74 MUTTON BIRDS 



other's shoulders, they recall the stage 

 embrace, when, in the last act, the aged father, 

 his chin resting on the other's shoulder, and 

 showering tears and blessings, clasps to his bosom 

 his long-lost son. With still a month's confine- 

 ment before the young parrots, their floor in one 

 part concealed a multitude of white maggots, in 

 fact on account of the liquidity of their drop- 

 pings the Kaka must have in its nesting hole a 

 considerable depth of pulverised highly absorb- 

 ent wood moulder. 



I had just left, after days of closest intimacy, 

 the Parrakeets on their island, and could not but 

 contrast the sanitary requirements of these two 

 species, and speculate as to what degree seeming 

 trifles may limit the numbers of a breed. In 

 our cock-sure, human fashion we may con- 

 sider any hole good enough for a Kaka, yet 

 for each site chosen the birds have no doubt 

 discarded a hundred on the score alone of insuffi- 

 cient drainage. How far, indeed, the number 

 and survival of a species is dependent on suitable 

 nesting conditions has, perhaps, never been 

 sufficiently taken into account. 



In another volume the case of a pair of King- 

 fishers has been given; and probably to many 

 kinds of birds certain minute conditions, easily 

 overlooked, are indispensable. I believe that, 

 given perfect nesting conditions, the bird, if 

 within miles of the spot, will always arrive.* 



*The spring of 1911 will long be remembered in Hawke's Bay for 

 the continuous and violent nor '-westers of September, October, 

 November, and early December. On the pumiceous area of Tutira we 

 had that year some four hundred acres of ground ploughed for 

 swedes. The crop, of course, was ruined, but it is an ill wind that 

 blows no one good, and a pair of Banded Dotterel rejoiced that 

 season in the discovery on Tutira of a monstrous sand drift newly 

 developed and eminently suitable for breeding purposes. This 

 season (1912), though but a few roods of "blow" remain, I notice 

 four or five couples nesting. 



