The Warning Of The Gulls Tales Ancient And Modern

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 225, 21 September 1940, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Warning Of The Gulls Tales Ancient And Modern

The intelligence of bird* a* exhibited in their daily quest for food frequently happens to coincide with mankinds need**. The most familiar illustration of tiiW is the destruction of insects and grubs in newly turned-up ground where the gardener and farmer are about to plant, and in the mce&£&nt busy-nest of the little fantail and the riroriro. and their like in plantation and bush. The bird, of course, is simply following its ancient instinct."

By James Cowan

So, too, are the seagulls, of which a remarkable storv come® from the war-battered shores of Britain. It was contained in a recent article from the London correspondent to his paper, the "Chicago News." He described a visit to an anti-aircraft batterv, whose commander talked about the seagulls which were raising an extraordinary din as thev wheeled and whirled about in the sky. a noise which almost drowned the sounds of the air raiders high in the clouds. The artillery officer said that the gulls were the gunners' best intelligence service. The air war was •o f® »loft that ground observers seldom saw it, and artillery fire was directed largely by sound. The turds' hearing sense was ■ore acute than man's. The galls knew the direction from "which the attack was to come; aad when the Germans were com™g over to drop their fatal "egg*" they flew out to sea. While the captain was speaking the white cloud of gulls spread out away from the land, and a fsr-away sound of 'plane engines was heard from high aibove. One bird remained near; it knew that tile explosion of a 'bomb dropped in the sea kills many &h, so providing its meal for it without anv effort.

In the last Great War—or, **ther, the first—a story was related about the seagulls in the Uortk Sea. which became similarly wccitsd when they saw a submarine's periscope appear above the surface of the water. They followed and circled around it, screaming in a tremendous fuss.

Admiral fleet was out «ne day, cruising around for the enemy, when a look-out man saw through his telescope a white flock of gulla skimming the surface of the water, following up some object in noisy agitation. Tlie alert sailor in another moment saw the periscope, and gave the alarm, with the result

that gunfire wm instantly directed at the enemy and shells and depth charges disposed of that lurking danger. The battleships' crews had quite aa much reason to 'be grateful to those noisy and excited fieher-bmLs as the ancient Romans had in the classic story of the geese that saved the Capitol and the city. They raised such a clamour against the invaders climbing the citadel rock in the

darkness that the garrison was aroused and hurled back the foe just in time to prevent the capture of the key to Home. The Little Grey Gulls of Mokoii. To return to our own land, there is. a story of the birds that I heard from the old people of Mokoia, in Lake Rotorua, on one of my cruises long ago to that romantic eland.

Tiep ® * • «n gray OBU called the ♦■Ttqmngii ■ name which the Maoris of the lake* gare it because of the fact that '' makes its breeding places in the "pungapunga," meaning the pumice cliffs around the inland watery. "Tara" is a general name for petrels and others of the seagull tribes. This little gull long ago took to these lakes because of the abundance of inanga (whitebait) and other small fish which they contained. Mokoia Island, so famous • for its kumara and other foods of the land, was also noted for the great plenty of the inanga around its shores, where it was caught in nets drawn round the teeming shoals, especially at the north-east point of.sand runnin tr out from the long beach facing that side of the island. ° (Continued next week)