MAYOR ISLAND

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 165, 8 April 1921, Page 8

MAYOR ISLAND

AN INTERESTING PLACE.

Mayor Island, a New Zealand bird sanctuary in the Bay of Plenty, was visited last month by Dr. J. Allan Thomson (Director of the Dominion Museum) and Professor C. A. Cotton. In a report to the Minister of Internal Affairs (Hon. W. Downie Stewart) upon his visit, Dr. Thomson states that quail, evidently the introduced Tasmanian variety, and not the extinct New Zealand quail, were fairly abundant- Bell birds were even more abundant on the island than at Kapiti, and small native bush binls were fairlv common. The island ( was evidently a very good sanctuary, receiving natural protection from its distance from the mainland. Tuatara were present only on some outlying" rocks The abundance of pigs would prevent them flourishing on the main island. A good collection of obsidians of all sorts "was collected by Dr. Thomson and Professor Cotton. Mayor Island was the chief Maori source of'obsidian (a very hard and sharp-edged substance). Dr. Thomson reports th:|t the island had never been visited by a geologist, and the mode of occurrence . of the obsidian was not exactly known. He had now material for a special exhibit in the museum, illustrating the occurrence of obsidian and the general geology of the island, which proved to be a recently extinct rhyolite volcano.