66 MUTTON BIRDS 



CHAPTER X. 

 THE WOODS OF AUTUMN AND SPRING. 



jWICE during autumn I had been 

 camped on the banks of the Ra.kiahua, 

 once in search of high country 

 grasses, and once again to watch a 

 Kaka 's nest ; and now in spring again 

 I was delighted to be in the well-remembered 

 wilds to sleep in the bare hut, to wake to the 

 view of the wooded slopes, to watch the spring- 

 awakening of dwarf plants on soaked red moss 

 and spongy turf. 



There are no pleasures like those the desert 

 can give ; and to their devotees the wildernesses 

 of the earth can never weary or grow stale. I 

 had left in autumn and now returning in spring 

 found a vast difference in the life of the woods. 

 In March, a stranger to the movements of our 

 New Zealand birds would have wondered at 

 their numbers ; in October, he would have vowed 

 that even here in these remotest wilds, native 

 species had become almost extinct. The altera- 

 tion, in truth, was very great. In March those 

 inland woods had been full of sound and flight ; 

 in October they were noiseless and bare, 'bare 

 deserted choirs where once the sweet birds 

 sang. ' The tall trees then had really been alive 

 with Kaka, the birds hopping with short, silent 



