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Chapter XXIII.

It is impossible to those who admire Nature to go rapidly through such vegetation as that displayed by the New Zealand bush, even if its intricacies would allow them to do so; and, being bound to no time, the Englishmen generally, after a pighunt, returned very leisurely to the pah. There was so much to attract their attention and admiration: on all sides the trees and the flowers were so gloriously beautiful and so new, and the vegetation so luxuriant and wild and picturesque, that no one but such a fox-hunter as made himself famous to posterity by abusing “them stinking violets,” could be blind to the beauty surrounding them.

On the evening before, they had looked carefully for the apteryx, thinking to find him on his nightly excursions, but had done so unsuccessfully; but now, when they thought no more of him, they came upon him unexpectedly.

Hope Bernard was a little in advance of the rest of page 215 the party, when he suddenly stopped and exclaimed, “Hallo! what on earth may you be?” then immediately afterwards he called out to Colonel Bradshaw, “Here, sir; come quick, please! here is a hairy sort of fungus, with three stalks! No, by George! it is living, I do believe, for it has claws.”

By this time the others had joined him, and Colonel Bradshaw said, upon seeing the object of Bernard's excitement,

“How curious, that we looked for him everywhere last night and could not find him, and now, without any searching for, here he is.”

“Do you mean to say that this is the what-do-you-call-him?” asked Stanley.

“This is the ‘what-do-you-call-him,’ Jack. But don't make such a noise, or you will wake him.”

“Why, is he asleep? Which is his head? He is a funny beast: he has only three legs. I never heard of a three-legged animal before.”

“Hold your nonsense, Jack,” answered the Colonel, laughing in spite of himself. “That leg, as you call it, is his neck. He has his bill in the ground. Here, I have got him,” added the Colonel, lifting the creature from the ground as he spoke, and tucking him under his arm.

“Why, it is a bird, I do believe,” said Jack, as a head with a very long bill and two small sleepy eyes showed itself.

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“Of course it is: whatever did you take it for, Master Jack?”

“Well, sir, I thought it was—in fact, I could not tell what to make of it when first I saw it. It seems very tame.”

“It is half asleep. This is a night bird,” said Colonel Bradshaw. “We will carry it home and have a good look at it, for they are very rarely met with now. This is the first I ever came across.”

“And then, I suppose, you will let it fly,” said Jack. “It would be a pity to kill it if they are so rare.”

“I will let it go; but it will not be by flying, Jack; for the poor thing has no wings, and that is the reason that the species are becoming extinct; for, being a ground bird, the natives can so easily kill them.”

“Are they good to eat, then?”

“I suppose they are; though I have never tasted one, not being like your friend the Captain, Bernard, who tastes everything he comes across.”

“But have they really no wings, Colonel Bradshaw?” asked Bernard.

“Positively. As the men are gone on, we will sit down here and examine the creature. It will be better, perhaps, not to take him to the pah, as the Maoris will be pretty sure to follow him, and kill him if they see him. —Look,” resumed the Colonel, presently, after he had placed the bird upon the ground without loosing his hold of it. “Look!” and he pulled up from the apteryx's page 217 side a little stump of bone, at the end of which was a little hook.

“What can be the use of that?” asked Bernard.

“That I cannot tell you: it must have some use, of course.”

“Perhaps he fishes with it on moonlight nights,” suggested Jack.

“Or perhaps he walks out arm-in-arm with a friend,” said Bernard.

“Or maybe he waves it in the air when he wants to enforce an argument, like Captain Cuttle,” said Jack Stanley, again.

“Perhaps you will leave off talking nonsense, and examine the bird further,” said Colonel Bradshaw, laughing.

Jack Stanley sat down by his side.

“Tell us all about him, sir, please,” he said.

“I don't know all about him; in fact, I fancy very few people do, excepting Professor Owen. The bird lives upon insects.”

“That is the reason of his long bill, I suppose.”

“No doubt. If we had met this fellow by night we should not have easily caught him. Look what strong legs and feet he has. He runs very rapidly. —Keep still, will you?” This latter was to the apteryx, who was shaking off his drowsiness.

“But,” said Jack, attempting again to touch the bird, “this brown stuff does not look much like feathers—it is so hairy looking.” As he approached his hand towards page 218 the apteryx he received a violent scratch from one of its sharp hind claws. “He is beginning to show fight,” said Jack.

He was not only beginning, but going on. He was violently struggling and kicking, so that the Colonel, after receiving two or three good scratches and digs from his claws, found himself unable to hold him any longer, and the apteryx escaped from his hands, running at full speed with his head in the air.

“I am afraid we have spoilt his sleep,” said the Colonel. “He had better have remained still without exciting himself until we had finished our examination; but I suppose he does not care for the advancement of science.”

“I am very glad we have seen him,” said Bernard. “Is he the only bird of the kind?”

“The only bird still living; I believe—or almost. I fancy that there has been another of the same sort discovered; but not in New Zealand. That, I think, was brought from the South Sea Islands. Formerly in this country there were several birds of this kind. You have heard of the dinornis?”

“No; I know so little about natural history,” answered Jack.

“The dinornis was an immense fellow—sometimes upwards of fourteen feet high. He, as well as the apteryx, are of the ostrich tribe.”

“I should like to meet with a dinornis,” observed Jack Stanley as they walked on.

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“Not likely: it has long been extinct.”

“Then who has seen it?”

“Its bones in a fossil state have been sent to England. I believe that at home there are several specimens. The New Zealanders themselves speak of it as ‘moa.”'

“And what do they call the apteryx?” asked Bernard.

“The ‘kiwi.’ I have seen dresses made of the skin of the apteryx, with the feathers on, of course.”

“Well, it would not make a bad sort of dress, and very warm,” said Jack, “but dirty. But I suppose the Maoris would not make that an objection.”

“There is a small kind of wingless bird, besides, in this island, called the wood-hen; but it is not remarkable for anything else but the uselessness, apparently, of its wings.”

“There do not seem to be many large birds in New Zealand, or large creatures of any sort,” said Bernard.

“Certainly, the Fauna, as it is called, of the place is very limited indeed. You will see a greater variety when you get near the sea: there are numbers of gulls, wild duck of different kinds in abundance, and, besides, the beautiful cormorant.”

“Is he beautiful?” asked Jack.

“The New Zealand cormorant is,” answered Colonel Bradshaw. “Its head and throat are black; back, beautiful bright green, with a white stripe down each side of it from the neck; and its breast is shaded grey. It is a remarkably fine bird, with a sort of crest or hood of soft white feathers. It is called the ‘crested cormorant.”’

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“I suppose it lives on fish?”

“I suppose all the cormorants do. I agree with you, though, Jack, that New Zealand is very poor, compared to other countries, in its variety of birds and beasts. I suppose, if pigs and dogs had not been introduced, that the largest quadruped would be the rat; but that also is fast dying out.”

“A good thing, too, I should think,” said Jack. “I think rats are odious beasts.”

“I suppose even rats have their use in nature, Master Jack,” said Colonel Bradshaw, “though we seem to see the most unpleasant side of them. You have, of course, noticed repeatedly the parson-bird?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jack: “I have often seen that little chap holding forth to nobody in particular, with his black coat and white bands; and I have several times meant to ask you about him. The men call him ‘tui:’ he certainly looks like a little parson.”

“He is a mocking-bird. Every country seems to have a mocking-bird.”

“But there are no bright-coloured birds about here,” said Bernard.

“Ah, you should go to Australia for the parrots. There you will find a great variety, some of them very beautiful,” answered Colonel Bradshaw; “but there is a parrot in New Zealand also, though not a gaudy one—that is, it is of the parrot species, but more like an owl in appearance; and, besides, it is a night bird.”

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“Then I suppose it must be an owl,” said Jack.

“Those who are our betters in knowledge,” replied Colonel Bradshaw, “say it is a parrot; so we must not differ from them. The Maoris call it ‘kaka,’ and the chiefs ornament their heads with its feathers.”

“I have seen brown feathers in their heads.”

“Of course you have,” said the Colonel. “But this, like other native curiosities of animal life, is getting very rare.”

“I expect those were the parrots you spoke of, sir, which Hope and I saw shortly after we left Wellington. We took them for pigeons at first.”

“I am not surprised at your doing so. But to return to our subject of animals. I wish some one, whose business it is, would introduce animals of other kinds into the islands. It seems a pity that such magnificent forests should be almost untenanted. One expects to meet deer or some such beasts at every open glade.”

“Whose business would it be?” asked Bernard.

“There it is: being no one's business in particular, it is not likely to be done, unless it is undertaken by some purely public-spirited man. However, we have had plenty of such men, and no doubt shall have many more,” said Colonel Bradshaw.

“I think the proverb, ‘Mind your own business,’ has been very often made an excuse for neglect of duty,” observed Bernard.

“No doubt of it; and there is a much better maxim than the proverb you have quoted,” answered the Colonel. page 222 “Let every man look not only on his own things, but also on the things of others.”’

“To be a public-spirited man involves such a large amount of self-confidence,” said Bernard. “An ordinary modest-minded individual would be afraid of starting in such a character.”

“There I do not agree with you, Bernard,” said Colonel Bradshaw. “The greatest men are usually the most modest, and quite unconsciously great. I have no doubt that some of the finest actions on record in the history of the world have been done with no motive of self-importance. I remember when quite a child reading a story in French of a little girl who never ate an apple without planting some of the pips, that, as she said, future generations might benefit by her having lived.”

“But,” said Bernard—”

“Wait and hear the end of my story. Some of her friends suggested to this child that she would not live to see future generations profit by her kindness, and she answered that it mattered not. Then the friends objected that future generations would never know who their benefactress was, and that she would derive no thanks; and she replied still that it mattered not, for although the apples were planted by an unknown hand, still, future generations would reap the benefit of them. That is, to my thinking, the true principle of public spirit. And now, Bernard, I know what objection you were going to make when you interrupted me just now. Of course the page 223 apple-pips planted by the little girl would produce nothing better than crab-trees, unless she lived to graft them. This does not seem to have occurred to the French author. Perhaps he was not much of a gardener. But it is the moral of the story which impressed itself upon my memory. The motive which actuated this little girl is, I believe, generally the motive of those men who do such services to mankind that their names live after them.”