Park. — On Notornis mantelli. 229 



under my observation. At the beginning of this year I visited 

 Dusky Sound for the purpose of examining the mineral deposits 

 discovered there by Mr. Wilham Docherty, the well-known 

 prospector. On the day after my arrival — the 5th January — 

 I accompanied Docherty to his pyi-rhotine lode on the lower 

 slopes of Mount Hodge, situated about a mile from the beach. 

 Shortly after commencing the steep ascent we heard the deep 

 booming call of a bird, which I at once recognised as similar 

 to that of the strange bird I had heard in the Matukituki 

 Valley in 1881. After listening for awhile I expl'essed my 

 belief that this was the Notornis. Docherty, however, stoutly 

 denied this, stating that he had often heard the same sound, 

 which was what he called in his own words " a volcanic 

 noise in the bowels of the earth." Without stopping to argue 

 the point, I pressed along, hoping to see the bird, which ap- 

 peared to be somewhere on our path. The ascent at this 

 point was very steep, our track being along the right bank of 

 a precipitous rocky stream. In a few minutes we got so close 

 to the bird that there could be no doubt whatever as to the 

 organic origin, so to speak, of the sound, which seemed to pro- 

 ceed from the crop of the bird. I now told Docherty to keep 

 quiet for a little, and he would soon see the cause of the 

 booming, at which he became very excited, and shouted loudly 

 that nothing would convince him it was not "a volcemic 

 noise." I need hardly state that we heard nothing more of 

 this bird that day. 



On returning to the hut in the evening my field-hand in- 

 formed me that when he was fishing off the point close by he 

 had heard a takahe in the bush in the dhection in which I had 

 been during the day. On asking him what he knew of that 

 bird he said he was one of the party of rabbiters who caught 

 the takahe near Lake Te Anau in 1880 ; and, as he had often 

 heard the call of that bird and its mate, which, by the way, was 

 never captured, he was quite sure the booming note which he 

 had heard during the day was that of a takahe. In view of the 

 determination I had previously arrived at, I considered this 

 evidence conclusive that this was indeed the Notornis. I may 

 mention that this was the first occasion on which I heard the 

 Notornis spoken of as the takahe, the only name by wliich it 

 was known to my field-hand. 



That same evening, and every successive evening afterwards 

 during my stay at Dusky Sound, I heard two takahes in the 

 bush at no great distance from the hut. In the course of my 

 various excursions in this sound I heard the takahe at the 

 following places, not including those already mentioned : In 

 the left-hand branch of Docherty's Creek, not far from the 

 open country ; at the north end of Cooper's Island ; in a gully 

 on the southern slopes of Mount Pender, apparently not far 



