350



Sydney Porter—Notes on New Zealand Birds



Most New Zealanders seem to think that the native vegetation

is something to be ashamed of, to be burnt, to be got rid of at any

cost. On the most inaccessible mountains and hills, in the deepest

gullies, in fact in any place often absolutely useless for pasturage, the

forest is burnt off, after a few years a secondary growth will appear

only to be burnt off again and again ; sometimes after successive

burnings a few cabbage-trees or tree-ferns will struggle through but

these are not tolerated and the farmer is not satisfied until at last

the whole is covered up with 44 exotics ”, such as bramble, gorse, and

other pests.


A barrister friend of mine tells me that arson is due to a strange

psychological complex in which the individual affected derives a kind

of Sadistic thrill in seeing the devouring flames. It seems to me that

the inhabitants of the rural districts of New Zealand are to a large

degree afflicted by this strange mental aberration.


One day perhaps New Zealanders will wake up and realize what

the destruction of the forests mean, not only to the bird life about

which they care very little, but in the gradual diminishing of the rainfall.


One sees the rain-clouds circling round the tops of the mountains

where patches of forest have been reluctantly left, usually owing to

disputes between the vendor and the prospective purchaser ; and

leaving untouched altogether the hills and mountains which have been

denuded of vegetation.


There are some districts which were once heavily forested and which

are now practically desert owing to the total destruction of the native

vegetation.


True, there are Government reserves but all round the spirit of

destruction is creeping in. The fires lighted by the farmers creep into

the reserves, cattle are allowed to run through the forests destroying

the wonderful undergrowth and in time causing the forest giants,

which must have their roots protected from the sun, to perish.


Old pioneers have told me of the awful slaughter of bird life as

the country was opened up. The Kakas (the large native Parrot),

the Fruit Pigeons, the Bitterns, the Parrakeets, Tuis, Bell-birds,

and, in fact, every living bird almost was killed on sight. If a man

had too many for his own use the rest were thrown away. On the



