NATURE NOTES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3571, 10 July 1912, Page 8

NATURE NOTES.

(Specially Written for the Gisborne Times by “Naturalist.”) THE DRONGO.

.A “racquet-tailed drongo,” an Indian bird, which imitates the song of almost every other bird and .the voices of animals from clogs to donkeys, has been presented to the Zoo. This -name was given to the bird by the Franco-Dutch naturalist and traveller, Len \~aillant. The drongo is a perching bird belonging to the family dicoruridae.. FISH WITH A BILL. There is a fish that inhabits the waters of the Mississippi river which has a bill something like a duck. It is about six feet long, and is known as the duck-billed fish or spoon-billed sturgeon. An extensive fishery has grown up in connection with this fish, which is caught chiefly for its roe (used in the manufacture of a kind of caviare.) The fish pokes about in the mud with its bill stirring it up, and then feeds upon the small crustaceans that abound in myriads on the river bed. THE CAMEL’S KICK. The camel’s kck is a study. As it stands demurely chewing the cud up goes a hind leg, drawn close into the body, with foot pointing out; a short pause, and out it flies with an action like the-piston and connecting--rod of a steam engine,, showing judgment of distance and direction that would lead one to think the leg gifted with perceptions of its own, independent of the animals’s proper senses. A traveller in the East declares that he has seen a heavy man sent several yards into a dense crowd by the kick of a camel, and picked up insensible. FISH OF MANY NAMES. There is a strange looking fish which forms the connecting link between the sharks and the rays, and which has been given many names. The upper pair of outstanding parts are the pectoral fins, and the lower paii the ventral fins, corresponding respectively to the human arms and legs. The former has been taken to bear some rude resemblance to wings, giving rise to one of the popular names for this not very handsome creature — the angel-fish. Some people have seen in tlie targe rounded head a likeness to a cowl or a mitre; hence two other names have come into use—-monk-fish and bishop-fish. It is also called tiddle fish, shark ray, and kingston. The home of these fish is on sandy bottoms, where they prey upon flat-fish. Large specimens attain a length of from seven to eight feet. THE TONGUE OF THE GIRAFFE. The tongue of the giraffe is very useful to the animal. It is slender, long and pointed, and endowed with surprising strength. The tongue is capable of being greatly elongated, and the giraffe can then coil it round branches of trees and draw them into its mouth. The upper lip of the giraffe is also provided with great muscular strength, and the animal can hold things between its lips so tightly that it is practically impossible to remove them.

SEX CHANGING LIMPET. A most interesting specimen of the animal world is the slipper limpet, which has recently been imported into English waters. He came sticking to the back of certain American oysters, 'and has established himself in some of our most valuable oyster beds, smothering the oysters and devouring their food. He has multiplied in a wonderful way. For the first year or so of his life he is of the male sex and is free to wander about. When he reaches his second or third year ho decides to setlle down and change his sex. He, or rather it—for it lias no sex for . a year —attaches its shell to that of some sexless colony, and by-and-by it" grows up. and becomes a fully-developed female. It is not easy to watch a limpet feeding, as it generally sticks so closely to the rock that we can observe nothing excepting its shell.

A NEW SPECIES OF FISH. A quantity of an extraordinary and quite unknown fish has been landed by a trawler at Grafton, on the east coast, of Scotland. The fish, which were caught while the vessel was engaged in trawling in the North Sea, have the appearance of herrings, but the head is pointed and the tail forked. while the eye covers the whole side of the head.