THE INVASION FROM THE SOUTH 329 



From descriptions given me by the late Mr J. N. Williams and 

 others, it was into a countryside where each season new blocks of land 

 were being handled that the goldfinch was freed; it is no matter of 

 surprise that the species flourished exceedingly. 



It was in the summer of '83 that I first saw a goldfinch on Tutira. 

 Shearing was in progress ; my duty as wool-classer obliged me to be in 

 the shed before five ; at that early hour, in scrub close to the wool-shed, 

 the bird was noted, and there for six days he remained about the same 

 spot. I say " he," for though the plumage of the sexes in this breed is 

 almost indistinguishable, yet I have always believed the bird to be a 

 male, his feathers were so magnificently resplendent in their sheen and 

 depth of colour, the reds and yellows so deep and pure. 



Weather permitting, shearing on a sheep-run starts each season at 

 the same date. Just one year later I was again wool-classing, again 

 walking shedwards, a few minutes before five in the morning. No 

 scrub had been felled in the vicinity of the shed the clump of manuka 

 and tutu remained as it had been ; now, however, where one goldfinch 

 had been observed, a pair had taken possession of the locality. They 

 were not so constant to the little thicket as the pioneer bird had been, 

 but remained within, say, a hundred yards of the original spot for a few 

 days. After that I lost them till autumn, when again a party was seen 

 in the neighbourhood of the shed. We supposed then that the pair 

 must have been male and female, that they must have reared a brood, 

 or couple of broods, and that the little congregation observed must have 

 been parents and offspring in flock. Now, for reasons to be given later, 

 I am not so sure of this ; the small party seen may have been with equal 

 likelihood composed of birds following in the wake of the first-seen 

 specimens. At any rate, for several seasons, a thin wedge, or narrow 



more by centuries of leaf-mould ; lastly, there lay on the ground a heavy top-dressing of 

 potash, from timber consumed in the clearing fires. The result was a marvellous thistle 

 growth ; over thousands of acres it was impossible to walk without body armour of sacking to 

 protect the legs and chest, without gloves to defend the hands, without slasher to clear a track. 

 For all practical purposes the country was locked up and the stock lost if, indeed, such land 

 was stocked at all until late autumn. Thistles reached the height of a tall man's neck, and 

 grew, not a plant here and a plant there, but in vast impenetrable thickets. In spring each 

 prickly star raised itself into a tall plant; in summer, when the morning dews were dried, the 

 ripe heads burst and liberated their packed seeds in millions of millions ; hour after hour, like 

 snow, this summer storm sailed airily amongst the charred black boles ; in autumn the feathery 

 pappus, shining and bright, lay in drifts feet deep ; finally, what had been a green grove stood 

 wrecked and grey a sere forest of masts leaning against one another in swathes or flattened 

 like rain-laid corn. During the following season thistles were almost absent, during the next 

 there was a recrudescence of the plant, and after that normal growth. 



