AND OTHER BIRDS 99 



CHAPTER XIII. 

 MASON BAY. 



JASON BAY, on the west side of 

 Stewart Island, is a bay in which wil- 

 lingly no vessel ever did take refuge 

 or ever will take refuge. Besides 

 being open to the southerly swell a 

 raging sea runs whenever a west wind 

 blows, and on the shallow bottom far out 

 the combers curl in long, white parallels, 

 or, narrowing to fit the crescent of the 

 bay, assume a phalanx form. Nine mag- 

 nificent miles of smoothest beach stretch 

 between Cape Ruggedy to the north and the 

 Ernest Islands to the south. Westward lies an 

 alien continent across vast water solitudes, 

 eastwards dry dunes, the playground of the 

 winds. Blown sands, clean seas, heaven's vault 

 above, and space illimitable, these are the 

 features of the bay. The humidity of this part 

 of Stewart Island is well illustrated by its 

 physical formation, and the coast line is a 

 compromise between, on the one hand, dry 

 gales and drifting sand, and on the other, a 

 great rainfall and plant life that binds and 

 creeps. 



Towards the south where the projecting 

 foreland, rock, reef, and islet mass, called 



