16 MUTTON BIRDS 



I think it is remarkable we should not have had 

 their company at our hut on this or on any other 

 visit. 



We also got four kinds of Petrel in their 

 "burrows, the Mutton Bird, Parara, Titi 

 Wainui, and the Kuaka. The family affairs of 

 the first-named we found in all stages of 

 progress, in one burrow a pair . of old birds 

 who ran off in a sulking fashion and shamming 

 lameness, in another an egg much incubated, and 

 in a third a very plump chick, clad in grey down, 

 and about three weeks old. 



As a matter of fact Mutton Birds, instead of 

 laying their eggs on the 25th November enjoy 

 a rather unusually protracted breeding season, 

 and T myself have got eggs of this breed as late 

 as the end of February. 



One or two dead Titi Wainui were found 

 hung up in the scrub ; and the twentieth species 

 was made up by a Parara chick which we 

 photographed. 



The young of the Kuaka were everywhere 

 -dying and dead. About the burrow mouths, 

 amongst the scrub, and on the bird paths along 

 the coasts they lay sometimes seven and eight 

 together. Hunger had driven them forth in the 

 down prematurely, and the death evaded in their 

 holes, had gathered them in the open by tens of 

 thousands, and perhaps by hundreds of 

 thousands. 



This enormous mortality must, I think, have 

 been due to a failure of food supply in the 

 immediate vicinity; for with his limited powers 

 of flight this little Petrel would be peculiarly 

 -affected by even a local famine. 



My next visit to Herekopere was on 



