INTRODUCTION 23 



it was the abomination of desolation, as the forests contained 

 no birds, and the fern-lands no lizards except the ancient 

 tuatara. 



Birds had only lately come into existence in the Northern 

 Hemisphere, but now that New Zealand was joined to the main 

 land, they moved south and colonised it. There were kiwis, 

 crows, thrushes, starlings, robins, wrens, parrots, rails, ducks, 

 penguins, and other birds, as well as the lizards and the 

 solitary frog. Towards the close of the Eocene Period, the 

 northern land sank. New Zealand was then isolated, and it 

 has remained so ever since. 



Communication with the Outside World. ' 



Yet it was visited every year by migratory birds from the 

 north. Cuckoos, plovers, and sandpipers crossed the waters, 

 and returned again to the place from which they had come. 

 They brought no news of what was passing in the outside world, 

 or, at any rate, they imparted none to the inhabitants of this 

 country. More colonists dropped in occasionally, and took 

 up their permanent residence here. There were the quail and 

 the hawk, and, later on, the harrier, the grey duck and the 

 shoveller, the white heron and the blue heron, and the black- 

 footed shags, all from the north, while the gulls, the terns, the 

 albatrosses, and the pink-footed shags came from the south. 



The migratory birds still maintain their visits, coming 

 regularly at the appointed time, and departing again to other 

 countries. It is hard to say what attractions we offer to them, 

 -and harder still to define the faculty that directs them on their 

 long and weary flights, sometimes from Siberia, as in the case of 

 the godwit and the knot. 



Bird migrations also take place in the Northern Hemisphere. 

 M^here, obviously, migrants pass from one country to another 

 on account of food supplies, which, for insect-eating birds, 

 dift'er much in the summer and the winter. But this is not the 

 cause of all the migrations. Swifts migrate in Central America, 

 v^^hile swallows remain there all through the year. Ducks do 



