Little Folk

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 61, 15 March 1924, Page 15

Little Folk

(All Rights Reserved.)

OUT IN THE NIGHT

(Written for "The Post" by Edith Howes.)

X.—QUICK-EARS THE KIWI,

By the great tree that overlooked the littlo scrub whare grew a dense thicket of bushes and tangled creepers. Under one-of the bushes, where all was pitchy darkness, Quick-Ears the Kiwi had made her burrow. There she and her. mate had scratched out the earth with their strong clawed toes till a comfortable hollow had been made, and there on its bare ground she had laid two huge white eggs. ■:

She came walking through the dimly moonlit forest towards her home, the queerest bird in all the World. Her dark-brown plumage looied more like hair than feathers, so rough and narrow and separated it was, and she seemed to have neither wings nor tail. Her whole body seemed shaped the wrong way round for a bird, being widest and heaviest behind, and utterly lacking in the bread-keeled breastbone of the fly-ing-bird. But then she was not a flyingbird ; for centuries upon centuries her race had not flown. All that was left of wings was a pair of little crooked joints, sticking out about an inch and a half, and each finished with a small blunt claw.

■Her thick strong legs and feet showed her fitness for walking and running, and her immensely long beak, narrow and pointed, was perfectly made for probing the ground for worms, her favourite food. Her nostrils, instead of being up at the base of the beak as in most birds, were down at its tip. With them she smelt out her prey. Her sense of smell was wonderful: keener than that of any other living bird.

. Her eyes were small and dull and almost useless. She did not try to find her food by sight, but followed it by sceno and hearing. She walked now with her head on one side, ear towards the ground, listening. Suddenly she stopped, her marvellous hearing had caught the sound of a worm moving in its burrow. Down went her long beak into the ground, following its prey faultlessly by scent. Up it came, a long struggling worm at its tip. The worm was swallowed, and she came on, listening, probing, discovering, and swallowing many times in the short journey to her home. Her mate was brooding. The eggs were so big that he could not cover them by sitting on them, for he was smaller than she was, and the eggs were too hi" even for her. He lay full-length acrosl them and so kept them warm for hatching with the heat of his whole body. She had come to relieve him and send him off for exercise and food; he did most of the brooding and was a devoted paf.m i neVer eager to leave the eSSsWell ? -she asked as she came nearer Is everything all right?" "Quite all. right. The man-folk were •very noisy for ■ a while, uttering their strange cries, as usual. They are terribly active, too. Several times I trembled with dread, hearing them close ajid thinking that at any moment they might come in here and discover our home They are so huge, I should scarcely be able to defend the eggs against them. It is most unfortunate that they should have made their burrow so near to ours However, they are quiet at last, and no doubt asleep." "I will take your place while yon have a run," she said.

' No, thank you/ he replied quickly. I don t want to leave the eggs just now I have heard sounds from them, and I am sure the chicks will be coming out^soon. Put your head down and

She listened. "Yes," she said, "they are moving, both of them. ■ One is tryin" to break his .hell. They will soon be out now, the darlings." She crouched beside him to wait for the coming of the chicks, and they o™Ed-uf e" qU, iet W^ throu§h the long night hours while the chicks Recked and pushed with their lusty Pyun- ostrength at. their shells, struggling tS break out into the world. "The bush is not what it was," he complained "When we were youn* how safe it was. There was nothing at all to fear; we lived in peace. But now. all is different. Bine-grey the Q; took our chicks one year, and Wily the Weasel drank their blood the next, and rn6^ 7w SharP; tooth Stoat prowls round filling our hearts with dread And now these manfolk have come, killing and eating and making terrible noises Those bang-sticks of theirs carry death without touching. "Yes. Mother Possum is terribly afraid of them. Did you know they caught her baby and put it in a ca4* She rescued^ him and lives in terror °fo r b™ ever S i nce . But she says thin°s would be worse if the manfolk had brought Dog the Hunter with them He is fiercer than they are, and far swifter She says he would find us all out, and nobody would be safe except the flvine birds. She says Dog the Hunter caS

"Ah if only we could fly !" he sighed If only our people had not given un the use of v.-ings." &'*™ up ''Yet perhaps thebbang-stiesk s would n" S Til th6D' She Eaid oonSolingly 9fu uhe, • 6ggS cracked : broke and the cluck', head was pushed out Good! said the father. "Come out in H° TiW" °nc>" and h° helped gently with his long beak till the chick stood safely outside the shell. Ij van d by the other chick hatched. Then the parents sat opposite each other with the chicks between them, making a warn and cosy family circle. "You must be very quiet " ca ,V? A father, "for there aY enemiet "L^ lour mother and I will bring you food We shall never forget you, and there is no need for you to call out. Stay hid den m the nest always, and remember to make no sound, or the manfolk will get you." "1U

For several days the chicks were so well fed and.guarded that there wal To need for them to call out, but there came a night when they Woke hungry and found neither father nor mother near them. Because they were litM and foolish they forgot their father's warning and they cried aloud for food called again and again ' „ Presently a light flashed into their thicket, and heavy footsteps went about and about, and huge creatures , peered curiously mto the tangled creepers The chicks were silent now, shaking with car remembering too late what they had been told about the manlfolk. Tike a black shadow Quick-Ears their mother glided in and stood over them to shelter them, pressing them into the deepest darkness of the hollowed space. The light, and the footsteps, and the peering eyes went away. A shadow moved and was their .father. "Come '" he whispered. "They did uot find us, but \\e dare not stay here any lohcer We must.go further up into the moua-

tains,' where the manfolk have not yet set their feet." So they left their home and travelled through the night and hid during the day. and went on again when darkness fell, till they came to the mountains where the manfolk had not yet set their feet. There they fcund another home and lived in safety. (To be continued.)