8 BIRDS OF THE WATER 



Tiie briefest morning glimpse at its surface 

 serves to inform us what kind of a day is 

 to come, and when in summer the hills are 

 browning — an event which happens once in 

 about ten years — and there are hopes of 

 grass fires, a glance lets the eager shep- 

 herds know of that rare event, a good 

 '* burning" day — a gale from the west and 

 north-west blowing out of a cloudless sky. 

 Too often, however, the lake looms out 

 unpropitious, and we can trace the day's 

 disaster on its morning face. At its 

 southern end rises the Racecourse Top, Te 

 ahi-titi, as least as reliable as the average 

 meteorological prognostication. If, when a 

 change is evidently coming up from the 

 south, no mist rests on its rounded top, the 

 change will pass off as a ''dry souther," a 

 skiff of big cold drops blo\^Ti up in fierce 

 raw gusts ; even when rain continues and the 

 fatal cloud cap remains away, our auguries 

 are hopeful, and though half an inch or so 

 may fall, we do not anticipate a "buster." 

 When the cloud cap settles heavy rain always 

 follows. 



