212 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



summer the open spaces were yellow with native butter- 

 cups and Maori onion, followed later by white Gnaphalium 

 and violets, pink Epilobiums, yellow Senecios, and numerous 

 small orchids. Still later, as the summer advanced, the 

 blue orchids (Thelymitrd) and the star-like Herpolirion 

 brightened the ground, to be followed by the white and 

 red snowberries and the orange drupes of Leufopogon. 

 Kakas were abundant in those days both in the bush and 

 in the open, where they dug at the roots of the speargrass 

 and flax for the large grubs and beetles to be found there, 

 or visited the flax flowers for nectar and the snowberry 

 and ground tutu for their fruit. Parakeets also fed freely 

 on the berries, while tuis and korimakos visited the 

 flowers for nectar and made the air vocal with their bell- 

 like notes. Wekas, grass - birds, and quails (now, alas ! 

 quite extinct) were abundant on the open ground or in the 

 dense scrubby undergrowth ; while native canaries, saddle- 

 backs, wrens, warblers, robins, tomtits, and flycatchers, 

 were as common as sparrows are to-day. In still earlier 

 days Moas and perhaps Notornis roamed over these hill- 

 sides, for the former have left their mark in many parts of 

 Swampy Hill in the heaps of gizzard stones which show 

 the spots where they lay down to die. Lower down, in the 

 bush-clad slopes, and in the denser vegetation of the ravines, 

 kiwis, groiind thrushes, and crows were abundant, and, 

 no doubt kakapos also occurred ; while in the upper 

 foliage the silent wood-pigeons were very common, feeding 

 in spring and early summer on the kowhai leaves and later 

 in the season on the berries of mistletoe and the turpentiny 

 fruits of the miros and other pine trees. The smaller birds, 

 too, fed on the berries of the hina-hina, pepper trees, 

 mako-mako, and poro-poro, and thus spread their seeds 

 far and wide. Where are all these birds gone ? Ask last 

 year's snow. It was perhaps inevitable that they should 

 disappear before the advent of man and his accompani- 

 ments ; but the change has left us infinitely poorer. 



Thus moralising on the past, let us again address ourselves 

 to our northward path, and walking down the sunny slope 

 cross the saddle at the head waters of Nichol's Creek and 



