124 MUTTON BIRDS 



during early December in Stewart Island. Of 

 the former I have found only one nest. It was 

 got by me many years ago late in November, in 

 forest country, and at an elevation of quite 3,000 

 feet. The nest lay within a splintered sapling, 

 projecting like a bowsprit over a vast jumble 

 of limestone boulders, one of the avalanche slips 

 of that district. The soft core of this bit of 

 timber, had, at the broken end, rotted into dust, 

 or been blown out by gales, and a cavity thus 

 formed, some ten inches in length, rather broader 

 at the opening and narrower within. This hole 

 was completely stuffed up with soft pigeon 

 feathers, only where the four eggs lay was there 

 a just sufficient addition of skeleton leaves, to 

 bind them into form and frame. These eggs 

 were large for the size of the bird, somewhat 

 blunt at the thinner end, and of a very dull white 

 owing perhaps to long incubation. 



Of the Stewart Island nests, built not more 

 than a few score feet above sea-level, two 

 were in crannies inaccessible; the third 

 was easier of approach. A totara of the 

 smooth bark species, had been, eighty 

 years ago perhaps, uprooted, and had fallen 

 across one of those suffocated creeks so 

 common in this type of forest land, creeks 

 alternately wasting themselves in ooze and 

 peat, or spreading abroad among dark planta- 

 tions of ferns, and blocked at every turn 

 by rotted timber, wind-shaken from above. 

 Part of this fallen tree had shot forth tall, 

 upright growths, and was green and flourishing. 

 Ten feet, however, of the projecting butt had for 

 long been dead, and had become sufficiently 

 decayed above to nourish ferns, orchid growths, 



