AND OTHER BIRDS 97 



membered, iu spite of their less tropical jungle 

 growth, are on the whole darker than those of 

 the north. Some of the filmy ferns for instance, 

 species that luxuriate in shadow, deliberately in 

 these southern woods expose their leaves to 

 light, one in especial, noticeably, for this 

 purpose, twisting its fronds on the dark, 

 delicate stipes. This lesser average degree of 

 light is owing to the greyer sky, and to the 

 comparative sunlessness of the climate; so that 

 gloomy weather during the short winter days, 

 cannot be fai- different from bright nights in 

 summer, and this Kiwi of southernmost range, 

 may have thus grown accustomed to travel and 

 feed in either light. 



Again, on one occasion, high on Table Hill 

 in February, about noon, and on a cloudless day, 

 Banjo flushed a Kiwi from a considerable patch 

 of dwarfed red tussock grass. This bird, a 

 female, excessively fat and with an ovary 

 containing many eggs — the largest of buck shot 

 size — had either been feeding or lying out in 

 a very strong light.* 



On another occasion — in October I believe — 

 we again interrupted a Kiwi feeding during the 

 day. This time Banjo made a dash into a 

 clump of that most lovel}^ and most graceful 

 danthonia grass, called after the botanist 

 Cunningham. Although I only heard the rustle 

 of the scared fowl, my sup^Dosition is based on 

 the puzzlement which for a fraction of a second 

 made the dog pause. Except on that solitary 



*Diiring dissection of the bird I noticed an odour from the 

 intestines exactly similar to that proceeding from the guts of wild 

 pig, hundreds of which during the eighties I have killed on Tutira. 

 Probaldy some worm or grub is common, therefore, to the pumiceous 

 areas of Hawke 's Bay and the granites and sands of Stewart Island. 



