A Book Review. In Nature’s Choir.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20447, 27 October 1934, Page 10

A Book Review. In Nature’s Choir.

The White-eye Mimics in its Whispering Song.

gIR MATTHEW NATHAN, a former Governor of Queensland, when asked for his opinion of Australia, said that people were much the same everywhere, that Australians were much the same as many others, and that Australia’s destination was in its plant and animal life. Sir William ’Macewen, while attending a congress of the British Medical Association in Australia, admired the strong and vigorous people he saw. He was so delighted with the birds that he wished he could have another life to live amongst them.

A great deal of the charm that impressed these visitors is reproduced in Mr A. H. Chisholm’s latest natural history book, a chatty, varied, intimate and careful record of the habits and dispositions of many Australian birds, some of them the most remarkable in the world. His range is from eagles and emus to bespectacled little white-eyes, a species that visits many New Zealand farms and suburban gardens. Bird-lore and bird-stories are intermingled in the pages with notes on observations by Mr Chisholm and by other naturalists He has lived in three States. While he conducted a natural history column in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney newspapers, all sorts of questions were fired at him. These urged him to get at the bottom of innumerable problems of bird-life, and to settle disputed points of ornithology. His rulings are sound.

One of his paragraphs will interest New Zealanders, and may surprise them. lie places the white-eve amongst talented mimics. Sir Walter Buffer believed that at times he detected the bellbird’s subdued notes in a white-eye’s song, but no New Zealand naturalist has praised the whiteeye’s powers of mimicry as they are praised in Mr Chisholm’s book. “ Perhaps the most consistent mimic amongst common birds is the familiar white-eye. Listen closely to the whispering songs of this bird in your garden, and you may frequently detect a number of notes of other birds. A friend who heard a particular white-eye’s song at close range assured me that it included diminutive imitations of such difficult calls as those of the whip-bird, the wagtail and magpie-lark, and even the laughter of the kookaburra.”

Mimicry seems to be more marked in Australia than in any other country. By this accomplishment some Australian birds speak at least seven bird languages. Several are masters of the twenty-five or thirty languages. The lyre-birds and the bower-birds are talented in this respect to a unique degree. The starling, which has a reputation for mimicry, has developed its talent in Australia. A starling in Mr Chisholm’s garden in a Melbourne suburb often sang a fantasia that included clever imitations of the notes of blue wrens, cuckoos, shrike-tits and magpie-larks and of the butcher-bird’s wild laugh. It gave a faithful rendition of the wagtail’s “ sweet-pretty-creature ” notes. Mr Chisholm wrote his book to order, that is at the request of the publishers, who felt that it would be acceptable to the public. It certainly will be.

“ Bird Wonders of Australia.” by A. H. Chisholm. Messrs Angus and Robertson, Sydney; 58 illustrations. 6s.