118 MUTTON BIRDS 



Round about this wliare and throughout the 

 length of the whole valley, the Fern Birds were 

 as 2:>lentiful as about the equally suitable peat 

 flats of Mason Bay, and, with the inborn 

 propensity of mankind to create new species, 

 we fancied we could detect several small differ- 

 ences in the Fern Birds of the two districts. 

 Each of the two breeds, if indeed they prove to 

 be such, is very plentiful, but the differences are 

 slight, and the range, moreover, of the one 

 species overlaps that of the other. Geographic- 

 ally, something may be said for the jDossibility 

 of two breeds. At no very distant period of time 

 Stewart Island has been divided, and, it may 

 have been this ancient water barrier that has 

 so definitely fixed the range of the Kiwi, to a 

 lesser extent that of the New Zealand Dotterel, 

 and possibly that of the Fern Birds, always most 

 feeble fliers. 



The larger of the two chiefly haimted the 

 banks of the Rakiahua, and seemed to be a more 

 active bird and a stronger flier, continuing in the 

 air for sixty or eighty yards, and climbing to the 

 tops of the low trees fringing the river's edge. 

 To me it appeared identical, both in strength of 

 flight and in size, with the birds noticed on the 

 islet Piko-mamaku-iti, lying between Stewart 

 Island and the Bluff. The white markings over 

 the eye seemed to be more distinct, also the 

 pencilling of the breast feathers, and the chirp 

 perhaps louder, and with something of the 

 vil)ratory tremor produced by a whistle con- 

 taining a pea. 



The Mason Bay species, frequenting the 

 tussock grass and tangle fern, we believed to be 

 a smaller bird, more furtive in habit and with 



