The Great Dr. Cockayne.

Forest and Bird, Issue 34, 1 October 1934, Page 13

The Great Dr. Cockayne.

Valiant Friend of Forests and Birds.

New Zealand’s native forests and birds have many friends, but not all of these are persistently active. The woods and their feathered inmates lost a powerful champion when Dr. Cockayne, a world-famous scientist, died in Wellington on Bth July. Here is a tribute which the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society published in many newspapers : His spirit of service will not pass away. His work for the world will carry on through centuries, and his name will be honoured by generations whose birth is far away in the future. Not many men or women have immeasurable gifts of mind and will-power to make their achievements perpetually helpful to the whole wide world. Such is the fame won unselfishly by Dr. Cockayne in botanical research. Not as a pedant, but as a constructive philosopher, he devoted himself to this study and gained a marvellous store of knowledge beneficial to humanity. “He was a warm lover of New Zealand’s beautiful forests and birds, a love impressively seen in his foreword, ‘The Cry of the Forest,’ in the album published last year by the Native Bird Protection Society. ‘Were we gifted with magic hearing,’ he wrote, ‘the cry of the trees, ‘Give us back our birds,’ would fall upon our ears. So, too, the feathery kowhai would exclaim, ‘Why should I year by year display my golden blossoms with no friendly birds to visit them eager for their nectar?’ Shall we New Zealanders allow our few remaining birds to grow fewer and fewer until, as has happened to some, they will be gone for ever? Shall we not rather, loving the forests as we do, seek to fill them again with the birds which should be so dear to us—birds, most of them pure New Zealanders, whose coming into the world dates back into the ages.”