184 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
consisted not of two hens and a cock, but of two 
cocks and a hen.! 
Though each of the three at times sat on the 
eggs, the largest bird, the hen, was evidently 
the most eager to do so. There were many minute 
signs of expectation, too, on the part of the others 
that she should take upon herself the chief burden 
1 Observations made during three weeks’ residence in the late 
spring of 1923 on an island already mentioned—Te Puka—tfully 
confirmed this view. There my daughter and niece discovered 
a Sea Hawk’s nest, from which the sitting bird—the hen—reso- 
lutely refused to budge—refused to budge even when gently 
‘pressed with sticks. From this nest when visited by myself next 
day the hen was gone; only the two males remained in charge. 
These gentlemen, after much screeching and swooping, at length 
became reassured. They returned, and finally snuggled down as 
if incubating—one on the peat near by, where already a saucer- 
like depression had been worn; the other on the more marked 
depression, the actual nest, within which lay the two brown 
eggs. I noticed, however, that the silly creature who had taken 
the better place was sitting only on one egg ; the other lay ex- . 
posed and uncared for. He had sat there at all not particularly 
because the eggs lay there, but because there was a more com- 
fortable convenient depression into which to fit himself. No 
female bird assuredly would have thus treated her clutch. After 
seeing a great deal of the many Sea Hawks’ nests on Te Puka 
my companions believed that the tripartite nest was the normal 
condition of wedlock. We left the island, however, when only 
a single chick had hatched, so that, although strongly leaning to 
their views, I would not care to state definitely that there were 
no two-bird marriages at all. I may add that often we used to 
eat our biscuits.on a certain northern headland overlooking a 
superb view of the west coast of Stewart Island, its promontories, 
granite cones, and islands, with, farther afield, the towering snow- 
clad peaks of Westland, and far to sea the Solander rocks. There 
on that wind-blown top a trio of Sea Hawk used to participate 
in our frugal meal, and accept with apparent relish such foreign 
delicacies as apple-cores and apple-peel. 
