File:Mutton birds and other birds (1914) (14748396162).jpg

Identifier: muttonbirdsother00guth (find matches)
Title: Mutton birds and other birds
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Guthrie-Smith, H. (Herbert), 1861-1940
Subjects: Birds -- New Zealand
Publisher: Christchurch, N.Z. : Whitcombe and Tombs
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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esof schoolboy days. It ^vas then, assisted by the gardener, now a verydear old friend, and his dog, Bruin, who scared the rabbitscovertwards, and with a roll or two of strawberry netting, that Iused to crouch during dark nights, at a particular sheep gap inthe long dry-stone dyke, and project myself on the rabbits, drivenfrom the crops and rushing homewards. The deep joy of eachseizure, the pounce in the black darkness, the alternations of hopeand fear, the rapid handling of the enmeshed rabbit—touches astender and quick as those of love itself—are vivid still, and mustbe as near an approach, as mortal man can attain, to the ecstasyenjoyed by a sporting dog in mouthing his game. If, haply, reincar-nation be a truth, I hope to return a boy, die before I reach theage of what is called sense, and then, rising as on stepping stonesof my dead self to liigher things, re-visit earth as a curly-coatedretriever with the run of a wild Argyleshire moor, and a mastermad-keeu on field sports.
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AND OTHER BIRDS 89 our find. AVitli one long sigh of clogs delight,and with one knig ecstatic inhahition, his strongblunt nose burst the loose libra apart. In themiserable light of that dark afternoon there waslittle to be seen; but, listening at the burrowsmouth, we could hear from time to time a faintsniffing noise, and this, I believe, proceededfrom the parent Kiwi; at any rate throughouta long acquaintance with the chick, I never againheard it. The hole was tunnelled out of slightlyrising ground beneath the bole of a livingkamahi; this tree had grown after the mannerof its kind in Stewart Island, at first parallel tothe ground and had only later sent forth tall,erect shafts. Heaped above its prone trunk, andacting as a farther shield from penetrating wet,masses of fallen timber were piled in roughpyramid form; the hole was overrun with.Billardiers pol)^od and the burrow^s mouthdarkened and screened with tall lomarias. Thelength of the tunnel was about two and a halffeet, the heigh

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