256 Transactions. — Zoology. 



addition to all these causes there is the fact that the settlers' 

 sons, who were children when the pheasant was first plentiful, 

 are now grown up, and where one gun was carried, now two 

 or more are added ; but I think the weka the principal cause. 

 For, at the Maori clearing on the Wanganui Eiver pheasants 

 are plentiful, as also on the Waitotara Eiver ; and they are 

 also to be found, though not so numerous as at Maori settle- 

 ments, in the newer bush-country opened up during the last 

 four or five years in the Wangaehu Valley. But it may be 

 noticed that as Maori dogs disappear and furze hedges in- 

 crease the pheasant decreases, and it is very hard to suggest 

 a remedy. The Acclimatization Society for years spent a 

 considerable sum in buying wekas' heads, and thousands were 

 paid for each year, but no perceptible decrease has been 

 noticed, and at last the society have discontinued the practice. 



Art. XXIV. — The TaJcahe (Notornis mantelli) in Western 



Otago. 



By James Paek, F.G.S. (Geological Survey Department). 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 17th October, 1888.'} 



Up to the present time only three specimens of this remark- 

 able bird have been secured, and, as the opinion has been 

 expressed by some naturalists that it is now quite extinct, I 

 have prepared the following notes, collected during the pro- 

 gress of various explorations in Otago, as tending to show that 

 it not only exists, but is probably as iiumerous now as when 

 the colony was first settled by Europeans. 



I may mention at the outset that the genus Notornis 

 was founded by Professor Owen in the year 1848, upon por- 

 tions of a skull and other parts of the skeleton of a large rail 

 discovered at Waingongoro by the Hon. Walter Mantell, 

 while exploring at that place for moa-bones. These fossils 

 are all that now remain to testify the existence of the Notornis 

 in the North Island, where it was known to the natives as the 

 moho. 



By a strange and, at the same time, most fitting coinci- 

 dence, the first two specimens of the Notornis, or tahahe as it^ 

 was called in the South Island, were secured by Mr. Mantell 

 in 1849. The first of these was captured by a party of sealers 

 at Duck Cove, Eesolution Island, in Dusky Sound ; and the 

 second by the Maoris on Secretary Island, opposite to Deas 

 Cove, in Thompson Sound. Both of these were forwarded to 

 England, and are now in the British Museum in London. 



After a lapse of over tliirty years the third specimen was 



