70 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
for we found over the dead brood the tell-tale 
pluck of feathers that mark the handiwork of the 
rat. For weeks afterwards we used to see the 
solitary male as we passed up and down the 
creek which served as our trail inland. These 
three nests were placed within five and ten yards 
of one another, and were the property of one pair 
of birds. In spite of early disaster, they had 
chosen to stick to the area—a very favourable 
one—over which they had acquired rights ; doubt- 
less, too, the marauding rat after his first dis- 
covery, and still more so after his second, was 
aware of the fact, and laid his plans accordingly. 
The first of these ill-fated nests was arranged 
on, rather than secured to, a flat projecting kohe- 
kohe bole, deeply shaded by fronds of the silver- 
backed tree-fern. The second was established on 
the surface of a considerable limb—also a kohe- 
kohe,—broken but not wholly wrenched from the 
parent tree, and still green -leaved and full of 
sap. On the broadest portion of this split, the 
nest was seated rather than built, the space 
of several inches betwixt its inmost edge and 
the main trunk being blocked and wedged with 
stiff brown leaves gathered from the ground. 
There they stood close-packed like upright shingles 
or layers of paling one against another, making 
the nest appear large and cumbrous. The third 
nest built by this unfortunate pair was likewise 
