IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 4042, 1 September 1931, Page 74

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

A MYSTERY BIRD.

By J. Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S. A few years ago Southland Maoris, when mutton-birding on islets in the Stewart Island group, reported that the mystery-bird, the hakuwai, was plentiful. Mr E. H. Hobson, Takapau, Hawke’s Bay, states that whatever bird may have been heard by the Maoris it was not the hakuwai. He explains that the hakuwai is identical with a mythical bird which the old-time Maoris of Southland called hakuai, and which they described as a kai-tangata, a maneater. Northern Maoris, whom Mr Hob-.-on knew, believed in the hakuwai, but not in its liking for human flesh. He believes that it is none other than the ha-koakoa, the sea-hawk, no connection of the common hawks, but more merciless, ferocious, and audacious. Mr Hobson does not know of any bird from North Cape to the Bluff that might be called sea-hawk. This is not surprising, as the sea-hawk’s realm is in the subantarctie seas, from New Zealand to south of South America. Occasionally it visits Cook strait and the west coast °f the Wellington province. It is fairiy plentiful o n Stewart Island and on the islets round about. On the Auckland, Campbell and Macquarie Islands, and on the lonely Snares and Antipodes, it is plentiful, much too plentiful to be popular "ith penguins, gulls, terns, petrels, and albatrosses. It steals the eggs and youn<» of large birds, swallows-small birds whole, niakes horrible meals of dead seals, and m every way behaves most repugnantly. It searches for birds caught in thick scrub or injured in landing on an island, continually frequents the community homes of penguins and petrels, stands by albatrosses nests waiting to take young or eggs, and pursues kakas, pigeons, and other birds that pass from island to island, ferociously downing them into the sea when they are easily caught, killed, and eaten. On Campbell slland it pecks out the eyes of fallen sheep.

On bare rock on the Snares, handy to a penguin colony, Mr E. F. Stead found a sea-hawk s larder. The remains of mutton-birds, whale-birds, and mottled petrels evidenced the feasts. The bones had been picked bare. Only the wings remained. Small diving-petrels, doubtless, had formed part of the feast. Of these there were no signs whatever. They had been swallowed whole, feathers and all. Little white-faced storm-petrels, gentle and inoffensive as any birds that fly over land or water, seem to be the favourite victims on Cundy Island These also are swallowed whole, the sea-hawks spitting out neat balls of feathers, each with two legs attached.

The sea-hawk wastes no time or attenbuilding. . Unlike many small land-birds, it is neither a builder nor an architect. Its nest, always on the ground, is shallow, sometimes merely a depression m the turf, crudely furnished with grass and leaves. The only foresight shown in this respect is in selecting a site, which often adjoins the nesting place of a colony of penguins. Each nest has two or three richly-coloured oval eggs, dark stone in ground colour, garnished with dark brown and light brown.

Mr H. Guthrie-Smith, on mutton-bird-islands, watched with deep interest the ceremony of feeding the young. Two adult males and one female always at tended at each nest. All took turns at sitting on the eggs, but the female was more eager than her mates. All attended when a young was fed. They manoeuvred the young into the centre, and one disgorged food, which the young immediately devoured. The adults 'shared between them anything the young did not take. During the whole ceremony the adults lowered their necks to the ground and stretched them to the limit, an undignified attitude in keeping with the sea-hawk’s unlovely character. One thing in its favour is that it has sufficient courage to defend its home. From the time the eggs are laid until the young are reared it

attacks intruders fiercely, swooping down on them and trying to strike them with its wings.

Sixty-eight years ago Mr Hobson camped at the foot of the Bridle Path, near the mouth of the Lyttelton tunnel. He often, on dark nights, heard a bird calling as it flew over the hills. Living at Purau, Kaituna, and Ahuriri in the seventies, he heard the same weird notes, not often at Ahuriri, but very often at Kaituna and Little River. He knew the notes of all coastal birds that fly by day.. None was the same as those nocturnal notes. They were heard at Waimate and were known at Oamaru, but Mr Hobson has never met a European or a Maori who saw the bird. He often asked Maoris where it lived. They always said they did not know. He sometimes heard the notes, apparently, at a great height. They always were very weird and not to be forgotten. They were uttered, no doubt, by a species of petrel that had spent the daylight in a dark burrow and was wandering through the night.

The latest complaint of the destructive wood-borers is from Ngatea, Hauraki Plains. A resident writes: “Since you pulished an article on the borers a few weeks ago we discovered that our house had been attacked badly by the insect you describe. Joists, floors, lining, even door frames, are affected, yet our house is only seven years old. We are taking out all the affected parts we can find, replacing them with creosoted timber. One feature is hard to explain. A hole appeared in a door facing dressed on all sides. We split it up after carefully examining the surface, and found that it had been riddled from end to end with large channels. There was no connection with _ the surface except the single hole, and it appeared only a week or two ago. How did the borers get into a piece of dressed timber? We have found several adult insects, but no grubs, in the timber. Our house is built completely of rimu. Other houses here are affected.” The borer may have been in the timber before the house was built.

A North Island correspondent, whose letter hit's Tbeen mislaid, several weeks ago sent a particularly handsome, large centipede for identification. Mr G. Archey, director of the Auckland Museum, who has studied native centipedes, has identified it as Cormocephalus rubriceps. “ I expect that members of the species can give a person a severe nip, although, up to the present, I have avoided the experience,” Mr Archey states. He adds: “It is a common North Island large centipede. I believe that it may be found in practically every garden in Auckland, as well as in the bush. It is replaced in the southern portion of the North Island, and in the South Island as far south as Kaikoura, by a small species, Cormocephalus violascens. These two species are the only members of the family Scolopendridae in New Zealand. All the other New Zealand centipedes, and there are several species, are much smaller. The smaller creatures are quite harmless.

A quarter of a century’s experience with parasitic insects, mites, flukes, and protozoa has led Dr M. C. Hall, chief of the Zoological Division, Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, to conclude by analogy, that work is one of life’s greatest blessings. He regards the favoured route of escape from life’s struggles and difficulties, personal, financial, or otherwise, as the path to human social parasitism. The soft fat, comfortable ways of the human parasite are good for neither the parasite nor the community that acta as host. The only thing is to work, and work hard and te fight, and fight valiantly to the end against pain, suffering, disease, and evil. Dr Hall’s essay on parasitism is one of the features of the July number of the Scientific Monthly, New York. The number opens with reports of addresses at a dinner in New York to Sir James Jeans, and contains articles on the control of fog, development of the egg, magnetism of the earth, and other subjects, all written in popular language.