Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Botany of New Zealand / George Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![the woods, on elevated land. The natives use the leaves for thatching their huts. Gunltheria antipoda. Mad kukdd of the natives.—A small shrubby plant, found very abundant. “ Stem sbrul)- by, ditluse ; leaves scattered, roundish, serrate-toothed.” — J'oi sterns Piodro- itms. Passiflora tetrandra (Banks and So- lander). Po-hue-hud of the natives.— This species of Passiflora is found in the New Zealand woods, and produces small orange-coloured fruit about May, containing numerous seeds of a beauti- ful crimson colour. Two species of the Piper genus are found in the woods, a shrub, the P. ex- celsum, and a few small species, the JP. insipidum. DraccBna indivisa. Ti of the natives. This species of Dracaena differs from that found among the Polynesian Is- lands ; it attains an elevation of ten or twelve feet, the summit terminating in a tuft of broad ensiform leaves, having no petioles, but are terminal, and half- clasping. The leaves form an excellent food as sea stock for cattle, &c. There is another species at New Zealand, the D. Australis. Metrosideros florida. Knhi-kahika of the natives.—This species of Metrosi- deros 1 have found in the woods of New Zealand bushy, with opposite, ovate- oblong leaves, veined and glabrous, and Btiaching itself to other trees by offset roots, forming a bush around the tree. Ceanolhus Species. Kumarahou of the natives.—I collected numerous spe- cimens of this plant in flower at Paihia, Bay of Islands, in July 1829. Astelia Sp. Kaha-kuha of the na- tives. London, Dec. 23, ls31. PELICANUS AQUILA, OR SEA HAWK. The man of war birds, or sea-hawks, (Pelicanus Aquila) are seldom or never seen far distant from land ; the male birds are black, and have a red pouch ; the females have a white breast, and are destitute of the pouch. In procuring . ft^f their food, these birds prefer ^seizing it from the boobies and gannets i nstcad of catching it themselves * ‘ - ... . To attain this object, the sea-hawk hovers above the gannet, (which is the bird most usually selected for attack) and darting rapidly down, strikes him on the back of the head, which causes him to disgorge his prey, which is seized by the hawk with an inconceivable ra- pidity before it reaches the water, and he afterwards soars aloft to look out for another object of attack. It is not an uncommon circumstance to observe a single gannet selected from a flock, and come out to be the subject of attack, as if he had been called by the hawk in preference to the others. The gannet, however, manoeuvres to avoid the blow by darting about, lowering himself from his elevation in the air at every dart, and raising his beak in a perpendiculardi- rection, eludes the blow of the hawk from behind, and frequently both fall into the water; the hawk only having the advan- tage over the gannet when hovering in the air, the latter escapes. At the island of Ascension, where these birds are common, I was informed by Lieut. M'Arthur (.Marine Artillery) that the method practised by the liawks to oblige the gannets to disgorge their prey was tried by a gentleman who lately visited the island ; he had seen the at- tack of the hawk on the gannet, and the successful result. When he visited the part of the island named “ the Fair,” where these birds congregate in great numbers, he struck some of them with a cane on the back of the head, and the disgorgement of the fish they had swal- lowed immediately took place. The use of the pouch in the man-of- war hawk will be an interesting subject for investigation; why it should be found in the male, and not in the fe- male, is curious. One of the officers at the island of Ascension replied in answer to one of my inquiries, that the pouch was larger in size during the breeding season. The adjutant bird of India has also a pouch, \yhich has been the sub- ject of a communication from Dr. Adams, published in the Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta, but his hypotheses are very inconclusive. My friend, ]\Jr. Rooke, mentioned to me at Oahu (Sandwich Islands) that he had seen these birds on the reefs, and on his approaching them, they were obliged to disgorge a quan- tity of half-digested fish before they could rise ; they then inflated the pouch to a large size, and running along to](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22468365_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
