OCTOBER IN NEW ZEALAND. 
89 
MY FRIEND THE STARLING. 
In April, at the dawning of the day, 
The chiff-chaff’s tremulous gladness fills mine ear. 
From out the tasselled birch the thrush calls clear 
“Come quick! come quick! come quick!” to loitering May, 
— May with her casket of attempered clay 
Wherein those speckled jewels shall appear — ; 
Ah, not for me, impatience or glad cheer. 
For other hearts their hopes they sing and say. 
Yet one peculiar confidential friend 
Have I — the starling — garrulous, full of fun — , 
He, ere the thrushes call, the chiff-chaff wakes, 
My chimney for a speaking-trumpet takes. 
And down into my darkened room doth send 
The first true tidings of the joyous sun. 
H. D. Rawnsley. 
OCTOBER IN NEW ZEALAND. 
T no season of the year is the “ bush ” more pleasant 
than in October. Even the woods and green glades of 
England can hardly surpass the forests of New Zealand 
during this month. A score of pleasant perfumes scent 
the warm air at noon, lingering faintly throughout the evening, 
and in heavy close nights even until the morrow’s dawn. Most 
fragrant of all are the low woods and the smaller trees and 
shrubs that flourish on the edges of the forest — the ngaio, the 
purple tough broom, the native blackberry, the kaiwhiria and 
the rangiora, now beginning to brown as if burnt with frost. 
Upon this run, and indeed, in the surrounding district too, only 
the cold and damp southern slopes are timbered. Overlooking 
one of these wooded valleys, I notice that the general level of 
tree tops varies little. From the water-worn ravines here and 
there a few tall sombre tapering pines stand out more pro- 
minently, and poplar-shaped rewarewas line the ridges of the 
spurs. Otherwise, as upon wind-swept hills near the coast, the 
leafy surface of the “ bush ” is smooth or undulating according 
to the nature of the ground beneath. 
A slight breeze now and then stirs the grasses about me. 
Above expands a vault of cloudless blue, the sun striking the 
green leaves at an angle that makes many of them glimmer and 
gleam. Below, where the moisture and mist from a little water- 
fall continually damps their great palm leaves and smooth green 
stems, grow a couple of nikaus. The nikau is the only real 
palm we possess in New Zealand. It refuses to live out of the 
