AND OTHER BIRDS 127 



CHAPTER XVI. 

 ON ULVA'S ISLE. 



was during the last days of my first 

 visit to Stewart Island that I got an 

 Auriceps Parrakeet's nest on Ulva 

 and a Kaka's on the mainland. 



In the Parrakeet's nest were 

 young birds; in that of the Parrot a brace of 

 much incubated eggs. 



I was very keen to know more of both of these 

 species, so, after leaving Stewart Island with 

 my family, and with them spending a fortnight 

 in Westland, I recrossed Foveaux Strait. 

 Knowing from long experience the accidents 

 that happen to nests, I hardly dared to expect 

 that, after the lapse of so many days, both would 

 have remained inviolate. In this doleful con- 

 jecture I was not wrong, for signs of disaster 

 thickened as the Parrakeet's nest tree was 

 approached. In a great half-dead rata, a More- 

 pork had established himself since my last visit, 

 and thirty yards farther on, we had evidences 

 of his wicked industry in the widened aperture 

 of the nest. Moss, bark, and clinging polypod 

 had been torn away, and directly beneath the 

 orifice lay a dead chick. There still remained in 

 the nest, one live bird, so terrified at the feel of 

 my finger tips, that I think it must have been 



