64 Transactions. — Zoology. 



of birds would naturally be exterminated. The rats will also 

 eat turnips, cabbages, gooseberries, and peas. It is said that 

 Captain Cook got spinach in Dusky Sound, but I have seen 

 nothing of it in my four years' perambulations, though I 

 know the plant well. Perhaps the rats ate it. They go down 

 on to the mud-flats and carry up cockles, some of which they 

 bite and eat fresh, but most they leave to die and open of 

 their own accord. This " side dish " allows them to hunt up 

 the last seed in the bush, and in this their scent gives them a 

 great advantage over the birds. This alone would account 

 for the abundance of rats and scarcity of the Notornis. 



But nearly all grass- and vegetable -eaters depend on 

 seeds for rearing their young, and it must be a long time 

 since the Notornis had a fair opportunity of rearing her 

 chickens, especially when strength of beak denotes that she 

 was essentially a seed-eater. Thus we may infer that they 

 would breed like rabbits on the seeds that we could give them, 

 if only we could catch a live pair. It is, alas, a forlorn hope 

 on the coast, but might be possible yet at Te Anau. 



Art. XII. — On Tuberculosis in Pheasants m Wanganui. 



By S. H. Drew, F.L.S. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 8th August, 1899.] 



Some little time ago several of the acclimatisation societies 

 on this coast joined with the Wellington Society to procure live 

 game from England. Our local society elected to import the 

 long-tailed Eeeves pheasant {Phasianus reevesii). Before the 

 birds arrived I had a large place enclosed at the rear of the 

 Museum, and everything was ready for them when they 

 arrived by the " Euapehu " some eighteen months ago. The 

 boxes of birds came from the "Euapehu" by local steamer^ 

 and on arrival I at once took them to the Museum and 

 let them out in the place prepared for them. I wish to 

 say here that the boxes the birds were brought out from 

 England in were cruelly small, each bird being in a separate 

 compartment of the following size: 11 in. wide, 18-|-in. high, 

 and 23^ in. deep: so small, indeed, were they that the tail- 

 feathers of the birds had to be cut quite close to the body to 

 get them into the box, and I doubt if the birds could have 

 turned round when inside. One bird was dead on arrival, 

 and the wings of two others were broken and hanging down. 

 I washed these and set them as well as I was able. In the 



