THE FUTURE OF NATIVE AVIFAUNA 205 



bird life of the forest reserves of Tutira does not support this theory. 

 Natives are neither debarred from their fair share of food, nor intimi- 

 dated by the presence of the new-comers. On these reserves I find 

 the sparrow, starling, minah, yellow - hammer, chaffinch, greenfinch, 

 blackbird, and thrush, the fantail, wax-eye, warbler, pied-tit, king- 

 fisher, tui, and pigeon living together amicably. Native species, with 

 perhaps the exception of the pigeon, lay the same number of eggs, breed 

 as frequently per season, and rear as many nestlings as in the 'eighties, 

 when few aliens had reached the station, when none were abundant. 

 Food has proved ample for both stranger and native. The source of 

 such beliefs is partly, I suppose, man's predilection for paradox and 

 antithesis. The Maori's adumbration of his fate, doubtful at best in 

 regard to himself, certainly false in regard to the indigenous grasses 

 of his country, has passed current too long as an established truth. 

 The white man's self-esteem has been flattered unduly in the ^ belief 

 that "as the pakeha rat has destroyed the native rat, as the paJceha 

 grass has destroyed the native grass, so will the European destroy 

 the Maori." 



The real cause of diminution of native birds is easy to give : no 

 creature can live without food and breed without covert ; woodland 

 species cannot exist without woodland, jungle and swamp -haunting 

 breeds cannot survive without jungle and swamp, they cannot feed 

 on clover and breed on turf. At one time there were on Tutira many 

 hundreds of acres alive with forest birds ; not one single individual 

 now exists on many of these localities, because not one single tree 

 remains. That is the simple explanation of the great decrease of 

 natives. On the coastal portion of Tutira, where the country is 

 grassed, comparatively few survive. On the ranges of the interior, 

 where the forest is untouched, native birds far outnumber the aliens. 

 So much for the immediate past. When in the future every acre of 

 the run shall have become grassed, when everywhere the flocks and 

 herds of the settler shall have subdued the remaining scrub and fern, 

 a still more severe and searching test awaits the native avifauna. As 

 has happened to other monsters of the prime, the easy-going sloth 

 will have been succeeded by beasts lesser in bulk but more active, 

 greedy, and fierce, the squatter's room will have been occupied by the 

 farmer. Under the sway of the yeoman class every yard of ground 

 will be utilised ; there will exist no longer unconsidered trifles of wild 



