HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



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only to find, perhaps, after years of patient research, 

 that some other bird or insect had appeared, and 

 exterminated the subject of his research, thus giving 

 him the opportunity of beginning anew as a con- 

 solation. 



Spring is well advanced now, and everything, 

 weeds included, is growing at a great rate. 



I took a small swarm of bees on August 16th, 

 which is unusually early, and united them with a 

 queenless hive, to the great advantage of the latter. 

 I found a thrush sitting on three eggs on the 29th, 

 and hope she will hatch them. 



I see twenty or thirty blackbirds for one thrush, I 

 think, but can always find more thrushes' nests, the 

 nest of the latter being often built in more open 

 places, while the bird itself is shyer and not so 

 conspicuous in colour. 



My starlings are sitting in the boxes I put up in 

 the trees for them, and I hope will have better 

 accommodation next year in the box I have in my 

 mind's eye. 



Just now, however, I am, and for some time to come 

 shall be, too busy to build for the birds, for I am 

 putting up or repairing our boundary fence, and 

 replacing the old rails and thickets of furze, briars, 

 and locust or thorny acacia, with wire, plain along- 

 side the paddock, but terribly barbed by the garden 

 and orchard, so as to be boy-proof when the fruit 

 grows. The fence had been put up between thirty 

 and forty years ago— badly done then, I should say — 

 and neglected ever since, but most of the posts 

 (puriri) and many of the rails (manuka and rimu) are 

 quite sound, so I let the former stand, as they looked 

 good for another forty years, merely putting them 

 into line. 



R. N. H. wrote on June 16th, 1889 :- — A pretty 

 little bird, called the white-eye or blight-bird, takes 

 my figs as fast as they ripen. These birds are said to 

 have been blown here literally in a heavy gale some 

 twenty-three or twenty-four years back from parts 

 unknown. I remember seeing them first about in 1866, 

 and asking a Maori about them, but though he said 

 they were "nga manu ote pakeha," or the birds of 

 the foreigner or stranger, they certainly were not 

 introduced by the Europeans. 



They do a great deal of good, though, as they go 

 in flights, and clear off at a great rate any small 

 insects they find in the trees and shrubs. I saw a 

 dozen or more the other day on a creeper on the 

 front verandah, and I think they searched every leaf 

 befoie they flitted on to the next one, a climbing 

 rose. 



Bees do wonderfully well here, and mine increased 

 so much that I tried to give swarms away to neigh- 

 bours, bnt the neighbours would not take them. I 

 have seen big swarms hanging on the rocks by the 

 sea-shore for a week and nobody would take them, 

 and on fences or trees by the roadside till driven 

 away with stones by the boys. 



CURIOSITIES IN BIRDS' EGGS. 



THE good example set by Mr. Wright in your 

 January number will, I hope, be followed by 

 other collectors. I therefore beg to offer a few 

 remarks on the curiosities I have personally met 

 with. 



There can be no doubt that very many curio-it ies 

 find their way into collections, representing the eggs 

 of birds to which they do not belong, and the 

 following little episode will show how mistakes are 

 made. An egg was brought to me as the egg of the 

 cuckoo which my friend said he had just taken from 

 the nest of a lark ; but when I laid before him two 

 clutches of larks' eggs, each containing an egg the 

 facsimile of the one he brought, he said, " Well ! if I 

 had not seen these clutches I should have placed this 

 egg in my collection as that of the cuckoo." The eggs 

 in question are of a pale slate colour, very minutely 

 flecked all over, and having a very fine brown hair- 

 line on the large end ; they were taken in the season 

 of 1888. I have some pygmean eggs of this bird, 

 which might be passed for those of the Dartford 

 warbler. 



The corn bunting (E. miliaria) now and then 

 shows some curious sports. On the 24th of June, 

 1 886, I took a clutch of four eggs, which are of a 

 very pale blue — almost white — with a few under- 

 shell markings. June, 1887, gave me a clutch of four, 

 three of which are large eggs and one very pigmy, 

 which is a rich dark brown. June, 1S88. — I ob- 

 tained a curious set, which are of a sandy — sandy cat 

 — colour, one egg being pigmy, about the size of a 

 small robin's egg ; it is so like the egg of a robin, 

 that if I had not known the nest to be found in the 

 middle of a very large field, I should have thought 

 a robin might have followed the example of the 

 cuckoo. I have two eggs which very much resemble 

 those of the hawfinch ; there were four in the clutch, 

 but the other two unfortunately fell into the hands of 

 a pilfering collector. June, 1887. — I found a clutch of 

 yellow bunting eggs (E. citrenelld), which quite form 

 a connecting link with the eggs of the corn bunting ; 

 they are of a very pale purplish ground, with rich 

 purple lines and markings. May, 18S7. — Stonechat. 

 Six clutch of large eggs, average '85 X ' 58 ; they 

 are of a pale green, with a zone of colour around the 

 large end. May, 1SS8. — Nightingale. Five clutch 

 of large eggs of a green ground, flecked with rusty 

 brown ; they very much resemble the eggs of the 

 blackbird in miniature. June, 1889. — Spotted fly- 

 catcher. One egg only ; there were but two — one 

 hatched very shortly after my attention was called to 

 them. This egg is of a beautiful blue, and under a 

 lens shows a zone of white marks around the large 

 end. 18S7. — Four clutch of the tree-pipit ; these 

 have a most peculiar frosted appearance. In colour 

 they are of a very pale purplish brown, dotted all 

 over with minute dots of reddish brown. I have 



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