AND OTHER BIRDS 95 



I drank to the full of that most genuine remorse 

 the remorse felt for actions undone, for sins, 

 alas! uncommitted, and Banjo, oh my brother, 

 even in those moments of agony, I did not blame 

 you. I, too, have been swayed by impulse all 

 the years of my life ; and perhaps you, also, had 

 a grandmother who came from County Cork. 



The third breeding burrow discovered had just 

 been vacated and had contained a more carefully 

 constructed nest than either of the two already 

 described. This we could tell by the large 

 amount of brown, withered, lomaria fronds 

 howked out by the Wekas, and amongst which 

 were still mixed, scraps and chips of pale green 

 shell. Like each of the others this entrance 

 faced the sun ; like each of the others the tunnel- 

 ling was quite shallow and short ; and, like each 

 of the others, the track of approach and exit 

 became at once indecipherable. Close to their 

 nest, the birds' trail happened to pass over the 

 creeping rhizomes of a net of polypod the 

 scales of which, I noticed, were slightly worn 

 and a little barer of their greenish fur, and 

 the clue thus supplied made the actual discovery 

 of the burrow an easy matter. 



A fourth breeding burrow found also faced 

 north. It was slightly deeper than those de- 

 scribed, unfinished at the date of discovery, 

 probably already deserted, and at any rate 

 never again touched. 



Of the Kiwi lodges as, in contradistinction to 

 the breeding burrows, they may be termed we 

 obtained two. One was in a steep sand bank 

 on the forest's edge with three easily seen and 

 well beaten divergent pads. The other lay 

 beneath the bole and torn up roots of a long- 



