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We wish it had been a weka, or bush-hen, as that is more succulent eating; but we have hearty appetites, and will do justice to the kiwi, anyhow. Then the Maoris have cut out the livers of a couple of young pigs, and these are toasted in strips, and are not such bad eating after all. By way of desert we have some berries from the trees around, that prove very nice.
As far as the Weka Pass, where we stopped for dinner, the roads were very good, but after that we got more among the hills and off the usual track, and there were many sharp turns and steep pinches; but Mr. L is an excellent whip, and took great care of us.
They run very swiftly, availing themselves cleverly of the least bit of cover; but when you hear a short sharp cry, it is a sign that the poor weka is nearly done, and the next thing you see is Fly shaking a bundle of brown feathers vehemently.
The weka, or wood-hen, with rudimentary wings like tufts of brown feathers, whose odd, inquisitive ways introduce it so constantly to the shepherd and bushman, at first preyed upon the young rabbits and throve. Now ferrets and phosphorus are exterminating it in the rabbit-infested districts.
The melancholy cry of a bittern, or the shrill wail of the weka, startled me from time to time, but there was no other sound to break the eternal silence.
I can get on very well all day; with my various employments feeding the chickens, taking the big dogs out for a walk, and so on: but after the house is quiet and silent for the night, and the servants have gone to bed, a horrible lonely eerie feeling comes over me; the solitude is so dreary, and the silence so intense, only broken occasionally by the wild, melancholy cry of the weka.
There are the proper colleys, generally each shepherd has two, but no other dogs are allowed, and I had great trouble to coax F to allow me to accept two. One is a beautiful water-spaniel, jet black, Brisk by name, but his character is stainless in the matter of sheep, and though very handsome he is only an amiable idiot, his one amusement being to chase a weka, which he never catches.
Presently I felt a tug at the shawl on which I was lying: I was too lazy and dreamy to turn my head, so the next thing was a sharp dig on my arm, which hurt me dreadfully. I looked round, and there was a weka bent on thoroughly investigating the intruder into its domain.
They had each their pair of red blankets, one to spread over a heap of freshly cut tussocks, which formed a delicious elastic mattrass, and the other to serve as a coverlet. During the day these blankets were always hung outside on a tree, out of the reach of the most investigating weka.
When startled or hunted, the weka glides, for it can scarcely be called running, with incredible swiftness and in perfect silence, to the nearest cover. A tussock, a clump of flax, a tuft of tall tohi grass, all serve as hiding-places; and, wingless as she is, the weka can hold her own very well against her enemies, the dogs. I really believe the great desire of Brisk's life was to catch a weka.
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