PETANE SWAMP—THE BANDED RAIL 85 
grey-green fields of sappy samphire, whilst almost 
in the soft mud of the crab-bored tidal creeks 
luxuriates the beautiful, open-throated, orange- 
blossomed marsh mimulus, like a good deed in a 
naughty world. The most common plant is a 
sombre rush. Of it there are many scores of acres 
—stretches in some places matted and deep, almost 
waterproof with the growth of many seasons, 
elsewhere after fires, thinner and more open. 
These levels are intersected by muddy sinuous 
creeks, quagmires so deep in ooze that waders 
up to the armpits had to be worn—garments 
excellent for the Aberdeenshire Dee in April, 
where I have found the coiled line stiffen between 
each cast and seen tiny icicles on the rod rings, 
but warm indeed when donned in a Hawke’s py 
November. 
This estuary in ancient days must have been 
full of Duck, Rail, Pukeko, Bittern, and other 
marsh birds. Now but a few of each survive. 
The survival, however, of any at all seemed a 
marvel, as day after day revealed the number 
of rats. ‘Their innumerable wicked pads were 
thickly printed on the fresh mud; everywhere we 
found the eggs of birds destroyed, everywhere 
the shellfish devoured. In Hawke’s Bay the 
harm done to bird life by the rat is greater, I 
believe, than the harm done by all other agencies 
combined. 
