58 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
of breast feathers; probably a rat had done the 
deed. 
The second nest was in a tawa-tree overhanging 
a thirty-feet precipitous bank. Its entrance also 
was guarded by two folds of raised bark, lips that 
served to turn aside rain and wet. ‘Three feet 
within the cavity in an upward slanting direction 
was placed the nest, which when examined proved 
to contain four young birds, their quills about a 
quarter or fifth grown. They looked as if when 
fit to fly the plumage of all of them would resemble 
that of the female parent. There was also one 
pure white, luminous, pear-shaped egg, which 
seemed to have slipped out of the nest and lodged 
in the stick foundation. That undamaged ege 
and those already described measured slightly 
under an inch in length. The foundations of this 
nest also consisted of sticks, one of which was 
between nine and ten inches in length and of an 
extraordinary thickness, weight, and awkward- 
ness to have been lifted and placed in such a 
position. Both in this hole and in the other one 
examined, there were several distinct strata of 
stick, as if the foundation as required had from 
time to time been renovated and rehabilitated, 
one layer, I remember, showing a certain kind 
of mould that does not immediately clothe rotting 
twigs. On the top of them, as in the case of the 
first discovered nest, lay coarse rootlets, then 
