108 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
remain—at any rate for a week. As a matter 
of fact, we never got farther. We could in truth 
hardly have done better. Species were breeding 
on it hitherto unknown to me. There were no 
rats, black or grey. 
The Dolly anchored in deep water only a dozen 
boat lengths away from the cliff, and for further 
security moored to a convenient rock, the landing 
of our impedimenta was quickly finished. In 
less than a quarter of an hour cameras, bedding, 
and stores had been rowed ashore, and deposited 
above high-water mark. The anchor of the little 
craft was hauled, farewells shouted, and we were 
marooned on our island. 
Kotiwhenu fostered an avifauna and flora not 
affected by the changes that have elsewhere trans- 
formed New Zealand into a second England. Its 
surface conditions remained as they had been 
centuries before, as they had been anterior to the 
last great migration of the Maori race. Hlsewhere 
many kinds of native birds have disappeared ; 
everywhere their numbers have decreased; else- 
where in New Zealand enormous changes have 
taken place in its flora. On our island, conditions 
were as they had been; there was no reason to 
suppose that birds were less plentiful, or that 
there had been any alteration in the relation of 
species towards one another. Certainly a few 
aliens, birds and plants, had put in an appearance ; 
