326 



TUTIRA 



jumble of valley, slope, and summit devoid of any open connection with 

 one another, and covered alike with dense tangled greenery, offered no 

 place of alightment, no city of refuge, no perch for the sole of the foot, 

 no bare ground whatsoever. This route was to birds the primrose path, 

 the line of sun and warmth, of water in hot summer-time, of open 

 ground, of minute alluvial plains, of grass and grit and dry clean sand. 

 It is a line which, although less used than the hill-top or coastal routes, 

 has nevertheless been of considerable aid to several migrants during 

 stages of their wanderings. Some of the species which have reached 

 Tutira from the north have thus passed through forest and fern lands 

 otherwise impenetrable ; they have been guided through the wilderness 

 by sunlight on bare ground. Whereas, moreover, the river system to 

 the south was a bar, northwards it was in some sort a key to Tutira. 

 Southwards the river-beds ran athwart the line of migration ; northwards 



Line of light river-bed through forest. 



several of them served under certain conditions as short cuts to the 

 station. 



There is one other migration route which, albeit artificial, has also 

 been largely utilised. It is the highway which man, proud man, believes 

 built by himself for himself only. No belief could be more erroneous ; 

 slightly paraphrasing the proverb, it can truly be said that man builds 

 roads and wise animals use them. 



The highway of man is after all but a track better graded and more 

 evenly trodden than that of the sheep, the penguin, the kiwi, the petrel, 

 or the pig. Roads are, to animals as to men, lines of easiest access. In 

 the Old World all lines of migratory movement had been established 

 long prior to road construction ; in New Zealand the peculiar conditions 

 of importation and subsequent spread have lent to them a novel function. 

 There is a mass of evidence in support of the view that they have been 

 largely used by travelling animals and birds. The obvious demurrer to 



