12 BIRDS OF THE WATER 



These arms or brandies are now, however, 

 and have been for ages, filled np with land 

 slips, and each centnry adds to the rounded 

 appearance of the lake. Even in my time 

 the hundreds of thousands of tons of slips 

 and silt brought down in floods have notice- 

 ably filled up the bays Kaiteratahi and 

 Kaihekanui. This process of filling up, 

 though slow, is nevertheless more rapid than 

 fhu'ing the past centuries, for then forest and 

 scrub, tall raupo and flax, blocked the bulk 

 of the silt. The destruction of much of 

 this indigenous vegetation now allows this 

 mud to reach the lake more rapidly and 

 more directly. This process must always 

 continue, and the lake is destined ultimately 

 to contract itself into a narrow, crooked 

 creek flowing on the west edge of its present- 

 formation, for on the west the hill slopes 

 are less steep and the slips washed do^vn 

 enormously less in volume. 



Even this, however, would not be the 

 last change in the area now filled with 

 water and called Tutira lake. 



In imagination we have seen its waters 

 gone and its basin completely filled with 



