THE MUTTON-BIRDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 January 1926, Page 7

THE MUTTON-BIRDS.

TRUE HOME LN THE SOUTH. ANNUAL APPEARANCE IN NOVEMBER. From the vast tundras through which the mighty Lena holds its slow and sullen way to the Arctic beas, from the great grey steppes of Mongolia, from the forests and swamps along the Amur, and from the crowded countrysides of China and Japan millions of birds of over thirty different species pour southwards as the northern summer wanes, to seek another summer in the south. About the same time unnumbered millions of ‘birds of one species leave the waters of the North Pacific for the long wash of Australian and New Zealand seas. While the land birds that migrate to Australia and New Zealand make their nests in the northern hemisphere, the muttonbirds, or short-tailed petrels, which wander as far afield as the seas of Japan during our winter, have their true home in the south.

At the beginning of May in each year the muttonbirds leave for the north. For months not a single bird is to be seen about the islands to which they resort for breeding. In October, according to some observers, they return and clean out the burrows. Then they go off to sea again for a few weeks. It is during the last week in November that they suddenly appear in countless thousands to lay their eggs and to rare the young. After an absence of half a year, during Which they have traversed many thousands of miles of sea, they come back to the day every year. In most cases they return to the burrows which they occupied the year before. The greatest muttonbird breeding places are the eastern islands of Bass Straits, wire re muttonbirds form the chief means of subsistence of those most interesting people, the “halfcastes’* of the Cape Barren Island, in whose veins runs the blood of the now extinct aborigines of Tasmania. They ■ also nest on. other islands belonging to Tasmania, such as the Great Actaeon, near Bruny Island. On the Australian coast the greatest muttonbird resort is Phillip Island, at the entrance of Westernport (Victoria), on which there are several large rookeries. The birds invariably nest on small islands, never on large islands or the mainland. On Phillip Island, Where the habits of the bird have been closely studied by skilled observers, stray muttonbirds begin to arrive about Novemlber 20 of every year. The full flight takes place on November 26. On the evening of that day each year the muttonbirds return in tens of thousands and take, possession of their burrows.

The first pairs arrive just at sunset, and the flight continues for an hour. ' The earlier arrivals come in and settle without a sound, but after a quarter of an hour occasional -calls are heard both from th® birds overhead and from those in the burrows. In another quarter of an hour there is a tremendous uproar of screeches and calls, an amazing contrast to the noiseless, ghost-like flight of the early arrivals. GENERATION AFTER GENERATION. For generation after bird generathe muttonbirds h'avo been doing the sa-mo thing. Observations made nearly a century ago correspond almost’exactly with those made on Phillip Island recently. In the thirties of last century R. 11. Davies studied the birds on Green Island, in Bass Straits. He records the great flight of homing birds as beginning a few minutes before sunset on November 24. Observers on other Bass Straits islands place the “focus of arrivals’* on November 25 or 26. Latitude makes little difference. At Great Actaeon Island, 400 miles to the southward of Phillip Island, the muttonbirds return during the last week in November. Out of 44 birds marked on Phillip Island, 22 returned to their original burrows and six others were found in adjoining holes. In some cases only one bird of a marked pair had returned, bringing back a new mate. The rookery in which these birds were marked is 400 ft square, and contains about 500 holes. In one case a hole was filled in with sand and trampled hard. One evening a muttonbrid ran on to this patch of sand, evidently looking for something. 'Five times it made a short tour of exploration. Then it and its mate scratched open their old burrow. The muttonbird lays but one egg, but it is a very big one. While the bird is about the size of a white magpie, the egg is the size of a duck egg. At a Victorian country show 30 miles from Phillip Island a dozen nittoibird eggs were shown as duck eggs, and took first prize. A HUNDRED MILLION BIRDS. Alter laying the hen bird goes to sea lor a week’s holiday while the male sits on the egg. He goes away next week, and so turn about till the egg is hatched, the bird off duty coming in at night to feed the other. When. the young mut tonbird is hatched is stays in the burrow till April, being fed at night by the parents.' It is then a ball of fat, and heavier than either of the parents. Then the parents desert the youjjig and, unless the birders get them, the youthful muttonbirds grow lean and hungry, develop their wings, and clear out 10 days or a fortnight after their parents. Stories told by early voyagers of the numbers of mutton birds seen are almost incredible. Flinders describes meeting over UK),000,000 of them (he calculates that there were 151,500,000 but on his own data the figure should be 132.000,000) near Three Hummock Island, in Bass Straits, in 1798. Forty years later Davies speaks of sailing through petrels all the way from Flinders Island to Tamar Heads, a distance of 80 miles. Much more rerecently Captain. Waller, of the steamer Westralia, steamed for 30 miler through flights of muttonbirds while on his way from New Zealand to Australia. They extended for miles on cither hand. and when they settled on the water they covered it. “DISH FOR A KING.” The muttonbirders have two harvests, the first in December, when they gather the eggs, and the second in March and April, when they collect the young birds. The “egger” uses a stick, at the

end of which is a loop or pothook made of fencing wire. Snakes have a ha'bit of living in the burrows. One halfcaste party in Dass Straits killed 600 snakes in two mouths’ work “egging” and birding.” In 1023 “eggers” collected 60,000 eggs on Phillip Island, most of which were sold to cake and biscuit manufacturers in Melbourne. In Bass Straits the eggs are mainly for home consumption. The half-castes have robust appetites, like their aboriginal ancestors. A Quaker records that one of the latter ate 50 eggs at a sitting. The young bird’s are salted or smokedried by the half-castes of the Straits, each family keeping anything from 500 upwards for its own consumption. The others are exported, some going as far as New Zealand, where a heavy duty was recently placed on Tasmanian muttonbirds.

Bishop Montgomery discribed mut-ton-birds as a “dish for a king.’’ It is understood that when this praise was brought to the notice of some members of he Federal Parliament, when mutton birds were placed on the menu last session, they avowed strong Republican sen t iments. Picked muttonbirds are sold retail in Tasmania at five for a shilling. The oil is used for lighting, and also in the leather trade. Twenty birds will yield a gallon of oil. Forty of them yield a pound of feathers and down. The half-castes use the feathers to stuff pillows, and so on: and there is a limited market outside. During the war when eiderdown was hard to get, some experiments were made with muttonbird down. Even the snakes which are a byproduct of the business are not entirely wasted. Long before the fashionable world woke up to snakeskin shoes some ©f the Cape Barren Islanders were shod with serpents. It is hardly too much to say that it is to the muttonbirds that we owe the preservation of the “half-castes” of the. Straits Island, descended (says a Sydney papier) from the old-time sealers and from o'boriginal women. The half-castes, of whom there are several hundreds, live almost entirely on and by mutt on birds. As muttonbrids are the staff of life lo the half-castes, there is naturally trouble over the leases of the nesting islands to stockowners. The .stock, more especially cattle, tread down the burrows and them cave in. However, the need for giving the birds some protection has been recognised by both Victoria, and Tasmania. No doubt they will continue, for ages yet to come to return, faithful to the day every year.