36 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
strangers viewed for the first time, but many 
species well-known elsewhere were undergoing 
such modification in the warmth of this semi- 
tropical island that I feel sure another hundred 
miles northward projection would have necessj- 
tated a new nomenclature. Midway between the 
manuka belts and the damp densely massed 
dripping thickets of the high tops, lay shaded 
waterways and winding irregular valleys support- 
ing most noble tarairi and puriri. About the 
caretaker’s house extend a few acres of mixed 
alien and native grasses. There are a few yards 
—not more—of naked rock on the very peaks, 
for even the cliffs of these mist-visited tops are 
green with moss, filmy ferns, and delicate shrub- 
bery. The unindented, harbourless, repellent shores 
of the island are piled high with huge smooth 
boulders. Ship timber and wreckage of small 
crait strew the beaches. Little Barrier Island is, 
in fact, an ideal sanctuary, sea and shore alike 
combining to protect the woods and their in- 
habitants. 
One or two paths leading to the more prominent 
peaks and following their steepest ridges are 
barely kept open by the use of an occasional 
slasher or axe. There are yet vestiges of haulage 
tracks, along which timber has been dragged by 
bullocks before the setting apart of the island as 
a sanctuary. The natural bird roads, however, 
