BuLLEK. — 0)1 Neio Zealand Birds. 75 



Art. 111.— Further Notes and Observations on Certain 

 Species of New Zealand Birds (toith Exhibits). 



By Sir Walter L. Buller, K.C.M.G., F.E.S. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosopliical Society, 21st October, 1891.'] 



In continuation of the paper which I read at a recent meeting 

 of this Society, and following the same mode of illustration, I 

 have now to lay before you another budget of notes, and to 

 exhibit for your inspection some very interesting specimens. 



It is one of the charms of natural history that the more the 

 field is worked the more it yields. It matters not how ex- 

 haustively the history of any living species has been treated, 

 its further study is bound to yield some result to reward the 

 untiring naturalist. I remember on one occasion hearing Pro- 

 fessor Owen discourse for more than an hour before the Royal 

 Society on the habits of a Crab, with which every visitor to the 

 sea-shore thought himself perfectly familiar; and yet at every 

 turn the learned professor brought out some new fact in the 

 life-history and social economy of this apparently dull and 

 common-place creature. And we all know the chai-m, equal- 

 ling that of any work of fiction, with which Charles Darwin 

 invested a very unpromising subject by his niasterly treat- 

 ment of Earthworms. 



We have fresh evidence every day that the native fauna 

 is passing away ; and this is particularly true of the birds, 

 several of the species being already extinct, whilst many 

 others are on the border-land, so to speak, from which they 

 must soon disappear. It seems to me that it is one of the 

 most important functions of such a society as this to collect 

 and preserve for all time the fullest possible record of these 

 expiring species. 



Turnagra hectori, Buller. (The North Island Thrush.) 



The South Island Thrush (T. crassirostris) is still com- 

 paratively plentiful in some parts of the West Coast, but its 

 numbers have been grievously diminished by the diggers' dogs, 

 by wild cats, stoats, and weasels. The North Island bird has 

 all but disappeared, and the specimen exhibited is the only 

 one I have been able to obtain since my return to the colony. 

 Mr. C. Field, the surveyor, writing to me from Moawhango, 

 Inland Patea, says : "I know of four places where the Piopio 

 was to be found seven years ago. In the Turakina Valley, 

 about five miles south of the Te Ruanui, we used to see them 

 every week ; also in the Mangamahu Valley, and about four 

 miles from the last-mentioned place. At two different places 



