THE INVASION FROM THE SOUTH 



339 



hung up. My brother Harry G.-S., Harry Young, and myself were 

 debating the pros and cons of a much-needed plantation ; should we, 

 under these melancholious circumstances, fence or not fence that was 

 the question. Whilst the matter was in debate and we were gazing for 

 inspiration at the hill-face in question, three pairs of rooks flew into view 

 and settled in the pine plantation above Harry Young's house. They 

 must have been extremely hungry, for rooks at home, even in winter- 

 time, do not care to venture too near a house or to alight in small 

 enclosures. These wanderers, however, dropped at once into the garden, 

 although fenced by tall clipped macrocarp hedges and directly in view 

 of the verandah ; since then rooks have been in the neighbourhood but 

 once again, a few pair having been noticed between Tutira and Tangoio. 



Young pigeon on artificial nest, brought up on porridge, and wearing bib. 



" Wild " turkeys have on several occasions straggled on to the run. 

 " Wild " geese, probably from the lagoons about Longlands, have twice 

 visited the lake for a few hours. Carrier pigeons have at long intervals 

 the earliest in '83 rested on the roof of one or other of the station 

 buildings. One, in 1912, took up his permanent abode until I had him 

 caught, taken to Napier, and there liberated. I was then engaged in 

 the domestication of native pigeons (Carpophaga Novce Zealandice), and 

 feared the stranger might some day or another lure them away. 1 



1 The domestication of these magnificent birds was an entire success. For seven or eight 

 years now they have bred in the homestead plantations ; their confidence in their friends can 

 be gathered from the accompanying sketch of a child feeding them in the open. 



