BIRD LIFE IN OTHER LANDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 127, 26 June 1909, Page 4

BIRD LIFE IN OTHER LANDS.

SOME CURIOUS CUSTOMS. i Mr. D. G. Stead (president) occupied the chair at a recent meeting of the New South Wales Naturalists' Cluh, and reported upon an excursion to the Zoological Gardens which had proved very instructive.

Alv. VV. W. Froggatt, F.L.S. (Goven iiieut Entomologist), continued hi iiaiuralisi notes made during his rccen world's tour. (Juoa was luuud to k rich in fire-Hies, one of which was like : large click beetle with a lamp on car siue 01 the thorax, in Jamaica ther were 43 species of birds peculiar to th island, but the mongoose that had bee; imported to keep down the rats ha> increased to such an extent that it ha destroyed much of the bird-life, as we] as suaKca and lizards. The rats, learn ing 'wisdom iu time, had escaped by tak ing to tlie trees, where they did mor damage amongst the cocoa-pods than th woodpeckers. Many of the houses' in th country were overrun with a prett, green lizard, which was very tame an< had a curious habit of pulling out th loose skiu under the throat till it stoo out like a disc. On one occasion th naturalist found several in his bed ou night, and he quaintly remarked tha they did not mind iu the least. At i port in Venezue.a he saw a sloth fo sale. It was a helpless, inibecile-lookin; creature, and he felt no attraction to wards it. At Barbados flocks of black birds and sparrows used to rest on th* window-sills of the hotel, and even cnte: the dining-room for crumbs of bread A popular dish in this island was sea urchins' eggs, which were mixed up ivitl a batter and had a taste like s'ca-watci and batter-pudding. Another populai dish was llying fish, which were caught by using hand nets from a boat at night with a light, as mullet and prawns an caught in this country. Barbados now •was practically free from malaria, probably owing to the presence of minnows in the swamps. The fish, devoured the mosquito eggs', and thus kept down the rnosquitos which spread fever. In England and Southern Europe Air. Froggatt found moles very common, and was informed that two thousand of these little animals were caught by a farmer in 20 acres of farm land. At Wye College they did not kill moles on principle, but when they found one trespassing on their well-kept lawns they sank an empty jam-tin in his line of march, into which he blundered, aud was then taken out and liberated where he could do no harm.

Southern Italy struck the naturalist as a had place for hird life. There the people ate all the birds they could get, and .put up traps along the coast to capture thousands of other migratory birds that rested on the coast after crossing the Mediterranean from Africa. In Austria and Hungary, on the other hand, they did everything possible to protect their bird fauna, even going so far as' to place artificial nests in trce3 for the birds. The most showy tree noted near Constantinople was the Judas tree, which looked like a large peachtree, and .was covered with delicate pink and purple shaded flowers. It was on a branch of one of these trees that Judas Iscariot had hnnged himself, hence the present •name. Every man about Smyrna and Beyrout carried a gun, and if abird moved it was potted. It was' a wonder that any bird life existed. Men offered strings of tiny birds—rollers,- finches, and even the harmless swallow—for sale in the market-place, the little creatures looking like a string of mice. Dishes of sparrows were on the hotel menu. On the road over the barren Marl chalk hills' of Cyprus, where only low herbage and prickly scrub were noted, Mr. Froggatt found himself in the old haunts of the plague locust, now a thing of the past |n that country. The music of the nightingales throughout the night was very pretty in this Morning Herald.