THE SNARES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 9 October 1913, Page 2

THE SNARES.

The Dunedin Evening Star publishes the experiences of a party of sealers that spent seven weeks at The Snares, from which we take the following:— One of the most remaz\kable features of the sealers' sojourn on the island was the "spring cleaning" of the mutton birds on September 8. Before that date there was not a mutton bird on the island. Early on the Bth a few leaders arrived, and then the birds commenced to come in thousands, the sky being darkened, with them. One had to be very careful. The birds would simply flop to earth with a thud and disappear each into its own particular burrow, and if anyone happened to be in the immediate vicinity of any burrow he stood a good chance of being flattened out by a flopping bird. The island was simply honeycombed with these burrows. The mutton birds (or titi) simply come in September to clean out their burrows ready for the laying season. They fly away after the spring clean, and. return on the 26th of November to lay their eggs, which usually hatch on Christmas Day. Besides the mutton birds there is much other life. Thousands of penguins hold their mock parliaments with much wagging of heads and an incessant squeaking or squawking day and night. Larks, thrushes, sparrows, starlings, and ring eyes have been seen, aand a jet-black tomtit. The tutkiwi is a native of the Snares, and is of a dark brown color, with a longish beak, and stunted wings which enable it to fly about 20 yards or so. A gay colored bird (green and red) about tho size of a goldfinch was also seen, but no one in the party knew the name of it. Fish were plentiful, principally trumpeter.