The Daily News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1904. NATURE STUDY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 233, 6 October 1904, Page 2

The Daily News. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1904. NATURE STUDY.

Praiseworthy a s are the .steps hitherto taken by the Government in I lie direction of fostering and protecting the flora and fauna of Now Zealand, there yet remains wide scope fur continued elTort it. furtherance of that end. Depart/mental action may be admirable no far as it goes, but the most powerful lever making towards a true appreciation of the be a iities and wonders of Nature is ilie intelligint, training of our cliiltlrm. I'ntila few months ago the school hooks iisul in the colony entirely ignored this important branch of education, and even now, when an admirable set of textbooks Making a speciality of this is available, our boards of education are slow to uvail themselves of its advantaged In this twentieth century the great problem, according to our most advanced thinkers, will be :hat ol combatting the tendency of oui you>g people to llock to the towns, 'lhis colony, sparsely settled though it be, still boars unmistakable signs t'uit the taint is by no means urv known, and many remedies have hem suggested t 0 counteract this. Political economists and social reformers may vainly concoct schemes for offering adventitious attractions t.o the young man to settle on the land, but until the rising generation is imbued with am ail-pervading love of Nature the dreams of idealists must remain unrealised. New Zealand, as remands this branch of training in our schools, is far behind Ameiica, where 110 efforts are scared, and n 0 expense cavilled at, to instil into the mim}s of the young a love for the wonderful woi'Jcs of Nature. It is not ofte-.n that Government reports are at &I 1 suitable for school use, but there is' one notable oxception to the general ."ule, and that is the excellent readable reportfurnished by the Curator of Resolution Island, Mr llichard Henry. For the past decade this island, fifty s.piare miles in extent, has been set apart as a sanctuary for native birds : affording splendid opportunity for gathering d-ata as to their habits such as can be gained in 110 other way. None but a keen observer and lover of plant and animal liltwould take up Mr Henry's position, as Pigeon Island, 0 n which ho lives, is altogether cut off from civilization except f o r an occasional visit from the (Joveijunent steamer and such small coasting sailing vessels as find shelter there. Mr Henry is- a t present taking a well-earned holiday in Wellington, and has been giving pome interesting and valuable information to the pres,s. Some idea of the work undertaken may lie gained from his statement that over 700 ground birds have been transferred from the mainland to Desolation Island. But his observation has not by any means been confined to bird life, for he has dev o tod years to tne study of life below water. For instance, the cowlish—first cousin to the porpoise—has l a singular attraction for him. " Tho finest marine engineers i n the world," he calls them. Water, as everyone knows, is not elastic, and is therefore slow to move, so that it feels almost solid to anything meeting it very swiltly. The porpoise, instinct with that wonderful grasp of cause and effect, makes use of this 1 property for propulsion purposes. The porpoise can travel at. tho l'ate of forty miles a n hour easily, and if it can be discovered how he does it, then that knowledge may be applied to increasing the speed of ships. Hut that bj the way. In his investigations into the habits of deep-sea fish, Mr Henry discovered that mullet, hoi':-.- mackerel, barracouta, anchovies, and truuitpeters, all predominate in Husky Sound in their order. (;n this coming and going of fish, the opinion was expressed that it depended greatly oil the food avaMable, which varied every si n o doubt owing to the action of ocean currents, which in turn may probably be -due to the vagaries of the wind. He.verting to bird life, wekas are more plentiful to-day than they were five ye a rs ago, this .being attributed to the n,l>senco of rats. Tho remarkable disappearance of the rodent!! has belli kpflnly investigated, microbes h-eing assigned a s the The curator thinks that if a microbe cpuld lie got to work amongst the rabbits in Australia as the germ did amongst the colony of rats 011 Resolution island, it would pt<ove n 'most valuable aid to pas-toi'alists. Hut Instance after instance ol the fascinating facts given by Air Henry could lie recounted, though enough has been written to show that wore the liduca tion l>enartment to introduce suitable extracts into the text-books in use in schools the information regarding the birds, lish, and animals indigonoua to the colony wouid be greatly increased.