IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.

-(By James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.) (All Rights Reserved). TEN DAYS ON THE WEST COAST. On the first day I spent or the West "Coast of the South Island, when I went there for a holiday at the beginning of last month, I got up early in the morning, and went out to look into the sky for dark clouds, grey mists, and approaching downpours of rain. There -is a belief in New Zealand that the West Coast is the wettest district in the world. This belief is held more firmly by people who live on the Coast than by people in any other part of the islands. They glory in their district's distinction. They take more prido in it than Auckland takes in her beauty, Wellington in her harbour, Canterbury in her prime lamb, or Otago in her Scottish ancestry. Before I left Christchurch I was advised to take top-boots, an oilskin coat, and a "sou-wester" hat, to learn to swim, to develop amphibian characteristics, and to say "good-bye" to the sun until I returned. X was surprised to find the sun shining conspicuously and brightly, and the sky a soft, clear, cerulean blue of unfathomable depth, with cumulus clouds glistening like masses of frosled wool in the distance. The weather was everything I had been led to expect it would not be. It was the same during all the ten days of my visit. Except on one occasion, late at night, there was not a drop of rain. The days, in fact, were pompously grand, and from sunrise to sunset the landscapes were clothed with a golden magnificence. I was the guest of Mr. W. H. Gates. He lives about five miles south of Hokitika, on the banks of the Mahinapua Creek, which flows eight miles from Mahinapua Lake into the mouth of the Hokitika River, and across the bar and out to sea. We left Hokitika at dusk, pulled up the creek in the dark, and landed on a little grassy stage, which is lapped by the waters, of tho creek as they run swiftly on to join the river. The stage is surrounded on all sides except the water side by large shrubs. A path leads through an opening in this shrubby plantation, over some swampy ground, and up to tho portals of the forest. From there ifc has been formed, for five chains or more, by the dark trunks of hundreds of tree-ferns being placed across it, Mdc by side, and row upon row, with here and there, stretching over a hollow, a lordly pine, which was once a handsome tree, but whose dead body »s now trampled beneath men's busy feet. At the end of the five chains, where the rows of. tree-ferns stop, there is a clearing, -.nd in that clearing is Mr. Gates's house. As the path winds slightly, the opening is not seen from the house. In consequence of this the place is closed in by trees. It seems to be in the very heart of a great forest, remote Irom civilisation. On all sides, there are gigantic red and white pines, beeches, ratas, and other trees, with trailing lianas hanging from their branches, and thick undergrowth massed around their 6tems. In roaming through the forest, old surveyors' tracks are seen. The plants are trying to win back what civilisation has taken from them. The ferns are leading. They are drooping tkeiv heavy fronds over the tracks, as if to hide them and blot out the evidence of the destruction that has taken place. In some places the plants have been fairly successful, and tiny trees, a few inches high, are struggling to assert themselves under the ferns' protection, and to claim again the ground the forest has lost. In a terrace close by, tunnels have been built into the earth, to enable golctseekers to reach the gold inside. Near the mouth of one of these tunnels there are the scattered remains of a great water-wheel. It had becSn used for sluicing in connection with mining operations, and was made, at the cost of much labour, entirely of wood. A white pine had crashed down upoD it, and, in a flash of time had reduced this product of human ingenuity to a useless and shapeless wreck. The scene gave an impression that the pine had takea revenge for the destruction of the plants. I saw many birds while I was in the district, but most of them were small species, notably tomtits, wrens and fantails. 1 did not see more than two tuis and one pigeon, and I neither saw nor heard a bell -bird or a kaka. 'At Christmas time the trees were full of these birds, 1 and they could be seen at any time of the day. Apparently, they were undertaking a migration at the time of my visit. I tramped through the forests for hours without seeing one of them. There is no apparent reason for their absence.' Food supplies were plentiful, and the conditions offered everything the heart of a native bird could desires I know of nothing that could have driven them away. Probably they are back again now, and the glades resound once more with, the clear notes of the tui and the bell-bird. I can understand, in circumstances of this nature, how many people have run away with the idea that some species of our avifauna are becoming extinct. If 1 had not been assured that the birds I looked for in vain were plentiful a few months previously, I should have written "extinct" against their names as far as the Hokitika district is concerned. This absence of the forests' prima donnas made' them dull. It is oppressive to walk for hours through forests and not- hear a bird-note. It is like walking through the streets of a City of the Dead. There were no cicadas to send out a rolling, buzzing chorus, as in the 'North Island. Only one songster came out to enliven o-^r walks. It was the little grey-warbler, which hupped down to the lower branches -of the trees and shrubs, and repeatedly whistled his loud and plaintive tune. Owls were the first inhabitants of the forest to greet us. We had hardly stepped out of the boat before we heard the loud and ominous cries of the "more-porks." Their * presence seemed to be quite in keeping with the sombre moonlit forest and the- spectral trees. "Whoo-whoo," one of them cried, the first note longer and more emphatic that the second, and an answer came from another tree in the same monotonous tone, utterly devoid of variation. The cry is repeated at intervals of about five seconds. At almost any time of the night, from dusk till the first streaks of dawn chase away the shadowy forest ghosts, the strange, "whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo, whoowhoo" may be heard, now from one tree, now from another, never close, but always loud, and always boding. There were many owls in the vicinity of Mr. Gates's house when I was there. We heard them every night, and • at nearly all hours of the night. ■ Mr. Gates told me, however, that they like the dark rainy nights better than the moonlight ones. When the rain is falling in blinding sheets and storms are raging amongst the trees they come out in greater numbers, and, apparently, give their cries more' frequently. Besides the two notes, "whoo-whoo," Mr. Gates says, they have a quiet callnote, which is like tho mewing of a cat, but it is not heard very often. They do not filways wait for night to come, agd .hide th^ir. msy§aen,ts« "