. Mutton birds and other birds . s wall hasgiven way, ])ut not as a whole even here, ratherit has ])een pierced by numberless narrowgorges. Relics of its former entirety survivein the form of cones and peaks, bound withcreeping plants, tussock grass and flax, and onwhose peaks the Skua breeds. Immediately behind these peaks and over-blown walls, lie stony terraces and stony slopesand steppes—a net-work of dunes, which hasassumed all the delightful shapes of travellingsand—its pinnacles, head-lands, hog backs,cliffs, coinices, deltas, running skees, and slopeswith sides as smooth as snow. Even
. Mutton birds and other birds . s wall hasgiven way, ])ut not as a whole even here, ratherit has ])een pierced by numberless narrowgorges. Relics of its former entirety survivein the form of cones and peaks, bound withcreeping plants, tussock grass and flax, and onwhose peaks the Skua breeds. Immediately behind these peaks and over-blown walls, lie stony terraces and stony slopesand steppes—a net-work of dunes, which hasassumed all the delightful shapes of travellingsand—its pinnacles, head-lands, hog backs,cliffs, coinices, deltas, running skees, and slopeswith sides as smooth as snow. Even in this part of the beach however,where the ultimate triumph of sand and drygales would seem to be most perfectly assured,a barrier to their joint dominion exists in theform of a small fresh-water stream. Every-where this brook obstructs the sand, absorbingthe dry showers as they fall from the landwardterraces, and often forming on the beach aminiature bar behind which a long shallowlagoon forms itself, and where the wagging. I AND OTHER BIRDS lOi wisps and Avreaths of grey inland drift, are lostlike snow on water uncongealed. About themonth of this small stream, therefore, the driftsand is to a considerable degree checked, and astrip of bush running far inland enabled tosurvive. On the edge of this ribbon of woodlandand half a mile from the shore stood the w^harewhere we camped. Sand, nevertheless, in twogreat sliding drifts has already passed both onthe north and south beyond this Castle Perilous,and it may be if the supply is large enoughthat these twc) streams at no very distant datewill overlap and meet, and that at a still moreremote period the strip of bush will also besubmerged. On the north, one of these drifts haspassed over the shoulder of a wooded hill andis pouring itself into the plain beyond. On thesouth, stands a granite hill, but its bulk andheight are really a less efficient protection to thehut than are the living woods of the valley andthe wide wet bed o
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidmuttonbirdso, bookyear1914
