Pacific Nature Notes

Written for "PIM" by Charles Barrett, FRZS

The Orange Cowry

MY notes on shells and shell collectors have b: ought me several letters.

Writing from Vatutemba, Bua, Fiji, Mr. N. C. Mackenzie-Hunt i efers especially to a scarce and beautiful shell with a history: “I have had many specimens of the orange cowry, but said them all as soon as I had got them. 'I have not had many at all of late years. I don’t know the Cypraea aurora mentioned in your notes, so perhaps it is not found in these particular island groups. Some nice volutes are found in the Solomons, out nothing very spectacular in Fiji; which seems strange, as Fiji is in close proxi mity.”

Cowries have always been favourites of collectors; though cones and volutes are almost as popular. The oiange cowry an neals greatly to tourists as a souvenir of the islands: and scores of fine specimens must have been carried away from Fiji when Pacific cruises were possible—and not more costly than a three weeks’ holi day at some over-run seaside resort.

Many of these souvenir shells may still survive as mantelpiece ornaments; others doubtless have become playthings for children, or been dumped among house hold junk in the attic: a pity, for they should be in museums.

The Argue cowry (Arestorides argus), now as common in collections as the tiger cowry, once upon a time was regarded as a rarity. It is noted for its elegant form as well as its markings. The “wonder” cowry of southern Australian seas differs from nearly all other cowries in having a long, crooked “tail,” and a somewhat de pressed spire. The first specimen of this “cold water” form to be collected was re garded as a wonder shell, probably unique, and sold for £3O: a very bad bargain for the purchaser. In a few years, specimens became plentiful and cheap: they were brought up from the depths by trawlers.

It is unlikely that many specimens of the “glory of the sea” cone will ever be found; and the most valuable of all shells should always remain a treasure.

Poisonous Cones

jl/fANY kinds of cones are handsome shells; some are very beautiful. For more than ttree centuries, the cones have been in high favour with naturalists and collectors; indeed, they rival the cowries and out-rival other favourite groups. Included among the cones are the only known shellfish that definitely are dangerous to man, in the manner of venomous snakes: molluscs that are poisonous by biting. The specimens of Conus textilis and C. geographus in my cabinet were collected with due caution, for I was well aware of the danger of

handling these cones with their owners alive in them. They are not the only poisonous species: both Conus tulina and C. aulicus have been responsible for cases of mollusc poisoning. But the textile cone and C. geographus generally are re garded as the most dangerous forms: their bites have proved fatal in several re corded cases: and probably in many un recorded ones—among natives, over the years.

Nearly a century ago, Sir Edward Belcher, of HMS “Samarang,” was bitten by a cone (C. aulicus) which he picked up, somewhere in the Moluccas. The mol lusc clung like a leech to the collector’s hand; and inflicted a painful, “burning” wound. This is one of the earliest ac counts of cone shell mollusc poisoning.

In the ’eighties, a case occurring in New Britain was recorded in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales: a native was bitten on the hand by a Conus geographus. He immediately made numerous incisions, with a sharo stone, in arm and shoulder—cuts which bled freely: and explained to the in quiring white man that to this painful measure he owed his life.

In the Medical Journal of Australia, some years ago, Dr. H. Flecker, of Cairns, summarised reports of instances of poisoning by different species of Conus; and recorded a fatal case in North Queensland; details of which had been received from Dr. T. B. Clouston, of Proserpine. The victim, a man aged twenty-seven years, was stung in the palm of the hand when he picked up a live cone shell at Hayman Island, whence he had gone on a pleasure cruise. No pain was felt, but local symptoms of numbness were followed by stiffness around the lips. At thirty minutes the victim’s legs became paralysed; soon he was unconscious: and four hours after be ing bitten, or stung, he died.

Long ago, the Rev. W. Wyatt Gill learned that the dangerous nature of the textile cone, especially, was well known to the natives of Western Poly nesia. On one occasion, when the “John Williams” arrived off the island of Mare, the missionary at the station delayed coming off to the ship. Later he ex plained that he had been burying an islander who had been poisoned by handling a good-sized shellfish, which uroved to be a specimen of Conus textilis.

The poor man suffered agony for hours, and his body swelled to an enormous size.

“Stung” at night, he died at dawn.

The barbs, by means of which the cone animal injects its venom, have been likened to the sting of a bee. Actually, in cones, the radula consists of very large marginals on either side: the base is

blunt and contains a poison gland with a duct to carry its contents to the barbed point of the marginal.

Though there are some five hundred species of Conus, only five or six are known to be poisonous. And the natives discovered their dangerous qualities cen turies before the white man invaded the Pacific Island world.

The Wandering White-Eye

SILVEREYES in my garden, singing their whisper-song, remind me that, when in New Zealand, I must watch out for Zosterops, which became firmly established in the Dominion nearly a cen tury ago. Flocks or small parties of white eyes, more happily called silvel--eyes, arrived from Australia round about 1856; and became successful colonists. Its num bers rapidly increased: and the range of tau-ho, the stranger, as the Maoris named the small olive-green and grey bird, with a yellow throat and a ring of white feathers around each eye, gradually ex tended its range in the new country which it had reached by crossing the stormy Tasman.

Prior to the early ’fifties, the white-eye was unknown in New Zealand: neither Maori nor Pakeha had seen it earlier than 1856, so presumably, that was the year of its anival. In less than a de cade it had spread over the whole of the North Island and southern areas of the South Island: later pioneer parties reached sub-antarctic islands, and be came acclimatised.

It has been estimated that the journey across the Tasman would have occupied the fust flocks from twenty-four to thirty-six hours. A wonderful journey for such small birds as silvereyes; but many migratory species, large and small, annually make very much longer passages, over land and sea, than one thousand miles—the distance the white-eyes would cover flying on a direct course.

The family to which the tau-hou be longs contains more than one hundred and fifty species, and has a wide range: from northern Africa, India, and south ern Asia to Japan, in the east, and Aus tralia and New Zealand in the south.

Several members of the Zosterops family occur in China, and one, the South China white-eye, is popular as a cage bird among the Cantonese, who call it “song-si.’

Years ago, Dr. G. A. Herklots, of the University, Hongkong, sent me a copy of the fine journal edited by him, “The Hongkong Naturalist,” containing an ar ticle on the South China white-*eye as a cage bird. The author, R. a. Pereira, stated that it was not an uncommon sight to see small boys and grey-headed men, each holding a cage, deeply absorbed in conversation, discussing the meiits of their respective birds. The bamboo song si’s Chinese name means, literally, “sing loud-voice”: not a suitable name for the Australian species, whose short, musical notes are never loud; while at times, it warbles so softly that the varied strain forms a whisper song.

Though unwelcome where grapes and other soft fruits are grown, silvereyes do a great deal more good than harm, and well deserve their nickname—“blight birds”—they eat other injurious insects while showing a preference for aphides.

My rose bushes are kept fairly free of aphis when silvereyes visit the garden and reman for a week or so.

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Rarest of all the white-eyes is a pygmy form, found only on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo; where, too, the olive-black species, another rare bird, also is at home. I met with the mountain whiteeye, which ranges from Celebes and the Moluccas to the Philippines in Bali: it occurs also in Java and Timor, but I did not get a glimpse of it during my brief visit to the last-named island.

Silver-eyes build dainty, cup-shaped nests, pendent from leafy twigs, usually at the end of a slender branch. Woven of fine grasses, and lined with horsehair in many cases, sometimes they are ornamented sparingly with moss: frail, almost flimsy cradles. The eggs may be visible when one looks up at a white-eye’s nest with sunlight shining through it. Four

eggs form the clutch as a rule. They are among the prettiest of all birds’ eggs, be ing pale greenish-blue, or much the same colour as those of a song-thrush, but minus the black markings, My notes refer to the grey-backed Zos terops of eastern and southern Australia, and Tasmania, which migrated to New Zealand so many years ago. By the way, I recall that the late Dr. J. A. Leach thought it possible that strong winds con nected with Black Thursday—that appall ing day of bush fires in Victoria—may have carried thousands of small birds over the Tasman; including silvereyes, some of which survived to become colonies of their kind in the land to which high winds had borne them.