124 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
never daring to venture far into the open, it has 
on Te Puka not yet altogether lost its character 
of a creeper. We noted Wrens many times six, 
eight, and ten feet up the scaly boles of several 
kinds of trees. 
Among the Wrens of Kotiwhenu a divarica- 
tion still more marked is apparent. Its huge 
proportion of bare peat, its surface vegetation 
stunted and worn by bird traffic, its compara- 
tive poverty of large trees and healthy under- 
scrub have already been described. Here the 
Wren hardly dares venture away from the low 
shelter of island grass and fern; it never dares 
to linger. It is ceaselessly pursued by the Robin. 
During the course of our visit no Bush Wren on 
Kotiwhenu was seen to attempt the scaling of 
a bole, even of a bole protruding from the midst 
ot fern—no Wren ever mounted higher than the 
height of a fern frond. 
To recapitulate : in the forests of the mainland, 
unmolested and with ample space, the Bush 
Wren—lI have come across him on a few occasions 
—remains a scaler of trees. Circumscribed some- 
what in acreage and in considerable degree molested 
by the Robin, the Wren has on Te Puka become 
less of a climber and more of a ground bird. On 
Kotiwhenu, owing to its small acreage and lesser 
amount of covert consequent on the greater 
Petrel population, the persecution of the Wren 
