94 MUTTON BIRDS 



of the burrow's mouth my eyes fell on chips of 

 shell and fragments of integument. 



There are facts too dreadful for immediate 

 admittance, the endurance of even the strongest 

 mind is limited, and nature has arranged that 

 there should be an intuitive pause for recupera- 

 tion, and that the crushing l)low should not 

 instantly be felt. This instinct — not at once to 

 face the worst — may perhaps have saved my 

 reason, whilst during some terrible moments I 

 endeavoured to affect to believe that the egg had 

 merely hatched. I knew it had not, and that 

 some AVeka, thrice accursed, born in the eclipse, 

 had found the nest deserted, and smashed and 

 eaten the egg,^my egg. Oh, how I had longed 

 to handle it. My first impulse — I can afford 

 now to acknowledge it that the prompting was 

 resisted — was to kill McLean with our small 

 bush tomahawk, and throw his body into the 

 peat stream running by. Could it have brought 

 back the egg intact no doubt I would have done 

 it ; and McLean was too good a fellow, too much 

 of an enthusiast himself, I knew, not to have 

 appreciated my motive and taken the action in 

 good part. 



The remainder of the day I passed in an 

 agony of remorse. If only I had had the great 

 egg in my hand — even for a moment — one touch 

 only — it might have been larger even than usual 

 — perhaps a double-yolked Kiwi egg — even a 

 ver}^ large one at that — for it stands to reason 

 that there must be double-yolked Kiwi eggs of 

 lesser and larger size — and I had resisted taking 

 it, for fear lest the bird should desert. How 

 perfectly idiotic to have resisted the temptation 

 — to have resisted £iiij temptation — at any time. 



