Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/269

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
262
Stories of the Bays.

month there were thousands, and the next none; so that they cannot have been destroyed, but must have sought some other locality. Gough’s Bay was once the home of innumerable wekas. For some years every tussock and every piece of bush was thick with them, and the dogs used to kill as many as twenty a day. A few years ago these also took their departure. From making enquiries, Mr. Masefield traced the arrival of these birds. They came in one immense line from the west, round Lake Ellesmere, and their course to the east must have been stopped by the sea at Gough’s Bay. The red-headed paraquets also suddenly disappeared. There were some of the native rats nine or ten years ago. They were fond of living in the trees, and one was caught in the fork of a tree as it was being felled. The Norwegians, however, have since appeared, and the natives seem to be extinct.

The other residents in the Bay are Messrs. Geo. Kearney and Jule Lelievre. Both have fine properties, stretching from the end of the flat to the summit of the range. In the years to come, we have little doubt that all these gentlemen will have many tenants, and that this beautiful Bay—as in the days of old—will support a large population.


No. 13—Peraki.

Very beautiful is the head of the Peraki Valley. Thick bush spreads out just below the Summit, and here were still to be found, a very few years ago, the wild pigs in considerable numbers. Here also is one of the last haunts of the native pigeon, and the moko mokos, tuis and other birds swarm in thou-