The northern end of the South Island is a bold, cliffed coast facing the Tasman Sea; the northernmost point is called Cape Farewell. The cape and cliffs are cut in late Cretaceous quartz sandstones forming part of a coal-measure sequence from which coal is mined at Puponga, 2 miles to the south-east. From Abel Head, a mile east of Puponga, a long curving sandspit – Farewell Spit – extends eastwards for 15 miles, partly enclosing the sheltered waters of Golden Bay. Farewell Spit is formed entirely from quartz sands, derived from the erosion of granites and other rocks on the west coast and transported northward by coastal drift. The spit is about half a mile wide and comprises shifting sand dunes up to 100 ft high. Sand and mud flats up to 4 miles in width are laid bare at low tide on the south side. Both Cape Farewell and Farewell Spit were discovered by Abel Tasman in 1642 and named by Captain Cook when he left New Zealand in 1770.

In early European times the sand dunes were partly covered in grass and forest, and sheep and cattle were grazed. Repeated burning and overstocking have led to the loss of most of the vegetation; consequently the sand dunes are now active in most areas, apart from those with patches of scrub, marram grass, and lupins. The only habitation is the lighthouse at the end of the spit, where a small amount of reafforestation has been carried out. The lighthouse is accessible at low water and between tides, when four-wheel-drive vehicles may proceed along the hard sand on the north side of the spit.

by George William Grindley, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

This aptly named species is one that has been able to adapt itself very satisfactorily to an environment that has been greatly changed since European settlement. Originally a bird of open native forests and scrub, it is now also to be found in the forests of introduced pines, in orchards, and in and around the botanic gardens of our largest cities. At times it may appear far from any large stands of shrubs or trees and has an altitudinal range that extends from sea level to the snow line. Its geographical range is very wide within New Zealand, though it does not occur on our sub-Antarctic islands, nor on the Kermadecs.

Three subspecies are recognised – one on the North Island and its off-lying islands, one on the South Island, Stewart Island, and their nearby outliers, and one on the Chathams. The differences between the subspecies are small ones of plumage pattern and size. Except for the Chatham Islands race, the species is dimorphic; that is, two colour phases exist. In addition to the usual pied, or black and white form, there is a black one. This is relatively common in the south-western part of the South Island and is not infrequently met with in other parts of this island and on Stewart Island but is rare in the North Island, though it has been reported from a wide area. Pied and black forms readily breed together to give both black and pied offspring, and matings between two black birds have been reported to yield both black and pied young.

Sexes are alike, though males are slightly larger than females. The common call is a sharp and repeated chirp, the song a series of high-pitched twitterings. Feeding is usually carried out during the characteristic and erratic batlike flight, and food consists entirely of small insects. Fantails will readily enter houses in search of prey.

The breeding season extends mainly from September to January, and a cone-shaped nest of moss, hair, and grass bound with cobwebs is frequently sited in vegetation near or actually overhanging water, presumably because of the abundance of insects in such a situation. Three to four creamy eggs with light-brown markings at their larger ends comprise the usual clutch. Incubation is shared and takes about 14 days. Two or three broods may be raised in one season.

The scientific name for the species is Rhipidura fuliginosa.

by Gordon Roy Williams, B.SC.(HONS.)(SYDNEY), Lecturer in Agricultural Zoology, Lincoln Agricultural College.

In New Zealand, the term “family protection” refers to the law now contained in the Family Protection Act of 1955 whereby the Supreme Court may make provision out of the estate of the deceased person for the proper maintenance and support of certain members of his family for whom he has failed to provide adequately.

Nearly all legal systems that allow property to be disposed of by will nevertheless restrict testators' powers to benefit strangers at the expense of their immediate family. Mediaeval England was no exception, but the protection that the law then gave to widows and children gradually disappeared under the influence of individualism. The law came to make a fetish of absolute freedom of testamentary disposition, and this freedom included the right to leave wife and children penniless.

The obvious injustice of this led in New Zealand to the passing of the Testators Family Maintenance Act of 1900, an enactment which has attracted worldwide attention. Its novelty and importance lay not in its limitation on testamentary freedom – as has been said, this is almost universal – but in its approach to the problem. Most other systems, for example, Roman and Scots law, set aside a proportion of the estate that cannot be willed away from the family. The New Zealand legislation, on the other hand, leaves it to the Court to award to an applicant as much or as little out of the estate as it thinks appropriate in the circumstances. Without directly interfering with testamentary freedom it enables the Court to override a will if the deceased has not carried out his moral duty to his family. Since 1939 the Act has also applied to cases where a person dies intestate and the statutory rules of distribution do not give a fair result.

The approach adopted in 1900 was foreshadowed in an 1877 Act which enabled illegitimate children under 14 to apply for maintenance out of the estate of deceased parents. There was also a provision in the Native Land Court Act of 1894 that where a Maori devised land to someone other than his successor and, in the Court's opinion, that successor would not, without that land, have sufficient for his support, the Court might award the successor as much of that land as was necessary.

The original Testators Family Maintenance Act was introduced by Robert McNab, then a private member of Parliament representing Mataura. It attracted little opposition in Parliament, its passage being assisted by the modest claims of its supporters. A man was obliged to maintain his wife and children in his lifetime, and the object of the Bill, it was said, was to do for them after a testator's death what the Destitute Persons Act did in his lifetime.

Whatever the promoters of the Act may have intended, the Courts interpreted it generously, and it soon became much more than an Act to relieve destitution. It would be impossible in this article to discuss the principles the Court follows in deciding applications under the Family Protection Act. The following passage from a judgment of Sir John Salmond is, however, accepted as an authoritative summary of the Act's scope.

The provision which the Court may properly make is that which a just and wise father would have thought it his moral duty to make had he been fully aware of all the relevant circumstances. If it is manifest that the testator has, whether consciously or inadvertently, failed to perform this duty, it is the right and duty of the Court to perform it for him, by making such alterations in his testamentary dispositions as may be adequate but no more than adequate for this purpose.

The family protection legislation has been an unqualified success. It originally applied only to widows, widowers, and legitimate children. From 1936, however, it was successively extended to illegitimate and adopted children, and parents, grandchildren, and stepchildren, in certain cases. It has, moreover, been followed to a greater or less extent in all Australian States, in some Canadian provinces, and in England.

by Bruce James Cameron, B.A., LL.M., Legal Adviser, Department of Justice, Wellington.

• The Law relating to Family Protection in New Zealand, Stephens, A. C. (1957).

The law relating to the family divides into two branches – the marriage relationship, its formation, incidents, and breakdown, and the parent-child relationship, including adoption. The modern preoccupation with personal rather than property rights and relations has led to much development in both these branches, more particularly the first. New ideas have affected institutions and, in due course, the law to an extent little short of revolutionary. In changing the law, New Zealand has led as much as it has followed, and our family law differs from that of England in many respects. While its basic characteristics are common to Western countries generally, it is in details essentially an independent system.

by Bruce James Cameron, B.A., LL.M., Legal Adviser, Department of Justice, Wellington.

The family residence, isolated on its own section and owned by the occupier, has always been typical of the physical and social urban scene in New Zealand. While flats are not uncommon, almost all couples with children live in a detached one-family house, usually single storeyed. The attachment to home ownership among all classes is seen in the number of State houses purchased by tenants (15,787 out of 58,000 built up to 1961) and in the recent popularity of owner-occupier flats. In 1956 two-thirds of inhabited private dwellings were owned by the occupier.

The law, however, has given only tardy and incomplete recognition to the special character of the family home as the secure and joint possession of husband and wife. Indeed, joint ownership was in the past discouraged by the imposition of gift duty on any transfer from husband to wife of a share in the matrimonial home. This state of things resulted from the approach taken towards married women's property rights. Under the common law, husband and wife were one person, but title to and control of property were vested solely in the husband. One reform would have been to preserve this principle of unity but to give married women equal rights in the ownership and disposition of the common property. This system, known as community property, exists in California and some other places. However, the Married Women's Property Act of 1884 treated the spouses for property purposes as strangers, thereby continuing to deny the wife security in the matrimonial home.

In 1895 a Family Homes Protection Act enabled the owner to settle a dwellinghouse as a family home during his life and until his children reached the age of 21. This gave protection against creditors, but, partly because no home so settled could be mortgaged, the Act was almost a dead letter. A new and successful approach was made by the Joint Family Homes Act of 1950. Under this legislation a house and land used principally or exclusively as a dwelling may be settled as a joint family home. It becomes the joint property of husband and wife, passing to the survivor on death. The home is protected against creditors, other than mortgagees, to the value of £2,000. No gift duty is payable on the settlement and no estate duty on the value of a share up to £3,000.

The use made of the Act has been increased since 1958 by the policy that capitalisation of the family benefit will be allowed only where the home is owned by the wife or settled as a joint family home. Nevertheless, by 1961 only 73,000 out of over 700,000 private dwellings had been settled. Owner-occupier flats cannot become joint family homes.

The Matrimonial Proceedings Act of 1963 allows the Court, on granting a divorce or separation, to take into account the wife's non-monetary contribution to the family home by making an order for possession in her favour or an order for sale and division of the proceeds between the parties. The Court also has power to vest the tenancy of a rental house in the other party. These provisions give practical recognition to the wife's moral claim to a share in the home.

by Bruce James Cameron, B.A., LL.M., Legal Adviser, Department of Justice, Wellington.

• New Zealand, the Development of its Laws and Constitution, Robson, J. L., ed. (1954)
• Family Law in New Zealand, Inglis, B. D. (1960).

(1901– ).

Director, Dominion Museum, Wellington.

A new biography of Falla, Robert Alexander appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

p>Robert Alexander Falla was born at Palmerston North on 21 July 1901 and educated at Auckland Grammar School and Univ. College, Auckland. For five years he lectured in nature study at the Auckland Teachers' Training College prior to joining the British, Australian, and New Zealand Antarctic Expedition as assistant zoologist under Sir Douglas Mawson, 1929–31. At this time he was appointed ornithologist at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, rising in 1936 to be assistant director. From 1937 to 1947 he was director of the Canterbury Museum, but this term was broken by military service overseas in coast-watching duties, Naval Auxiliary Patrol service, and as a delegate to the First General Conference of UNESCO, 1946. Since 1947 he has been director of the Dominion Museum, where he has specialised in ornithology. He has done a great deal of field research in this and allied subjects and since 1955 has been a member of the Ross Sea Committee. He has published a number of scientific papers reflecting these interests. In 1959 he was awarded the C.M.G.

(1904–57).

Poet, satirist, and critic.

A new biography of Fairburn, Arthur Rex Dugard appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Rex Fairburn was born on 2 February 1904 at Auckland, the son of Arthur Fairburn, who was music critic on the Auckland Star for many years. He was a fourth-generation New Zealander whose great grandfather, a noted missionary, had signed the Treaty of Waitangi. Fairburn was educated at Parnell School and Auckland Grammar School. His occupations (as distinct from his career, which was poetry) included periods as an insurance clerk, free-lance journalist, relief worker in the depression, radio-script writer, assistant secretary to the Auckland Farmers' Union, university English tutor, and, for several years, a lecturer in the history and the theory of art at the Elam School of Arts.

In Rex Fairburn the mind and the man demand to be described together, and can be, in similar terms. For the poet, like the man, stood out among his fellows by his stature, his athletic vigour, his human warmth, his firm, commanding voice, and his always agreeable presence. Fairburn's tall entry to a room, like his name in the list of contributors to some hopeful new magazine, raised expectations. With his loose, comfortable clothes, his fine clear eyes, and a large cherrywood pipe to gesture with, Fairburn in a room made many friends and seldom an enemy. His argument, though often absurd because wit was tempting, was always enjoyed. He talked as he wrote, indefatigably but not selfishly. Wit and benevolence flowed from him; his mind was fertile and swift with simile and epigram, and in his time scarcely a magazine in New Zealand was launched without some crackling contribution either from the poet or the critic – as can be seen from the complete bibliography of his work by Olive Johnson. He liked boatbuilding and took pleasure in the use of tools, which he handled always in a manner slightly larger than life. For a time he embraced Social Credit; and he was an enthusiast for compost. He drank cheap local wine with gusto, would ridicule a gourmet, and once remarked of an acquaintance that he had “a great deal of taste, but very little appetite”.

Except in his last few years (when he was lecturer in the history and theory of art at Auckland University College), Fairburn's occupations were merely his compromise, accepted as cheerfully as possible, with a society that was not yet ready to accommodate his kind. It was as poet that he asked attention, and latterly received it from an audience no longer small and defensive. His early work, influenced by the Georgian poets, was lyrical and romantic, and during a visit to England in the early thirties he was warned by Humbert Wolfe that what he was doing was “not fashionable”. He had already announced his own rejection of it, however, in the title poem of his first published volume, He Shall Not Rise (London, 1930). The depression of the thirties, during which he did relief work on the roads, coloured his next volume, Dominion (1938), a sequence of poems that bitterly assailed New Zealand society. A new lyricism here rode well clear of what Fairburn once called the “imitation goat tracks” left all over the country by versifying followers of Pan, and the colour and warmth of the Auckland land- and sea-scape, which he now acknowledged as his true environment, found expression in a language recognisably his own.

Society and land were themes in Dominion – themes of local reference. With his next volume (passing over the shared book, Recent Poems), the emphasis shifted to themes of universal reference – to love and death. In Poems 1929–41 Fairburn selected the best of his work to date, which included Night Song, The Cave, and A Farewell, three of his finest love poems. By allowing the whole of that book to be included 11 years later in Strange Rendezvous (1952), and by publishing in the same year Three Poems (containing his three long works, Dominion, The Voyage, and To a Friend in the Wilderness), Fairburn authorised what will stand for some time as virtually his “collected poems”. From the whole, To a Friend in the Wilderness stands out as undoubtedly the richest, most satisfactory single example of his work. In it, maturely, he replaced the protesting attitudes of Dominion with a larger acceptance. Society and land now are one; they are “country”, not New Zealand only but any country, and may not be chosen between.

The poem takes the form of a dialogue with an alter ego (“Old Rebel”) who advocates escape (the sun is on the sea and the fish are biting,| the garden is full, the fruit begins to fall.| For God's sake chuck it, join me and share my crust,| the world well lost. Make life a long week-end). The poet, affectionately, rejects this tempter as he rejects all romanticism. He can praise the wilderness with a richer lyric than can the friend who calls him there (I could be happy, in blue and fortunate weather,| roaming the country that lies between you and the Sun) and can impugn society with surer touch than could the author of Dominion (Doctrines are many and doctors two a penny.| Truth in her time-flight scatters a million fragments, and the paper-chase is endless); but now also he is committed utterly to both (This is my world.| These people are my clansmen, my accomplices. This guilt is my reprieve:| I am alive, and I do not mean to leave|till the game is up, and my hand has lost its power). By this poem Fairburn moved on to his own, unhappily final, poetic maturity and also greatly advanced that process in which New Zealanders are engaged, of taking imaginative and spiritual possession of their land.

Though doubtless they are not for export, Fairburn's satire and horseplay are important in his output, and much valued in New Zealand. Rare copies of The Sky is a Limpet (A Pollytickle Parrotty) and How to Ride a Bicycle (In Seventeen Lovely Colours), both in typographical collaboration with R. W. Lowry, are rightly treasured by those who own them. In addition, much light verse, from The Rakehelly Man to the posthumous Poetry Harbinger, exhibits Fairburn's benevolent nature and broad, sane outlook.

In 1931 Fairburn married Jocelyn, daughter of Selwyn Mays, and had one son and three daughters. He died in Devonport on 25 March 1957 and is buried in the cemetery at Albany, Auckland.

On 21 March 1964 a special ceremony was held at Fairburn's grave, when a monument was unveiled which took the form of a 7 cwt piece of unhewn grey stone, with his name and date of birth and death.

by Antony Francis George Alpers, Editor, Caxton Press, Christchurch.

• New Zealand Herald, 27 Mar 1957 (Obit)
• Auckland Star, 26 Mar 1957 (Obit).

No cure for the liver damage is known. Severely affected animals showing skin lesions (photosensitisation) may appear to recover if kept in shade, but decreased liver function may lead to a relapse under conditions of stress, particularly in ewes during the later stages of pregnancy. Prevention of the disease depends mainly on keeping the animals from pasture which contains the fungus during climatic conditions conducive to its growth and sporulation. In districts prone to this disease, warnings are issued on the basis of temperature and rainfall data and on estimates of the increase in numbers of spores on selected pastures. Farmers are advised to remove animals from pasture to crops, such as chou moellier and kale, or to concentrate them on bare paddocks and feed hay. A decision to release the animals to grazing is generally based on a marked change in weather conditions, such as drying out and a persisting fall in temperature, sufficient to prevent further growth of the fungus. Attempts to develop a vaccine or other means of immunising animals have not been successful, and from the chemical nature of the liver-damaging substance, sporidesmin, such an approach is unlikely by existing techniques. Control of the fungus by spraying pastures with fungicides appears equally unpromising. Another possible form of control involves management of the pasture during the spring and summer to produce conditions least favourable for the growth of the fungus; in particular, a reduction of the dead litter on which it grows. In some experiments along these lines at Ruakura Research Station incidence of the disease has been lowered, but so far no generally applicable reliable procedures have been established.

Facial eczema was once thought to occur only in New Zealand, but in recent years it has been recognised in New South Wales and Victoria.

by Norman Trevor Clare, M.SC., Chief Bio–chemist, Ruakura Animal Research Station, Hamilton.

• Photosensitization in Diseases of Domestic Animals, Clare, N. T. (1952)
• Proceedings of the Ruakura Farmers' Conference Week (1961), “Progress in Facial Eczema Research”, McMeekan, C. P.
• New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Vol. 105 (1962), “Further Progress in Facial Eczema Research” Smith, J. D., Clare, N. T., Lees, F. T.

Facial eczema is a disease of sheep and cattle which occurs in warmer districts of the North Island during late summer and autumn and is responsible for serious production losses in some years. It is caused by a fungus, Pithomyces chartarum, which proliferates on dead plant material in pasture under warm, humid conditions. The minute spores of this fungus contain a substance, sporidesmin, which produces severe toxic effects in the liver. The appearance of livers of affected animals varies, according to the severity of the damage, from slight mottling with light patches to gross discoloration, distortion, and atrophy of large areas. Frequently the severely damaged portions are surrounded with new liver tissue. As a result of this damage the functions of the liver are impaired. Blockage of bile ducts may prevent the excretion of waste substances in the bile; for example, accumulation in the fat and skin of bile pigments, derived from the normal breakdown of old red corpuscles, produces the jaundice or yellow staining commonly seen in the carcasses of affected sheep. Of particular importance is the loss of ability to excrete the substance phylloerythrin. This is formed in the digestive tract of ruminants through the degradation of chlorophyll and is absorbed from the intestine and carried to the liver, where it is normally excreted in the bile. If this excretory mechanism is upset, phylloerythrin passes into the bloodstream which supplies the whole of the body. Phylloerythrin belongs to a class of flourescent pigments which are capable of making the skin sensitive to sunlight, causing reddening, intense itching, swelling, and scab formation. It is these effects, generally showing on the face of affected animals but also on other unpigmented skin exposed to light, such as the teats and udders of cows, which give rise to the popular name “facial eczema”. These skin effects are, however, secondary to the much more serious impairment of liver function.

The fungus, Pithomyces chartarum, grows only on dead or dying plant tissues, not on the living leaf. Hence the amount of the fungus in a pasture is related to some extent to the amount of this dead material, or litter, present. Growth of the fungus, and its production of spores, is strongly influenced by climate and environmental factors. Temperature, humidity, and the time during which the litter remains wet appear to be particularly important. This explains the typical, although not invariable, association of the disease with a period of warm, wet weather, often following a dry spell during which grass growth has ceased and litter has accumulated in the herbage.

The toxic substance, sporidesmin, has been isolated from cultures of the fungus and its chemical structure determined. A single dose of one-thousandth of an ounce is sufficient to kill a lamb of about 60 lb live weight. Sporidesmin itself does not appear to accumulate in the liver, but its effects are cumulative, so that repeated small doses are as effective as a single large dose. Even with a single dose, the full sequence of changes takes some time to develop. Hence photosensitisation usually does not occur until 10 to 14 days after the animal received the toxin, and it may be even further delayed. Both the chemical nature of sporidesmin and its effects on tissues present unusual features which have not yet been fully studied.

Half-mile
Season	Winner	Centre		Time
			Min.	Sec.
1951–52	J. Anderson	Auckland	1	1.8
1952–53	R. Johnston	Waikato	1	7.2
1953–54	R. Johnston	Waikato	1	56.5
1954–55	D. Smith	Wellington	1	24.2
1955–56	W. Johnston	Waikato	1	14.5
1956–57	W. Johnston	Waikato	1	11.2
1957–58	Abandoned – bad weather		..	..
1958–59	W. Johnston	Waikato	1	10.5
1959–60	W. Johnston	Waikato	1	21.4
1960–61	W. T. Johnston	Waikato	1	9.4
1961–62	D. B. Smith	Wellington	1	15.1
1962–63	D. B. Smith	Wellington	1	7.7
1963–64	M. W. Grace	Auckland	1	10.9
1964–65	P. Robinson	Southland	1	19.6

One Mile
Season	Winner	Centre		Time
			Min.	Sec.
1951–52	Abandoned – bad weather	..	..
1952–53	L. Crossley	Waikato	2	27.4
1953–54	R. Johnston	Waikato	2	43.7
1954–55	W. Johnston	Waikato	2	37.5
1955–56	W. Johnston	Waikato	2	36.7
1956–57	W. Johnston	Waikato	2	38.8
1957–58	Abandoned – bad weather		..	..
1958–59	W. Johnston	Waikato	2	38.5
1959–60	B. Bowden	Waikato	2	50.5
1960–61	W. T. Johnston	Waikato	2	25.6
1961–62	J. Bigwood	Waikato	2	50
1962–63	W. T. Johnston	Waikato	2	37.6
1963–64	N. Robinson	Auckland	2	48.7
1964–65	C. Appleby	W.C.N.I.	3	2.2

Three Miles
Season	Winner	Centre		Time
			Min.	Sec.
1951–52	Abandoned – bad weather	..	..
1952–53	L. Wright	West Coast	7	54.9
1953–54	L. Crossley	Waikato	8	9.5
1954–55	W. Johnston	Waikato	7	53.9
1955–56	W. Johnston	Waikato	7	42
1956–57	W. Johnston	Waikato	7	13.8
1957–58	Abandoned – bad weather	..	..
1958–59	R. D. Johnstone	Auckland	8	8.9
1959–60	A. Walsh	Auckland	8	32.2
1960–61	D. B. Smith	Wellington	Not taken
1961–62	D. B. Smith	Wellington
1962–63	R. D. Johnstone	Auckland	6	55.8
1963–64	M. W. Grace	Auckland	7	46.6
1964–65	A. J. Ineson	Southland	Not taken