What the Bush Robin Saw.

The Bush Robin had a pale yellow breast, and his dominion extended from the waterfall, at the bottom of which lay a deep, dark, green pool, to the place where the rimu tree had fallen across the creek.

His life was made up of two things; hunting for big white grubs in the rotten barrels of dead trees, and looking at the yellow pebbles in the stream. This last was a habit that the wood-hen had taught him. She was the most inquisitive creature in the forest, and knew all that was going on beyond the great river, into which the creek fell, and as far away as the Inaccessible Mountains, which were the end of the world: not that she travelled far, but that all wood-hens live in league, and spend their time in enquiring into other people’s business.

The tui and the bell-bird might sing in the tops of the tall trees, but the Bush Robin hardly ever saw them, except when they came down to drink at the creek. The pigeons might coo softly, and feed on tawa berries till actually they were ready to burst, and could not fly from the trees where they had gorged themselves—as great gluttons as ever there were in Rome: but the Bush Robin hardly knew them, and never spoke to them. He was a bird of the undergrowth, a practical entomologist, with eyes for nothing but bugs, beetles, larvÆ, stick-insects, and the queer yellow things in the river.

Being a perfectly inoffensive bird, he objected to noise, and for that reason he eschewed the company of the kakas and paroquets who ranged the forest in flocks, and spoilt all quietude by quarrelling and screeching in the tree-tops. But for the kakapo, the green ground-parrot who lived in a hollow rata tree and looked like a bunch of maiden-hair fern, he had great respect. This was a night-bird who interfered with no one, and knew all that went on in the forest between dark and dawn.

Then there was the red deer, the newest importation into those woods. The Bush Robin never quite knew the reason of his own inquisitiveness, and the roaming deer never quite knew why the little bird took so much interest in his movements, but the fact remained that whenever the antlered autocrat came to drink at the stream, the Bush Robin would stand on a branch near by, and sing till the big buck thought the little bird’s throat must crack. His thirst quenched, the red deer would be escorted by the Bush Robin to the confine of the little bird’s preserve, and with a last twitter of farewell, Robin would fly back rapidly to tell the news to his mate.

I had almost forgotten her. She was slightly bigger than Robin himself, and possessed a paler breast. But no one saw them together; and though they were the most devoted pair, none of the forest folk ever guessed the fact, but rather treated their tender relationship with a certain degree of scepticism.

Therefore, these things having been set forth, it was not strange that the Bush Robin, having eaten a full meal of fat white grubs, should sit on a bough in the shade of a big totara tree and watch, with good-natured interest begotten of the knowledge that he had dined, the movements of the world around him. The broken ground, all banks and holes and roots, was covered with dead leaves, moss, sticks, and beds of ferns, and was overgrown with supple-jacks, birch-saplings and lance-wood. On every side rose immense trees, whose dark boughs, stretching overhead, shut out the sun from the gloomy shades below.

The Bush Robin, whose sense of hearing was keen and discriminating, heard a strange sound which was as new as it was interesting to him. He had heard the roaring of the stags and the screeching of the parrots, but this new sound was different from either, though somewhat like both. There it was again. He must go and see what it could mean. In a moment, he was flitting beneath the trees, threading his way through the leafy labyrinth, in the direction of the strange noise. As he alighted on a tall rock, which reared itself abruptly from the hurly-burly of broken ground, before him he saw two strange objects, the like of which he had never seen, and of which his friend the wood-hen, who travelled far and knew everything, had not so much as told him. They must be a new kind of stag, but they had no horns—yet perhaps those would grow in the spring. One had fallen down a mossy bank, and the other, who was dangling a supple-jack to assist his friend in climbing, was making the strange noise. The creature upon the ground grunted like the wild pigs, from whose rootings in the earth the Bush Robin was wont to derive immense profit in the shape of a full diet of worms; but these new animals walked on two feet, in a manner quite new to the little bird.

Then the strange beings picked up from the ground queer things which the Bush Robin failed to comprehend, and trudged on through the forest. The one that led the way struck the trees with a glittering thing, which left the boles marked and scarred, and both held in their mouths sticks which gave off smoke, a thing beyond the comprehension of the little bird, and more than interesting to his diminutive mind. Here were new wonders, creatures who walked on two legs, but not as birds—the one with the beard like a goat’s must be the husband of the one who had none; and both breathed from their mouths the vapour of the morning mist.

The Bush Robin followed them, and when they paused to rest on the soft couch of ferns beneath a rimu tree, the bird alighted on the ground and hopped close to them.

“I could catch the little beggar with my hand,” said one.

“Don’t hurt him,” said the other, “he’ll bring us luck.”

“Then give me a match—my pipe’s gone out.”

The match was lighted, and the cloud of smoke from the re-lit pipe floated up to the boughs overhead. The Bush Robin watched the miracle, but it was the yellow flame which riveted his attention. The lighted match had been thrown away, and before the smoker could put his foot on it, the little bird darted forward, seized the white stem and, with the burning match in his beak, flitted to the nearest bough.

The men laughed, and watched to see what would happen.

Pleased beyond expression with his new prize, the Bush Robin held it in his beak till a fresh sensation was added to the new things he was experiencing: there was a sudden shake of his little head, the match fell, and went out.

The men undid their swags and began to eat, and the Bush Robin feasted with them on white crumbs which looked, like the match-stick, as if they might be grubs, but tasted quite different.

“Tucker’s good,” said the man with the beard, “but, I reckon, what we want is a drink.”

“The billy’s empty,” said the other—“I spilt it when I came that cropper, and nearly broke my neck.”

“Then there’s nothing for it but to wait till we come to a stream.”

They rose, tied up their swags, and journeyed on; the bearded man continuing to blaze the track, the younger man following him, and the Bush Robin fluttering beside them.

The creek was but a little way off. Soon the noise of its waters greeted the ears of the travellers. The thirsty men hurried in the direction of the sound, which grew louder and louder, till suddenly pushing through a tangled screen of supple-jacks and the soft, green fronds of a small forest of tree-ferns, they stood on the bank of a clear stream, which rushed noisily over a bed of grey boulders.

The bearded man stooped to drink: the other dipped the billy into the water and drank, standing.

The little bird had perched himself on a big rock which stood above the surface of the swirling water.

“Good,” said he with the beard. “There’s no water like bush water.”

“There’s that little beggar again,” said the other, watching the bird upon the rock.

“He’s following us around. This shall be named Bush Robin Creek.”

“Bush Robin Creek it is,” said the other. “Now take a prospect, and see if you can get a colour.” The older man turned over a few boulders, and exposed the sand that lay beneath them. Half a shovelful of this he placed in a tin dish, which he half-filled with water. Then squatting on his heels, he rotated the dish with a cunning movement, which splashed little laps of water over the side and carried off the lighter particles of sand and dirt. When all the water in the dish was thus disposed of, he added more and renewed the washing process, till but a tablespoonful of the heaviest particles of grit remained at the bottom. This residue he poked over with his forefinger, peering at it nearly.

Apparently he saw nothing. More water was put into the dish, and the washing process was continued till but a teaspoonful of grit remained.

“We’ve got the colour!” he exclaimed, after closely examining this residue.

His comrade knelt beside him, and looked at the “prospect.”

A little more washing, and at the bottom of the dish lay a dozen flakes of gold, with here and there a grain of sand.

“We must go higher up,” said the bearded man. “This light stuff has been carried over a bar, maybe, and the heavier gold has been left behind.”

Slowly and with difficulty they worked their way along the bank of the creek, till at last they came to a gorge whose rocky sides stood like mighty walls on either side.

The gold-seekers were wading up to their waists in water, and the Bush Robin was fluttering round them as they moved slowly up the stream. Expecting to find the water deeper in the gorge, the man in front went carefully. The rocky sides were full of crevices and little ledges, on one of which, low down upon the water, the little Robin perched.

The man reached forward and placed his hand upon the ledge on which the bird was perched; the Bush Robin fluttered overhead, and then the man gave a cry of surprise. His hand had rested on a layer of small nuggets and golden sand.

“We’ve got it, Moonlight! There’s fully a couple of ounces on this ledge alone.”

The bearded man splashed through the water, and looked eagerly at the gold lying just above the water-line.

“My boy, where there’s that much on a ledge there’ll be hundreds of ounces in the creek.”

He rapidly pushed ahead, examining the crevices of the rock, above and below the water-line.

“It’s here in stacks,” he exclaimed, “only waiting to be scraped out with the blade of a knife.”

Drawing his sheath-knife from his belt, he suited the action to the word; and standing in the water, the two men collected gold as children gather shells on the shore.

And the Bush Robin watched the gold-seekers take possession of the treasured things, which he had looked upon as his own especial property; fancying that they glittered merely for his delight.