ISLAND LIFE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1146, 16 September 1913, Page 4

ISLAND LIFE.

Some interesting particulars as to the manner in which emigrant animals are displacing the natives on the Monte Bello Islands are given by P, D, Montague in a paper read, before the Royal Geographical Society, London. This group of islands, lying about a hundred miles off the northwestern coast of Australia, is rarely visited, excepting by pearlshellers. The vegetation on the higher ground inland is generally a tangle of spinnifex intermixed with cassia, “snakewood,” and the flowering ipomea, ot which a garden form is largely grown as a decorative climber. Around the group is the customary sea-belt of mangroves. In speaking of the wilk life of the islands, Mr Montague mentions that the spectacled hare wallaby, a marsupial about the size of a large rabbit, is being greatly thinned down by hordes of wild cats, and a species of bandicoot (Barowensis) not found on the mainland, has been exterminated. The hare wallaby, a form of which is fairly common in South Australia, was given the name “spectacled” because of a prominent ring of red about each eye. The reference to the cats has a bearing upon Mr Campbell’s article in the Argus of a recent date. “The cats thrive exceedingly wherever they have been introduced, growing to a great size. They soon become wild and cunning, and breed last. It may safely be said that these animals are doing more damage than anything else to the native fauna of the Australian region—indeed, the same remarks apply to the greater part of the world. Cats are carried on small trading ships with the idea that they keep down the rats. When they become too numerous or otherwise objectionable they are marooned, lor to kill a cat is considered amongst sailors as most unlucky.” The hare wallaby is rather slow and awkward in its movements, and an active man can run it down on loot in a couple of hundred yards. Consequently both young and old fall an easy prey to the marauding cats.

It is rather a curious point in the life of these islands that the European black rat thrives in company with its natural enemy the cat. This rat, driven out of all European ports by the larger brown rat, took refuge on ships, and so was carried to other parts of the world. It reached New South Wales in the early days, - and was described by MacEeay as an indigenous species generally found in trees. It is now exceedingly rare in Europe, but, as at the Monte Bello group, where it was introduced by the wreck of a schooner about twelve years ago, large colonies are sometimes found in different parts of the world. The black rat is a good swimmer, consequently it has found its way to every islet of the Monte Bello group, on some of which the pearlers rarely, if ever, land. The European rat is not at all uncommon on islands about the Australian coast, but they are usually the brown rat seeu in the cities.

Speaking of the bird life of the group, Mr Montague mentions both the osprey and the sea-eagle as abundant. Some of the osprey's nests found upon rock tables were often a yard in width, and about 5 feet in height. Both these fishing eagles feed largely upon the rock crabs, with which tropical islands are usually infested, and thus empty shells are (found in great piles where the eagles have feasted. Another curious circumstance noted is that the young of the green turtle, when hatched on these islands, seem to have lost that sense ot direction which usually takes them from the nest direct to the sea. The turtle lays its eggs in a hole scratched in the sand, just above high-tide range. Usually their tracks show that as soon as they are hatched they trail one after another to the sea, generally following the same route. But on the larger of the Monte Bello islands the tracks ot the young turtle radiate aimlessly in all directions from the nest, some of them going straight inland, and it was not at all uncommon to find young turtles dead at the end of their trail.