PREFACE, 
Ir half a loaf is better not only than no bread 
at all, it is also better than overmuch bread. 
Readers become surfeited with topics not of 
everyday interest; books such as ‘ Bird Life on 
Island and Shore’ should be swallowed at a single 
gulp. Unless read in one effort, they are never 
finished—hence an attenuated volume, hence a 
brief preface. 
A few words, nevertheless, on the general 
subject of ornithology in New Zealand during 
the first quarter of the twentieth century may 
not come amiss, the more so as carelessness in 
regard to the avifauna of the Dominion and its 
intimately allied subject, forestry, seems to have 
spent itself. 
Heretofore on behalf of our native birds and 
our native trees there have been heard only the 
voices of one or two crying in the wilderness. 
Now these eccentrics are about to have the back- 
ing of the staff of a great Government depart- 
ment, the Forest Service. 
