Chapter XXII.
The Future of Native Avifauna.

Perusing this chapter, instances of British species which have struggled in vain, or are struggling against untoward environment, will doubtless suggest themselves to the reader. As in ancient England, so in New Zealand, so on Tutira, the axe, the fire-stick, the spade, the inroads of domesticated stock, have each of them played a part in the grand transformation scene. What has happened, or is about to happen, to the wild creatures of New Zealand, is in fact but a re-enactment of what has occurred to the fauna and avifauna of civilised Britain. The bear, the wolf, the beaver have disappeared; the places of the great auk and the bustard know them no more. The substitution of the olive and fig for the thorn and thistle has left no room in either country for animals regarded as undesirable, or breeds unable to fend for themselves.

Were Tutira an ordinary run, which like large tracts of southern Hawke's Bay could be flattened into a mere roll of turf, a mere carpet of grass, half a dozen, perhaps, of its bird species might survive. It is not; on its surface will probably continue to exist a greater number of species than on any other run in New Zealand. Although this, however, may be so, it is beyond all question that the numbers of each of these breeds will be lessened in the immediate future. It is impossible for those unacquainted with the past to realise the exuberance of bird life in the woodlands of the 'eighties. Bush-falling had barely been started in any part of the province, the North Island had been too much disturbed by war for anything approaching close settlement. Forest, wood, and water birds still existed in undiminished multitudes. It was then possible for Maoris to shoot on Tutira half a hundred brace of pigeon in a few hours. I have heard an observer describe how, as a boy page 204 at Norsewood, in the “Seventy-mile bush,” he recollects pigeons so plentiful that, on certain favourite perching trees, their weight was sufficient to break down the smaller boughs. In the Tutira woods there were, besides the larger birds, thousands of wax-eye, warblers, and fantails. The rivers and lakes were as plentifully stocked: the cormorant tribe had not been then mercilessly persecuted. Tutira lake bore on its bosom a fleet of eight or nine hundred papango, widgeon (Fuligula Novœ Zealandiœ).

The fauna of Tutira will not detain us long. It was in the 'eighties represented by one species of bat.

Within the hollow boles of certain dead pines several small colonies existed at that time; later, when this timber was felled for firewood bats became very scarce. The last I remember to have noticed used to fly at dusk about Harry Young's cottage, built in the early 'nineties.¹

Proceeding now to the avifauna, I shall hazard a sketch of its future. Not very many species will fail to survive, though only in a countryside so broken by cliff and bog could so pleasant a prophecy be risked. The run has been so planned by Providence that the utmost industry of man cannot completely mar it. No farming, happily, can plane away cliffs or fill up gorges. So broken and so rugged must the surface of the station always remain, that twenty-six or twenty-eight out of thirty breeding species will continue to propagate their kind. Nor will species that disappear do so for the reasons so often assigned; they are not less vigorous than their acclimatised rivals, they will neither be ousted by imported species or annihilated by imported vermin. Much has been written about the inability of New Zealand birds to withstand the competition of the new-comers; their disappearance has been predicted on account of defective morphology. If this be indeed the case, then other qualities more than atone for such structural deficiency.²

Another reason assigned for the disappearance of the natives is inability to compete with alien breeds in regard to food-supply. The

¹ In more recent times I have come across bats at Waikaremoana about 1908, in the forests of the Motu in 1912, in certain islands south of New Zealand in 1913, in Little Barrier in 1919.

² I have seen the frail-looking fantail hawking nonchalantly for insects in a deluge that was killing the homestead sparrows, quail, pheasants, and other aliens wholesale. The fact is, that our imported birds are not bred to stand from thirty to seventy hours of tropical downpour, driven before a violent, sometimes an icy gale. In these storms species whose forebears have not been accustomed to face seven, fourteen, and twenty inches in three consecutive ceaseless days' rainfall, perish in great numbers.

page 204a

Nesting-Hole and Egg of North Island Kiwi.

page 205 bird life of the forest reserves of Tutira does not support this theory. Natives are neither debarred from their fair share of food, nor intimidated by the presence of the new-comers. On these reserves I find the sparrow, starling, minah, yellow - hammer, chaffinch, greenfinch, blackbird, and thrush, the fantail, wax-eye, warbler, pied-tit, kingfisher, tui, and pigeon living together amicably. Native species, with perhaps the exception of the pigeon, lay the same number of eggs, breed as frequently per season, and rear as many nestlings as in the 'eighties, when few aliens had reached the station, when none were abundant. Food has proved ample for both stranger and native. The source of such beliefs is partly, I suppose, man's predilection for paradox and antithesis. The Maori's adumbration of his fate, doubtful at best in regard to himself, certainly false in regard to the indigenous grasses of his country, has passed current too long as an established truth. The white man's self-esteem has been flattered unduly in the belief that “as the pakeha rat has destroyed the native rat, as the pakeha grass has destroyed the native grass, so will the European destroy the Maori.”

The real cause of diminution of native birds is easy to give: no creature can live without food and breed without covert; woodland species cannot exist without woodland, jungle and swamp-haunting breeds cannot survive without jungle and swamp, they cannot feed on clover and breed on turf. At one time there were on Tutira many hundreds of acres alive with forest birds; not one single individual now exists on many of these localities, because not one single tree remains. That is the simple explanation of the great decrease of natives. On the coastal portion of Tutira, where the country is grassed, comparatively few survive. On the ranges of the interior where the forest is untouched, native birds far outnumber the aliens. So much for the immediate past. When in the future every acre of the run shall have become grassed, when everywhere the flocks and herds of the settler shall have subdued the remaining scrub and fern, a still more severe and searching test awaits the native avifauna. As has happened to other monsters of the prime, the easy-going sloth will have been succeeded by beasts lesser in bulk but more active, greedy, and fierce,—the squatter's room will have been occupied by the farmer. Under the sway of the yeoman class every yard of ground will be utilised; there will exist no longer unconsidered trifles of wild page 206 land, an acre here, an acre there, not snapped up, not ploughed, not grassed. Each homestead will support a colony of cats and dogs, each will be a nucleus for a settlement of rats. Wild covert will have altogether gone from the hills, the kowhai and fuchsia and hinahina which, either as single trees or in open clumps, have hitherto withstood fires, will have died out from lapse of time. Because of nibbling sheep and increase of danthonia—a grass easily fired—no seedling successors will have replaced the originals.

If, in fact, the squatter has chastised the ancient vegetation with rods, the yeoman will chastise it with scorpions. In the last, fullest, most energetic development of land for agriculture and stock-farming, shreds and patches of ancient Tutira will remain only in the deep gorges, the sinuous bogs, the cliffs of the run. There will nevertheless, as I have said, subsist on the station, though in sadly lessened numbers, nearly every native species that has bred on its 20,000 acres in my day They will disappear indeed from the surface, they will sink, with the streams that are to prove their salvation, deep into the bowels of the earth, they will survive in the gorges.

Previous chapters have shown the effects of trampling of animals, drainage of swamps, destruction of water herbage, in general the disappearance of covert, the substitution for jungle and scrub of land open to the sun. The country under my régime has been shorn of its fleece; in the time to come it will be flayed of its very skin; yet in spite of himself, perhaps against his wishes, the settler of the future must on land of this type help perforce in the preservation of wild life. To a sheep-farmer producing sheep, wool, mutton, and beef on a great scale, the loss of one or two thousand sheep a year is accepted with comparative equanimity. It is unavoidable on land held as leasehold without compensation for improvements. The yeoman, however, will be a freeholder. He will have purchased his land like Mary her ointment of spikenard—at a great cost. Loss above the normal 2 or 2½ per cent will, on a small flock, be considered a serious matter—an evil to be remedied. The only sure and certain cure of that evil is fencing. If the smallholder is to prosper and to thrive, cliff and bog alike must be secured from trespass of stock. There will be conserved, therefore, on either side of each gorge and boggy creek on Tutira, a strip of covert. Above the rims of the cliffs will flourish manuka, bracken, certain heaths and dry-country plants; along the sides of the boggy creeks will grow page 207 flax, nigger-head, raupo, and rank sedges. Without gorge or bog such narrow belts of wild land would be of little avail; as additions to natural refuge-grounds they will prove invaluable. These fenced-off strips, moreover, will be kept inviolate from fire on account of the fencing material,—strainers, posts, and battens of wood.

Farming, moreover, in such lands as those of central Tutira will entail feeding of the ground. To obtain a return, marl, artificials, and lime will have to be supplied to its hungry though responsive soils. Of these manures a proportion will percolate beyond the limits of the fencing. Growth will be stimulated in the narrow strips of waste land as in the fields without. Reeds and water herbage will shoot up more tall and luxurious, manuka and heaths will put forth a stronger growth. Stimulation to plant life also means in the long-run stimulation to animal life, a bigger hatch of insects, an enhanced crop of land snails, grubs, and caterpillars.¹ This involuntary assistance to the avifauna of the station, though less striking and conspicuous, will prove of more importance than the planting of shelter-belts, orchards, and shrubberies about the homesteads to be; such cover is too open, too much overrun by cats, by dogs, by rats.

In the light of such vital factors in race maintenance as food-supply and breeding accommodation, we can proceed to consider the future of an avifauna, whose vicissitudes and disabilities may chance to suggest analogies to other readers in other lands.

Species that have during my day nested on the run may be divided into four lots—those that have actually been attracted to the place by novel conditions; those that have more or less adapted themselves to changed environment; those to whom change would have been fatal but for the broken nature of the run; and lastly, those to whom changed conditions have been fatal.

Nest and Eggs of Banded Dottrel.

Three or four pairs of the first named were induced to settle during a windy spring when several hundred acres of ploughed ground in the Waterfall paddock lay bare as sand-dunes beneath continued nor'-westers. Since that date the Dottrel has regularly reappeared each spring, nesting sometimes on tilled ground, sometimes on short grass. It may therefore be that by the chance combination of ploughed land and a windy spring a permanent change in the habits of the species has been induced—a change which may save it from local extinction, for it cannot be doubted that in the crowded future the coasts of Hawke's Bay will become less safe; apparently, however, on dry pumiceous lands there is sufficient food-supply of the sort desired; the Banded Dottrel following the plough and harrow may become a common species perhaps where before it was unknown.

We owe the appearance of the Pied Stilt to another station “improvement”—the great drain, to wit, cut in the 'nineties through the big swamp. The northern bay of Tutira lake has from that time begun to silt up; there has appeared a strip of muddy beach, a bank of sand, an area of shoal water. These conditions, though on the smallest scale, have on several occasions attracted pairs of Pied Stilt, eggs have been laid, and nestlings reared.

The Paradise duck bred with us for the first time after the great flood of 1917, when enormous deposits of silt covered Kahikanui Flat: of the fifty or sixty which remained during that winter, several pairs reared a brood. They have continued to breed on the station ever since. Given the chance of extension of range, it has been taken: Dottrel passing overhead have spied out naked soil; Pied Stilt—sand; Paradise duck—fresh feeding-grounds.

A dozen breeds have more or less successfully adapted themselves to change of environment. They have at any rate not lost everything by the alterations of the last forty years. Often, though not always, the harm done has been greater than the benefit gained, yet the species to be named have survived, and I believe will continue to do so even under the more severe ordeal of intensive land culture.

Of all the birds on the run, the Native Pipit or Ground lark (Anthus Novœ Zealandiœ) has been the greatest gainer by change. page 209 It has lost nothing and won much. Its increase has been commensurate with increase of open ground. No longer is it limited to such oases in a desert of fern as landslips, wind-blows, bases of sun-dried cliffs, sand and shingle spits of open river-bed, pig-rootings, bare rocks, and the scanty cultivation-grounds of the old-time Maoris. The bird is a frequenter of neither forest nor marsh, so that operations which have almost annihilated certain species have but enlarged its domain. The area of land open to grasshoppers, daddy-long-legs, and caterpillars is a thousand times greater than of yore. Plough and spade are to this amenable species godsends, disinterring in multitudes the white soft larvæ of the green beetle. The Pipit is, moreover, very partial to the alien blow-fly attracted by every carrion on the place. Although truly a bird of the wilderness, it will haunt the garden too on occasion, watching the worker almost as an English robin does, and accepting tit-bits from the hand of a friend.

The Pukeko or Swamp-hen (Porphyrio melanotus) has, by its gregarious habits, productivity and general adaptability, proved able to thrive better on dry ground than wet, on grass and clover than on raupo and sedge. In the 'eighties the range of this fine bird was limited to portions of marshland where excessive moisture kept the water-logged flax yellow and starved, to quaking peat-bogs, to debris deposited by little streams emptying themselves into the lake, to narrow margins of soft ooze between the border of tall flax and the lake itself, to raupo beds in the shallows. The Pukeko has gained by every step in the development of the station, by the destruction of fern, by the felling of forest, by the drainage of marsh, by the increase, in fact, of treadable surface. Hundreds run in swamps now drained dry, hundreds explore the hills, breaking up the dead patches of grass in search of grubs; cropping itself, the anathema of many species, is a boon to the breed. Tender oats are sweeter than grass, they serve also to conceal the careless nest; amongst the ripening grain the bird weaves platforms upon which to rest. Nor does he willingly renounce the novel food-supply even when under thatch. The oat straws are carefully and deliberately drawn out one by one, the frugal birds devouring every single grain from one head ere beginning another. The Pukeko is, moreover, in the happy position of being able to regard with equanimity a further contraction of its feeding-grounds. It might even be an advantage to a breed where polygamy page 210 is largely practised, where combined clutches of ten and twelve are not rare.¹

The social instincts of the species are already highly developed; at threat of danger the birds flock together for defence; foundlings, too, are welcomed and protected by individuals other than the true parents. The Pukeko, in fact, is within measureable distance of complete gregariousness, yet in spite of what has been said, in spite of its adaptability and great increase during my day, I fear for the species. He offers too large a mark, he loves the open and the sun; the gorge, the cliff, the inaccessible river-bed will be of no avail in his hour of need, for what are now condoned as peccadillos may in the days to come be classed as crimes. On a large run the damage Pukeko can do is trifling. Circumstances, however, alter cases; perhaps if even I myself possessed but a few acres I should feel annoyance at rape of oats, theft of straw, ravages amongst green maize, wholesale cropping of clover and grass. As man is constituted, the intelligence and high ethical standard of the Pukeko may not atone for mischief even on this petty scale. Still, it is hard to believe that amongst the future owners of Tutira one or two will not be found to protect in a semi-domesticated state a few of these splendid water-hens.

Young Harrier hawks.

The Harrier (Circus Gouldi), and in lesser degree the falcon, have also gained by the advent of settlement, by the admittance of light to the earth's surface, by the increase of creatures which live their lives in the open. The diet of the former must have in ancient days been scarce and precarious. It would then consist of lizards, insects, fledgling birds, and eggs. Not only must the quantity of small animals have been scantier over the whole run, but to a clumsy slow-flying species the prevalence of covert must have been particularly baffling.

Nowadays not only has the supply of birds, a percentage of which are perpetually falling out of the ranks from natural causes, increased, but the spread of open land has revealed to the harrier insect and reptile life formerly unknown in the land—frogs by the edges of water-holes, crickets below the dry cattle-droppings. Lastly, the stocking of the run has supplied to the Harrier mutton on a great scale. In a well-managed, well-fed, and carefully-culled flock running on perfectly safe country, 2 or 2½ per cent is about the normal death-rate. It is the unavoidable loss incurred through diseases more or less akin to those causing death in the human race. On Tutira, however, a minimum loss of 5 per cent has never been quite reached; it is the toll paid by the station to cliff and bog, and works out at the rate of from three to five sheep a day. Some of these are found and the skin at least saved; some are totally submerged in quaking morass, buried in holes, trapped in under-runners, or smashed by falls from cliffs. The balanee, say half, is the perquisite of the Harrier; he is fed, therefore, at the rate of something not far short of 100 lb. of meat a day; for the sake of caution, say 50 lb. a day. Divide that again and say 25 lb. a day. Many, moreover, of these sheep are fat, so that it is not surprising that Harriers are sometimes killed on the ground by sheep-dogs, the birds so gorged as to be unable to rise. The breeding-quarters of the species will be in the future, fields of oats and clover raupo swamps, and belts of low manuka.

Young Falcons.

The gallant little Falcon, too, (Hieracidea Novœ Zealandiœ), has been more than compensated for loss of native prey by increase of ground larks, by the introduction and spread of pheasant, quail, thrush, blackbird, minah, starling, and lark. Especially is the Sparrow-hawk more plentiful about the centre and uplands of the run. These were districts in olden days barren of bird life, except of ground birds and sedentary species easily able to escape into the all-pervading fern. As to breeding-qnarters, the Falcon has the choice of the whole dry-cliff system.

The Kingfisher, too (Halcyon vagans), has gained, or at any rate not page 212 lost by the opening up of the land. His range of vision has been greatly lengthened; probably the increase of surface from which worms can be gathered has more than made up for the partial loss of cicada and dragon-fly, both of which are nowadays taken by the minah, and probably also by other acclimatised species. At any rate, the clutches of eggs are as large and the Kingfishers themselves as plentiful as in the 'eighties. Although the type of nesting-site preferred of old, rotten timber, has been destroyed by fire and falling of forest lands, sandbanks of a proper consistency remain in ample quantity along the open reaches of the Waikoau.

Kingfisher.

The Morepork (Athene Novœ Zealandiœ) has conformed to the requirements of civilisation, has become, indeed, a semi-domesticated bird, one or two pair living permanently in the vicinity of the homestead. Such residenters are attracted, especially during winter-time, by the influx of sparrows, rats, and mice. Indeed, from a merely utilitarian point of view, the Morepork is a useful ally

Morepork—male.

Female Morepork at nesting-hole.

page 213 to the settler, and when better known is likely to be of set purpose protected and encouraged. Though in great degree his ancient nesting-quarters, holes in trees, have been destroyed, yet like the Kingfisher he has adapted himself to novel conditions; on Tutira this small owl now chiefly breeds in dry dark cliff crannies. With habitations in the everlasting hills, and with an enormously increased food-supply, the Morepork is safe.

Grey Warbler.

Three small species, the Grey Warbler (Gerygone flaviventris), the Wax-eye (Acanthisitta chloris), the Fantail (Rhipidura flabellifera), though immensely reduced in number through the clearing of bush and scrub, will nevertheless always survive in the gorges and cliffs. The Wax-eye and Fantail, moreover, already breed about homesteads, the Wax-eye regaling himself on fig, cape gooseberries, box-thorn and other foreign dainties, the Fantail not infrequently carrying his friendly intimacy so far as to enter open windows in the pursuit of house-flies. Neither is the Grey Warbler, though rather less domesticated, quite proof against the super-abundant supply of blights, caterpillars, and insect life generally, that infest every unsprayed New Zealand orchard and garden.

Fantail.

About the Shining Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx lucidus) I know but little at first hand; I have never found a nest containing the careless migrant's egg or chick. That the Cuckoo, too, is in some degree adapting himself to changed conditions there is, however, considerable proof, instances having occurred, I am told, where the chick has been reared in nests of imported species. On the tree-feathered gorges and page 214 about the strips fenced to keep stock from danger, there will always be sufficient food and cover for a few of these birds.

Of water birds, the Grey Duck (Anas superciliosa) is not suited by the conditions of Tutira and has never been plentiful; 20,000 acres, however, is a big bit of ground, and the surface of the lake will always attract flights, of which a few pair will remain to breed, chiefly about the open reaches of the Waikoau.

Young Grey Duck.

The future of the Widgeon or Scaup (Fuligula Novœ Zealandiœ) is less easy to forecast. Of the two vital factors in race maintenance,—food-supply and nesting accommodation,—the first at any rate is secure, for the feeding-grounds of the Scaup are the lake bottoms. Whatever other surfaces have been tampered with, that one at any rate has remained, and will always remain, intact; but whilst there will continue to be a superabundance of food, and whilst female birds will continue to be capable of laying large numbers of eggs, another danger threatens the Scaup—the loss of nesting-sites. No ordinary covert will suffice this pernickety species,—the nest must be hidden beneath many seasons' accumulation of rotting flax-blades. The Scaup, furthermore, never breeds except by the water's edge. Such particularity militates against the species, and is likely to do so in an increasing degree, since flax fibre in a dry season is excessively inflammable, and the plant is being fast destroyed by cattle. The case is interesting as an example of how a breed with ample feeding-grounds may decay in numbers solely and entirely from want of the particular cover required for nesting purposes; his prejudices in regard to housing accommodation will be his undoing if indeed he disappears.

Tui on nest on tree-top.

Another lake bird to whom the future is secure is the Little Grebe (Podiceps rufipectus), whose nest is practically undiscoverable, and whose ample food-supply rests secure, like that of the Scaup, on the lake bottom.

There are other breeds certain to have disappeared from the station but for its innumerable gorges; in them all pastoral changes cease, sheep cannot tread their banks nor cattle follow up their narrow beds. These scores of miles of gorge-bottom will never be trodden by man; they are unaffected by the alterations of plain and hill above, they are only to be reached by rope-work. Into a few I have myself from time to time attempted invasion, wading the shallows, climbing the barriers of piled flood debris, working hand over hand along the cliff scrub, swimming the cold, clear, unsunned pools, but always after a few hundred yards finding myself blocked by smooth-sided inaccessible cliffs and waterfalls. On the beds of these canyons there are shreds and patches of habitable

Tui nestlings hand-reared.

slope, deposits of deep soft flood soil rich with flakings of marl, vermiculations of sandstone, and leaf-mould from the fern-feathered precipices. Into these rifts during the course of ages the Kiwi (Apteryx mantelli) and Weka (Ocydromus earli) have sunk with the sinking of the streams themselves. Æons ago they were surface birds; now, perhaps, in the deepest ravines they may have almost differentiated as island races do from their fellows of the plains and hills above. At any rate page 216 in these solitudes the species named are plentiful. There they will remain undisturbed till the day of judgment. These two highly interesting ground birds are safe on Tutira should the whole of the rest of New Zealand be turned into cabbage-gardens cultivated by Chinese.

There also on creek beds unchanged with time, and rich with water insects and fly, will the Blue Duck (Hymenolœmus malacorhynchus) forever maintain himself. Into every ravine I have attempted to enter, signs of his presence are plentiful; where penetration is impossible and the gorge not too deep for sound, his delightful call may be heard far below.

Young Tuis tamed.

Another recluse, the Pied Tit (Petrœca toitoi), will also survive about the shrub-fringed edges of the gorge.

Brown Duck.

The Pigeon (Carpophaga Novœ Zealandiœ) and Tui or Parson Bird (Prosthemadera Novœ Zealandiœ) are certain also to become rare birds. Elsewhere on the run food-supply and breeding accommodation alike will have been swept clear. A few pair of each will nevertheless maintain themselves in the gorges. The Tui will then as now haunt the homestead and shelter-belts when in mid-winter the eucalypts break into flower. At other times of the year kowhai and hill - flax (Phormium Cookianum) will provide nectar, wild fuchsia, poroporo (Solanum aviculare), and other native plants, seeds and berries. The page 217 Pigeon too will survive, though reduced to a few brace. This hardy bird can, I believe, digest almost anything green. I have known them devour immature male Pinus insignis flowers; I have watched them nibbling the dry fronds of Asplenium flaccidum, and stripping one by one the leaves of laburnums. They also freely feed on white clover leaves; on fallen forest, newly sown, I have known them grow excessively fat on rape and turnip shaws. Local survivors in the future are likely to obtain a portion of their food during at least a portion of the year on the surface of the run. They will take toll of the settlers’ white clover, rape, swedes, and probably oats, to the value of a few pence per annum.

Fern-birds—male and female.

On shrubs growing at right angles to the cliff face, the silly platform of sticks which serves for a nest, though transparent from above and below, will be safe from rats, weasels, and prowling cats. The Pigeon in his gorge will be secure from man also, for without descent by rope the gunner could not shoot from below; shooting from above would be mere useless murder, as the birds could not be retrieved.

A few pair of Black Shag (Phalacrocorax Novœ hollandiœ) will also maintain themselves in certain very high cliffs. The Brown Duck (Anas chlorotis), the Fern-bird (Sphenœacus punctatus), the Philippine page 218 Rail (Rallus philippensis), the Swamp-Crake (Ortygometra affinis) and Water-Crake (Ortygometra tabuensis) will find salvation in undrainable marshlands and boggy creeks. The Brown Duck cares nothing for the sunny river-reach, for the deep gorge, for the open width of the lake. His quarters are the slow-flowing streams with blind isolated pools growing sub-aqueous weeds, here and there stirring a reed-bed in their torpid course, here and there passing over an expanse of muddy shallow. There during the hours of light he hides in dense covert and in deep shade, only at night-time venturing out, but then showing himself strangely tame and fearless. Of late years the breed has become more scarce; banks have been trodden down by cattle, water herbage has been devoured. With the advent, however, of the yeoman freeholder, the bogs and marshes most dangerous to stock must perforce be fenced. It is not improbable that with more covert and better feed the numbers of the Brown Duck may again revive. He will be visible at least to those who care to watch him at dusk, and to note his utter unconcern in the presence of man.

Nest of Philippine Rail.

Another species that will gain, at any rate not lose, by settlement is the Fern-bird. It is very small, its habits are furtive, it breeds twice a year, it is adaptable in its choice of nesting-sites, its young are fed on alien as well as indigenous insects.

Young Kaka Parrots.

The Philippine Rail, the Swamp-Crake and the Water-Crake, will manage to maintain themselves. They too, like the Fern-bird, will be gainers by the larger crop of insect life resulting from the fertilisation and the intensive working of the pumiceous area. Certainly about the new home-steads page 219 there will also occur an increase of cats—tame, half-wild, and wild,—but strange as it may appear, this fact will not necessarily be fatal. On the contrary, in certain Hawke's Bay swamps I have found by far the larger number of rails' nests containing unspoiled eggs close to cottages. Injurious as the cat may be to the rail, its presence is still more baneful to the rat; relatively that is, the cat has actually come to exert a protective influence. No one of these species is common on Tutira, but their habits of concealment make them appear more rare than is truly the case. Of native birds that have bred in my day in Tutira, there remain two only to be considered—the Parrot (Nestor meridionalis) and the Parrakeet (Platycercus Novœ Zealandiœ). Neither species can survive locally in the absence of considerable areas of forest.

Such, under the conditions foreshadowed, is the future of the Tutira avifauna. In my sketch nothing whatever has been allowed for sentiment, sense of beauty, even for intelligent appreciation of usefulness. Yet surely in the future we may anticipate that a sufficiency of leisure will be the birthright of every man. If that be so, one step—and a lengthy step—towards rational content and wholesome happiness will lie in nature study. I do not mean the ability to systematise and classify—I mean the watchfulness that will awake in the student, fellowship, humour, and sympathy.

So far the best that has been done towards the conservation of species is but negative. At the best, man has here and there been content not to destroy utterly. What is required is positive work, the elimination of vermin and parasites, the study and augmentation of special supplies of food, the careful reservation of nesting accommodation.

At the worst, the species named will as species sparsely survive on Tutira; with a little trouble, a little watchfulness, a little expenditure of time and money, the numbers of individuals could be vastly amplified.

Baby Pukeko.