xii PREFACE 
breed survives, and that to my mind is the vital 
matter. With care and knowledge of breeding 
and feeding habits, the numbers of a species can 
be multiplied at will. 
On the whole, therefore, the future of the New 
Zealand avifauna can be viewed with less of 
despondency than at any date since the arrival 
of the white settler. Since the coming of Cook, 
it has been the whole duty of man to destroy 
the indigenous vegetation of New Zealand. Now 
at last he has learned that much land that will 
grow forest will not profitably grow grass. He 
is discovering, too, that timber is a crop that. 
carries at least as large a population to the acre 
as clover or rye-grass—and timber cannot grow 
without birds. Happy New Zealand, then, if 
with the re-establishment of her glorious woods 
a huge increase of land workers can be anticipated, 
each after the manner of the Dominion master 
of his own house, his own garden, his own cows, 
his own bees, his own freehold ; intelligent because 
in direct touch with nature; a population not 
composed of automatons as in great cities, who 
press buttons for their daily needs, and hardly 
know of trees and grass but on the arid cinema. 
In forests yet to be, coming generations of New 
Zealanders will listen to the song of the woods as 
it was heard and recorded a century ago by Cook. 
