54: Transactions. — Zoology. 



science have urged the importance of some steps being taken 

 for the conservation of New Zealand birds, and have pointed 

 out that it will be a lasting reproach to the present genera- 

 tion of colonists if no attempt is made to save some — if only 

 a remnant — of these expiring forms, for the student of the 

 future. He quotes from Professor Newton's address to the 

 Biological Section of the British Association, at Manchester, 

 in 1887, as follows : " I would ask you to bear in mind that 

 these indigenous species of New Zealand are, with scarcely 

 an exception, peculiar to the country, and from every scientific 

 point of view of the most instructive character. They supply 

 a link with the past that once lost can never be recovered. 

 It is therefore incumbent upon us to know all we can about 

 them before they vanish. . . . The forms we are allowing 

 to be killed off, being almost without exception ancient forms, 

 are just those that will teach us more of the way in which 

 life has spread over the globe than any other recent forms ; 

 and, for the sake of posterity, as well as to escape its reproach, 

 we ought to learn all we can about them before they go hence 

 and are no more seen." And, after putting forward many 

 cogent reasons, His Excellency concludes his argument thus : 

 " Looking to the interests involved — the great loss to the 

 scientific world implied in the extermination of natural forms 

 that do not exist elsewhere, and the importance therefore of 

 saving them — it cannot be denied that a heavy responsibility 

 rests on those who, while there is yet time and opportunity, 

 may neglect to take the necessary steps for their preserva- 

 tion." The Hon. Mr. Ballance has earned the hearty thanks 

 of every ornithologist by taking prompt action on Lord On- 

 slow's recommendations, by setting apart the required island 

 reserves, and by making arrangements for having them stocked 

 with birds and plants from the mainland, and placed in charge 

 of a competent ranger. 



It is also a matter for congratulation that the present Go- 

 vernment has, by Proclamation in the New Zealand Gazette, 

 extended the provisions of the Wild Birds Protection Act to 

 the Huia. It has been a frequent subject of complaint in the 

 pages of our Transactions that this beautiful mountain starling 

 was being indiscriminately destroyed by Maoris and pakehas 

 alike, and that unless some measures were taken for its protec- 

 tion the species would soon disappear altogether. The appeal 

 on behalf of this bird made by His Excellency, which has 

 happily proved effective, is in the following words : — 



" There is a bird famous in Maori history and poetry — 

 remarkable for its singular beauty, and interesting to natural- 

 ists on account of its aberrant generic characters — a species 

 confined to a very limited portion of the North Island, from 

 which, owing to the eagerness of natural-history collectors 



