WOOD AND WASTE 25 



would come the rattling note or the sibilant 

 ''whio," ''whio," one of the most delightful 

 sounds of wild nature in New Zealand. 



The two old birds, while the ducklings 

 played and dived and fed, floated motion- 

 less, or paddled slowly about the calm, 

 unruffled surface, every now and then one 

 of them in play making hostile feints at 

 the other. 



Above the great rock where I lay, a 

 shining Cuckoo hawked for flies, a Warbler 

 trilled at intervals in the tall manuka, and 

 the shadows of great white clouds darkened 

 in patches the whole country side. 



On October 13th I got a nest just 

 vacated. There was still one whole egg — 

 addled — and a dead duckling half out of 

 the shell, quite undecayed, and not even 

 flyblown; the nest must have been tenanted 

 within two or three hours of my discovery. 



It was situated close to the Waikahau 

 stream, and hidden under an immense 

 rush bush on the very edge of a sandy 

 cliff. There, cosy, warm, and dry, beneath 

 this natural thatch, was the hollow contain- 

 ing the nest. 



