A Bird Sanctuary.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17418, 31 March 1922, Page 6

A Bird Sanctuary.

Io the north, of the Hauraki Gulf, midway between Kodney Point and Great Barrier Island lies Little Barrier Island, one of the three bird sanctuaries now reserved by the New Zealand Government, and, so at least Mr Oliver, of the Dominion Museum, says in a very interesting short article in the current "New Zealand Journal of Scienoe and •Technology," the one which seoms to fulfil its purpose most satisfactorily. It is sufficiently isolated to afford the birds the privacy they demand, and it ia off the beat of the cockney sportsman whose one ploasure in wild life lioa in destroying it. Cots, hawks, and owls are tho chief foes the birds have to face, and thanks to the alertness of the caretaker these members are comparatively few. Tho island may be described as a mueh-dissectcd volcanic cone, " Seep ravines separated by knife-edge "ridges" radiating from a common centre. It is densely wooded, and its forests supply abundance of food and good cover. The coastline is chiefly precipitous cliffs with rough boulder beaches, and landing can only be effected in fine weather, and even then only on the lee side of the island. Tho only regular oommunie&tion is by the little yacht which comes once a fortnight from Rodney Point. But for bird lovers iflie place must be a veritable paradise. From dawn to dusk, says Mr Oliver, the bush rings with the musical notes of the bell-bird, which was once so common and so widely distributed, but is now so rare a visitant, at least in town neighbourhoods, and the whole island is ae much alive with bird life as the primeval New Zealand bush must have been before the advent of tho white man. One bird, the stiton-bird, Aotiomystis Cincta, as it is called in the quaint jargon of the ornithologist, i 3 now only to bfe found on this little island, where it is so tame that, like the wood-robin, it comes hopping along full of curiosity to get a closer glimpse of the casual stranger who may happen to invade its favourite haunts. But t)he list of birds is almost depressing, it reminds one so forcibly of the times of long ago when most of them were to be seen familiarly in gardens. Shiny cuckooß, long-tailed cuckoos, kakas, quaintest and pleasantest of paTrot clowns, red and yellow-fronted parrakeets A pigeons, king-fishers, makos, tuis, to nam® but a few, are all there in abundance, and all quite fearless, too, and ready to go about on their lawful occasions in quest of food and drink, insects and fruits, with serene indifference to the presence of the visitor. Men are so strangely constituted that they have been known at times to rail against their rulers, but he would be an ungracious man indeed who should refuso to applaud with Mr Oliver "the wisdom " of the Government of New Zealand in "its policy of giving protection to" what Mr Oliver somewhat unnecessarily calls "our avifauna."