got some very rosy apples from the hospitable old Highlander; and his couthie auld wifie regaled us with delicious butter and other home-made luxuries.
It was, indeed, with genuine regret we turned our backs on this region of romantic beauty and wild grandeur.
On the way to Frankton we passed flocks of starlings, flights of parrakeets, and hordes of sparrows and green linnets, all destructive pests and enemies that cause the poor patient farmers immoderate loss. At Boye's station, at the Kawarau Falls, an army of rabbitters are employed, and at the tariff of 3d. per skin many of them make over 12s. per diem of wages.
The poisoned grain which is laid for the rabbits has destroyed nearly all the quail and wild duck, of which there used to be legions about here. Away up at the head of the lake, on the Rees and Dart, paradise ducks are yet pretty numerous.
The Frankton Valley is backed up by the glistening Crown Ranges—one immense expanse of unsullied snow, rolling along to the verge of the horizon in billowy waves of dazzling purity and gleaming splendour. The fields are here protected by rabbit-proof wire fences; but times have been hard with the farmers, and we see hundreds of acres of uncut crops beaten down by the untimely snow, and myriads of stooks rotting in the sodden fields. The land here is very productive; a hundred bushels of oats to the acre is quite a common yield.
