NATURE—AND MAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 278, 26 November 1935, Page 10

NATURE—AND MAN

REWARDS OF KINDNESS. FRIENDSHIP WITH BIRDS. Edited by Leo Fanning.) The other morning, when a smiling sun easily won my forgiveness for dreary days or hiding behind leaden skies, I was playing truant on the Wellington waterfront. VVhile 1 wafc watching some red-billed gulls proudly nourishing their spring colours a young engineer—equally interested in the lovable vanity of the birds—began chatting with me about his leathered friends that visit him at his home on the city side of Mt. Victoria, Wellington. “1 have a Hat roof <»u my washhouse, ” he said. ‘‘Every morning at about the same time, 1 put on that roof scraps of bread and other trifles from the table. As soon as 1 open the back-door those birds salute me—all kinds of chirps and cheeps and twitters from thrushes, black birds, starlings, sparrows and white-eyes. Vou should hear them, if I am a little later than usual! They seem to say: ‘Hurry up, old chap! What's happened to you? How long are you go.ng to keep us waiting ? ’ ’ “Sammy,” the Canary. That bird-lover’s chief a canary, which he named ‘‘Sammy.” “I have a neighbour who is a breeder of canaries,” he remarked. “He has raised as many as 230 in a season. Two years ago he imported au aristocratic cock from England to mate with a high-pedigree hen. It was a nappy union—five eggs, all hatched out. But mother didn’t want five. She thought four were enough. So she hoisted the weakest youngster from the nest. She wouldn’t feed it, and she wouldn’t let father feed it. ‘‘Of course, the canary-farmer soon saw the trouble. He called at my house, and told me I could try my luck at. rearing the reject. I jumped at thd chance. The naked nestling was kept warm in cotton-wool. J began feeding it on hard-boiled egg which I chewed and held in my mouth for the young chap. He very soon learned to help himself that way. Giving him a drink was like giving medicine to a child. Wo used a little spoon. At first he had to be stirred to open his beak, but he

quickly realised that spoon-time was drink-time. In fact, he got so used to this style that he would not take water in any other way. After he had grown up he worried us for the spoon; it took quite a time to Praia him to drink in the ordinary bird-like way. “ ‘Hammy’ has never been in a cage since his mother heaved him from the nest. He fl.es in and out of the house and around the garden. He is quite ,carle>s. He will even allow strangers to pick him up, when he is hopping about on the floor. He perches on the edge of my plate at mealtime, and roosts in the house at night. Now and then he gives a little worry to my wife, who has to tidy up after him, but she forgives him, for she loves ‘Sammy’ as much as 1 do; wo don’t know what we’d do without him. ‘‘He is very fond of buttei. If he happens to see a piece uncovered he will pounce upon it. This means another job for my wife, for she then has to take gentle hold of ‘Sammy’ and wash his greasy feet. “Of course, a bird like that is rather famous. ‘Sammy’ is a character well known in the neighbourhood. He has plenty of friends living near; they do their best to keep cats away.” The proud owner of “Sammy” is not the only New Zealander who has a freebird as a pet. Happily the number of such people is increasing; they find a heart-warming reward in their kindness. “Sammy's” first impression of a human being was something providential—a supplier of food and drink—and so in his bird mind he felt that the mission of the big, queer-looking, unfeathered bipeds was to’ bring gladness to an orphan canary.. Nuisance of Noise. Medical men and othdrs, who are concerned about injurious noises of modern life, would be regarded as freaks by certain persons whose one notion of joy seems to be in harsh noises made by themselves or by defective musical instruments, cracked gramophone discs or ill-used wireless s'ets. Last Bunday morning, when thrushes, black-birds, hedge-sparrow’s and grey warblers were chanting near my garden and a refreshing breeze was playing nature's harps in the trees, some young men, not far away, turned deaf cars to that heavenly melody. They preferred raucous, squeaking and squawking, yowling and howling. “Man is the noisiest animal in the

whole wide world,” 1 thought. “What a queer thing he must seem to the birds! ” “Hardy Annual” of Vandalism. How many other people in New Zealand have cause to decry that kind of vandalism which 1 am about to describe? On the town belt by Victoria College, Wellington, there are some open ‘•slopes on which broom grows. It is not a nuisance; there is no effort to raise other plants on the hill-side. But as soon as the broom begins to pay its rent in scented gold, it is hacked down. A noble spread of emerald and gold is soon a drab brown, and then an ashen waste on dingy clay. The same costly stupidity—municipal vandalism—occurs every spring. By commonsense management that living broom could serve to shelter young pohutukawa, ngaoio, matipo, karaka and taupata trees which thrive in Wellington. Pohutukawa, which are evolved by nature to resist wind, would soon establish themselves strongly among the broom, which they would gradually shade out. They would serve the same useful purpose on land infested by gorse. But the useless and hideous method of backing and burning persists "in many places. Profit in Beauty. “When some dreary township or metropolitan suburb seen from the railway strikes you as a wretched, deposing place' to live in, and presently some other town or suburb impresses you as a pleasant region, have you ever asked yourself what it is that makes the difference If not, make a test in future, and in two cases out of three you will probably find that the chief difference lies simply in the presence or absence of trees,” wrote a contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald, Such “dreary townships” are not numerous in New Zealand, but there are certainly some in sad need of trees tO hide their shocking nakedness. The cult of trees in and about the homes of mankind is steadily growing in New Zealand, especially in some towns which are in honourable competition for the premiership in beauty, which has its advantage as a scenic asset.

With a total rent-roll of over £2,500,000, the London County Council wrote off as irrecoverable bad debts only £3791 in the last financial year.