WOOD AND WASTE 121 



Yet Buller writes that he has noticed on 

 the Hastings-Napier line and elsewhere a 

 peculiar habit the birds have developed of 

 following a train, and has seen in autumn 

 a flight of a hundred birds keeping abreast 

 or a little ahead of a train in rapid 

 motion.* 



On the open riverbed — the deep, dark, 

 fern-fringed gorge offers no attraction to 

 this bird of liberty and light — our little 

 friend becomes the Wagtail, fluttering and 

 hopping on the weed-wrapt stones that 

 emerge from a falling stream at the tail 

 of some quiet pool. On the ebb and flow 

 marked river rim he runs with tail in 

 perpetual motion, and rising again and 

 again with short, jerky flights into the air. 



Note. — There is no good reason to suppose that these 

 trains have materially lessened their speed since Buller 

 penned his paragraph some thirty years ago. We have, 

 therefore, the registered observation that the Ground Lark is 

 able not only to keep abreast, but "even a little ahead of 

 the train." Much controversy is at present taking place over 

 the speed of bird flight, and Gatke, in his Birds of Heligoland, 

 credits the Hooded Crow with 108 miles, the Northern Blue- 

 throat with 180 miles, and the Virginian Plover with 212 miles 

 per hour, while here in New Zealand we know from what Buller 

 says, that the Ground Lark can keep abreast "or even a 

 little ahead of trains on the Napier-Hastings line," and "in rapid 

 motion, ' ' too — marvellous. 



17 



