Bullek. — Notes on Neiv Zealand Birds. . 73 



food from time to time, and it made no attempt to escape 

 from the hut. To the Maoris of his survey party it was quite 

 a new bird. 



Mr. Jacobs, the taxidermist at Masterton, has given me a 

 characteristic account of a very fine one which he obtained 

 alive at Nelson, and afterwards mounted for the local Museum. 

 A man, so he informed me, was travelling from Nelson to the 

 West Coast, when he observed a large Owl squatting on the 

 ground near the roadside. He dismounted from his horse and 

 caught the bird. Then, selecting a retired nook in the adjoin- 

 ing woods, he drove a thick pole into the ground and secured 

 his captive to it by the leg, allowing a sufficient length of flax 

 to permit of the Owl moving freely about over the ground. 

 On his return by the same road two days later he found that 

 the bird had snapped, or in some way had got disengaged from, 

 the flax string, and was perched on the top of the pole, per- 

 mitting itself to be recaptured without the slightest resistance. 

 He took it on with him to Nelson, and, not knowing its value, 

 sold it to the narrator for a few shillings. It now graces the 

 collection in the Nelson Museum. 



Harpa novae-zealandiae, Gmelin. (The Sparrow-hawk.) 



This is becoming one of the rarest species, which is diffi- 

 cult to account for, seeing that the zeal of our acclimatisation 

 societies has added so much to its bill of fare by the introduc- 

 tion of sparrows and numerous other small birds. As an illus- 

 tration of this, I may mention that on a recent occasion I was 

 riding with a Maori youth from Ohau to Manakau when a 

 Sparrow T -hawk flew across the road. My companion asked 

 what it was, never having seen one before, although he had 

 lived in the district all his life. 



Himantopus novae-zealandiae, Gould. (The Black Stilt.) 



The following is a description of an almost entire albino 

 which I lately had the opportunity of examining : The whole 

 of the plumage is white, stained more or less with ash-grey, 

 especially on the upper parts, being darkest on the crown and 

 sides of the head ; among the wing-coverts and in the region 

 of the back a few widely-scattered black feathers ; quills and 

 tail-feathers white freckled with grey ; inner lining of wings 

 dark ash-grey as on the crown. Bill and feet normal. 



Gygis alba, Sparrm. (The White Tern.) 



I have received a beautiful specimen of this snow-white 

 bird from the Kermadec Islands, from which locality Mr. 

 T. F. Cheeseman has already added it to our list of species. 



