount Egmont on its northern side. He adds: "This type of locality seems to be specially favourable to those who search for this parasitical fungus, Cordyceps. The rich black loam is one great knot of roots of such shrubs as the koromiko, or Veronica, and the leather-leaf. It is in the crevices of those roots, a few inches underground, that Cordyceps are found. In these circumstances it is no easy task to extricate specimens of the fungus without damaging them. It is interesting to note that the beetle’s grub was lying within a few inches of a specimen of Cordyceps Robertsii, a species of the fungus which, as stated previously, is fairly general in the North Island, and which usually selects the caterpillar of a moth as its victim. As a matter of fact, it was in a search for a Robertsii that the beetle’s grub, with two stems of the fungus springing from behind its head, was uncovered.” The only other recorded grub of a beetle attacked by the fungus is-the grub of the lemon-tree borer. Mr Holland has consulted a figure of the species of Cordyceps found in the lemon-tree borer’s grub, but he cannot find a close resemblance between it and the specimen he discovered on Mount Eymont. To determine the point, he has sent his specimen to Mr G. H. Cunningham, Wellington, a New Zealand fungologist—in more modern terms, mycologist—who has specially studied the Cordyceps and its parasitism on grubs and caterpillars and that class of subterranean dwellers.

It is surprising that New Zealanders, apparently, take little interest in the flight of the godwits from this dominion .every year to their nesting grounds on the tundras of Siberia, in the Arctic Circle, or in the voyagers’ return in the spring and summer. Hundreds of observers note the shining cuckoo’s arrival, but its migration is trivial compared with the annual flight of the god wit from end to end of the earth. A note, evidently of the godwit’s departure foT Siberia has been sent by Miss W. I. Stephenson, Ramarama, who writes: "On Sunday morning, March 29, a party of us were pitting on a beach at Titirangi, Manukau Harbour, and we saw a large number of flocks of birds going in a northerly direction. We watched them for quite a considerable time.” April and May seem to be the favourite months for leaving New Zealand, and October, November and December the months for arrival. Godwits are shore-birds, and in their migrations thev follow shore-lines. Their nestingseason in Siberia is from June to the end of July. Although some'miss the northern migration and spend the winter in New Zealand, none has. been known to nest in this dominion or in Australia. No satisfactory explanation has been given of the reason for their extraordnairy flights.