NATURE—AND MAN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 41, 4 March 1937, Page 13

NATURE—AND MAN

Leo

Fanning)

Shining Cuckoo on The Dole

BEAUTIFUL 'SCROUNGER'

(Edited by

It would be very interesting to have the Hon. R. Semple's opinion of a beautiful "scrounger", a eturdy beggar, & well-grown young shining cuckoo wMch Mr B. O. Aston watched with delight in his garden at Karori, a suburb of Wellington, during the middle of February. The bird was big enough ; to fend for itself, but was not too proud to take the dole from its tiny foster-parents, a pair of grey warblers, which had planned to bring up a family of their own, but had been deluded into rearing a inurderer. The dainty little birds, humbugged by the cuckoo vagrants, wero as solicitous for the welfare o£ the usurper as they would kave been for their own offspring. Perhap^Jihey had even a greater zeal. Did they feel a kind of pride in the ] bigness and brilliance of the child that ! had thrust upon them in that ' egg which was sneaked into their nest ? ' Did they believe that they had been ! alv© other Varblers ? Woaid tfiey 1 set a task which put them in a elass 1 feel up£ish about it when they met ' th^ir friends? Of course, the young cuckoo took the little warblers' hard-working kindness as a xnatter of right. "Don't expect me to chase after you; get busy, seek me and feed me," seemed to be the attitude of the able-bodied loafer, and the energetic food-winners let it go at that. Onoe Mr Aston saw the cuckoo fly fast suddenly towards the petting sun. Evidently the warblers, screened by native bush, had ibeen. mindful of the fcruant. With their beaks full of grubs they flew after the "spoilt child" which they may have sootked with promises of bigger and better grubs. Fantails have also been duped into the rearing of cuckoos. Mr Aston saw a fully-fledged shining cuckoo perched on an electric-current wire. A fantail carrying a meal of insects, fluttered up. As it could not feed its foster-child from a posftion on- the wire, it alighted ou the big fellow's back, and thus "delivered the goods." Adult cuckoos migrate from the Wellington district before the middle of February. Do -some remain beliind to guide the youngsters to sunny lands overseas, or 4° the youngsters have instinct enough to find their own way to a new zone of summer? "A Good Press" To use th© expression of theatrical i'olfe when they are pleased with the comments of newspaper critics, tlie battlers for the conservation and extension of protective forests and for the cult of natui-al beauty in various schemes oi' planting have "a good Press." Olippings feceived by the Forest and Bird Proteetion Society show that city and provincial newspapers have a national outlook in this vitally important field. This attitude was impressively noticeable in their editorial articles on the disastrous floods of tlie United States of Ameviea, It is very encouraging to see this strong whole-hearted co-opera-tion of influential journalists in the movement to safegurad the natural resources of New Zealand for tliis generation and posterity, In Thiiq With the Creat Mother He^-e is a noble passage from "The itoadmender" of Michael Farx'less:— "Sometimes in the country on a uigbt ia earj.y summer you inay shut ihe cottage door to step out into an iipmense darkness which palls heaven and earth. Going forward, into the embrace of the great gloom, you are as a babe swaddled by the hands of night into helpless quiescence. Your hands grasp at a void, or shrink from the contact they cannot realisej your eyes ars holden ; your voice .would die in your throat did you seek to reud the veil of that impenefrable silence. "Shut in by the intangible dark, we are brought up against those worlds within worlds blotted out by our concrete daily life. The working of the great microcosm at which we peer dianly through the little window of science \ the wonderful, breathing earth; the pulsing, throbbing sap; the growing fragrance shut in the calyx of to-morrow's flower; the heart-beat of a sleeping world that we dream that we know; and around, above, and interpenetrating all, the world of dreams, of angels and of spirits. "It was this world which Jacob saw on the first night of his exile, and again. when he wrestled in Peniel until the break of day. It was this world which Blisha saw with open eyes ; which J°b know when darkness fell m liim; when E'zekiel gazed into from hfb place among" the captives ; which Daniel beheld as he stood alone by the great river, the river Hiddekel. "For the moment we have left behind the realm of question and explanation, of power over matter and the exeroise of bodily faculties ; and passed into darkness alight with visions we cannot see, into silence alive with voices we cannot hear. Like helpless men w© set our all on the oue thing left us, and lift up our hearts, knowing that we are but a mere speck among a myriad worlds, yet greater than the sum of them ; having our roots in the dark places of the earth, but our branehes in the sweet airs of heaven." And yet, dear friends, this is the marvellous world which many folk thoughtlessly shut out when they pull down the blinds and turn on the droning, gruntiag, stuttering, hiccuping radio, hour upon hour, day and night after day and night. They seem to have only one zest in life — the noises xnade by man and his instruments for ever and ever. A New Hope in Women It has been mentioned more than once in "Nature — and Man" that women are tending to lead, rather than lag, in conversation and planting moyementB. ".Women Lead the Way"

is the lieading of an article in a recent issue of "Nature Magazine" (America). "The women of the United States have always been leaders in conversation," it is stated. "In Wisconsin, women' s clubs and other forwai'd-look-ing groups, mobilised by Mrs Edward LaBudde, paved the may for a conservation education la^ that provides for th'e teaching of conservation in state colleges and county normal schools. Now, from Michigan, comes word that the 'Detroit News' will start a conservation column for women as a special weekly feature. Albert Stoll, Jr., conservation editor, is taking this step because he realises that 'the women of Michigan are becoming an important influence in the conservation programme of this state.' "Mr Stoll said that the column will be written by a woman staff writer and will contain reports of conservation activities among women's groups throughout the state. 'Women are exerting a strong influence in our conservation affairs,' he said, 'and their interest and activities along that line are beginning to command our special attention.' Mr Stoll's conservation' page, appearing as a regular weekly feature, was an innovation among Michigan newspapers when it was introduced some'years ago,''