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bino parent of this feathered piebald—the Spanish “pinto” would sound better—was still alive, and very fine and healthy. He saw it, as was the usual way, on a shiny night of full moon.

Life with Hauturu's birds was full of such almost faerie touches. There were strange and lovely intimacies with nature. The wood-pigeon, the kukupa, so lost its shyness that it joined the other berry-eaters on the trees around the house. “One can almost catch them with the hand,” said Nelson. He went out to the garden barefooted one night. A kiwi came up to him and rested its long beak on his foot. Nelson half-expected it to give him a jab with that sharp beak, but Mr. Apteryx was merely satisfying his curiosity in the course of his worm-digging.