TO-DAY’S NATURE NOTE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 92, 12 January 1935, Page 6

TO-DAY’S NATURE NOTE

Prize For the Week

Miss M. Smith, of Johnsonville, wins this week’s Nature Note prize, with hey description of the battle of the hares, described in Thursday’s "Dominion.”

Dry Weather Affects Toheroas

Between the Hokio and Waitarere Beach an unusual sight at present is the large number of toheroa shells which marks the high-water level. It appears that tiie receding tide leaves behind it the dead fish, the flesh of which is eagerly devoured by gulls. The empty sheiks with the incoming tide, are then added to the already large number at high-water mark. One theory for the heavy losses is this: Toheroas depend for their existence upon :i reasonable amo’unt of fresh water, which, in normal seasons, seeps through the sand at approximately halftide level, where the beds are generally found. During'seasons as dry as this, however, the fresh water normally accessible at half-tide seeps through only at tiie low-tide mark or even further out, depending upon the length of the dry spell. Thus the shellfish, deprived of a vital condition of their environment, are left, when the tide recedes, at the mercy of the gulls.— C. (Levin).