102 MUTTON BIRDS 



To leeward on the other hand the surfaces 

 are rough and fretted, showing how the furious 

 overblow of sand and the whirling drifts, have 

 eaten out the softer constituents of the granitic 

 rock, not very much unlike the manner in which 

 water works on shelly sandstone. 



At the base of this hill extends a wide and 

 almost level plain, and there again I was struck 

 with the similar action of flowing water and of 

 drifting sand. Rather indeed was it a river-bed 

 than plain, a river-bed moulded and scooped by 

 sand laden hurricanes, and with all the 

 evidences of a current marking its course. 

 There were the curves and sinuosities of the 

 stream, its deltas and drifts, its steep stony 

 banks and raised flat terraces, each miniature 

 boulder held its tapering tail of sand, each rough 

 stone was clear where the current struck. It 

 was in fact the channel of a stream, not of water 

 but of sand, and which moreover flowed uphill, 

 impelled by the weight of the westerly gales. 



On these several hundred acres of sand drift, 

 dune, and stone strewn plain, each year a few of 

 the New Zealand Dotterel breed. They arrive 

 about the middle of October, and it was on the 

 flat described, that on November the 7th we 

 noted a couple of brace. 



Behind us rose the granite hill, deep based 

 in yellow sand. On the levels, except for the 

 private store each standing stone or plant could 

 hoard, the gale allowed no sand to rest. Across 

 the plain and over the burnished granite chips 

 it trailed a ceaseless passage of dry clean grain, 

 and the lee of each yellow tussock was filled by 

 a brown smother and whirl of eddying sand. 



