Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/217

 furious rush. There is not a blink of brightness here to relieve the pallid leaden look. Even the snowy heights are again hidden by the grey dark envious mist, which clings to the sodden soil like grave-cloths.

Here is an episode in keeping with the general aspect. The rabbitters have been out laying poisoned grain. Poor greedy bunny! Have you no premonition of danger? No; the all-devouring greed which makes these multitudinous hordes such an awful plague, is not to be deterred by any scruples. The grain is looked on as a godsend, for of grass and green herbage there is not a blade all eaten up long ago. The vermin are at starvation point. They eat. See now! Look at that one leaping in the air in its death agonies. Look at the contortions and gyrations of that other. Hear the agonizing screams of a third; the deadly drug is eating at the vitals of the hapless rodents. The earth is dotted with white upturned pelts of dozens of them. They lie thick behind every tuft of spear-grass, in scores under every cliff, in hundreds over the plains. The peltry hunters will have a rich harvest this evening. As the rabbitters move forward, picking up the dead beasts and rapidly skinning them, hundreds of seagulls follow the gang, flitting about like eerie ghosts, and gorging themselves on the poisoned carcases. The poison does not seem to affect these birds; at least no dead gulls are ever noticed, though I saw them myself feeding on the poisoned flesh.