368 Transactions. — Zoology. 



however, most of it has been grasseol. When this block was 

 taken up fifteen years ago very httle work had been done 

 there. The place was mostly in its natural state of fern, 

 bush, and swamp. It has been easy, therefore, to note the 

 arrival of foreign species, the disappearance and growing scar- 

 city, and sometimes, though more rarely, the increase of the 

 indigenous birds. 



As the British and Australian birds are still comparative 

 strangers, they may be given first place. Even when the run 

 was first taken up larks and Australian swans had preceded 

 us. The English lark, however, cannot here boast of his early 

 hours. Those who dwell in tents hear the harsh screech of 

 the kaka and the liquid notes of the tui long before the lark 

 has stirred. When the silence of night still reigns over the 

 bush, and the hushed murmur of the forest-brooks alternately 

 grows and fades in the ear, it is the brown parrot and the 

 parson-bird that first enliven the expectant woods. It is only 

 later, when the shepherds brush from the dew-soaked scrub 

 the hanging drops, and the last stars pale and fade, and the 

 steam of the little waterfalls rises on the sharp, keen morning 

 air, that the lark sings in the grey dawn. 



Although it would be natural to expect the black swan 

 should be fairly numerous on our considerable sheet of water, 

 this is not the case. Whether because there is no feeding in 

 the lake, or for some other reason, swan have never been 

 plentiful. Indeed, though so near the Napier lagoons, these 

 birds may here be actually called rare. Sometimes in the 

 dawn their music may be heard high overhead, and sometimes 

 for a few days a brace will remain. The absence of reeds and 

 raupo-beds seem to be distasteful to many of our water-fowl. 

 A brace of Australian magpies in 1888 took up their abode in 

 a clump of native bush close to the homestead. Unfortunately 

 they were shot, and no others have taken their place. At a 

 neighbour's run a pair of these birds were the terror of travel- 

 lers going along the Wairoa Eoad. The shepherds' main 

 track, too, passed close to their nesting-tree, and it was 

 amusing to notice the woebegone appearance of the collies 

 as they neared the fatal spot. On one occasion one of these 

 magpies actually knocked the hat off a specially-obnoxious 

 swagger who happened to be travelling up the coast. ,_ 



Birds do not, however, always come in pairs ; indeed, from 

 the fact that the few rabbits killed at intervals of years in this 

 part of the coast have been foiiorn bachelors, it seems not un- 

 likely that the earliest arrivals on new ground are outcasts 

 driven from the parent colony. Many years ago, during two 

 successive springs a minah appeared on the place. It used to 

 sit disconsolately outside the fowl-yard seeking to chum up 

 with the hens, who rather scornfully rejected its advances. 



