8^ MUTTON BIRDS 



Chapter XII. 

 THE KIWI OF STEWART ISLAND. 



JHE greater part of October was spent 

 on Table Hill looking for Kiwi bur- 

 rows. Even under favourable condi- 

 tions tbese burrows are by no means 

 easy to find, but during the whole of 

 our search, the light, owing to almost continuous 

 rain and gloomy skies, was deplorable. In these 

 wet woods no imprint holds its shape for long; 

 drip from high trees falls on loose leaves, and all 

 is soft, yielding, and in process of decay. After 

 each shower even the faintest traces of traffic 

 are obliterated, and the forest floor again evenly 

 plastered with granite grit, sand, and wet 

 moulder of wood. Rotted branchlets and 

 ])oughs, still in their husks or jackets of loose, 

 dark bark, lie thick on the spongy surface. Not 

 infrequently in these forests, too, the boles of 

 the huge prostrate trees are merely shells, 

 crusted with rough lichens crinkled and curled, 

 or clad in mosses, aping in hues of softest green 

 and yellow, the forms of ferns or, of a darker 

 colour, stiff and erect, like thickets of fairy pine. 

 From the sides of these rotting boles hard fungus 

 projects in ledges, like the lip ornaments of 

 savage belles, or, peeping from beneath shelter, 

 toadstools support themselves, each of a different 



