204 Transactions. — Zoology. 



was discovered by them, the battle, or rather the mob- 

 bing, began. The incessant noise the httle fellows made 

 brought up their friends from all quarters, and I have been 

 sometimes astonished to see the great number — the cloud — 

 of those small birds so quickly got together ; and then, too, 

 their apparent fearlessness or carelessness of my presence, of 

 which they seemed to take no notice, so filled with rage were 

 they and so very intent on insulting their common enemy. 

 But while they would often fly up quite close to him, yet they 

 never laid hold of him or touched him with their beaks ; not a 

 feather flew. Still the owl did not like it, and tried hard to 

 get at them without removing from his perch, by thrusting 

 forth his head and fiercely snapping his beak ; and while I 

 could see the difference in the dilation of the pupils of his 

 eyes, which sometimes glared on the disturbers of his sleep 

 and peace, yet I doubted if he clearly saw them, although he 

 must have heard them plainly enough. I have never known 

 the owl at such times to make any sound. Occasionally I 

 have seen the so-persecuted bird fly away to some other 

 neighbouring tree or bush ; but in so doing he would generally 

 make a woeful mistake, sometimes by coming abruptly against 

 a branch, or between the close-growing canes of supplejacks 

 (Bhipoijonum), and sometimes by lighting in a less secure 

 place, where the enemy could surround him, and then another 

 fly-away would take place, and I have watched him to fly 

 back to his old quarters ; but it always seemed as if there 

 ' would be no rest, no peace, for him while day-light lasted ; 

 and then, no doubt, the tables were turned upon his perse- 

 - outers with heavy interest. 



There being formerly no mice in this country, and I sup- 

 pose our little New Zealand owl was far too diminutive to 

 attack the now extinct New Zealand rat, and the small birds 

 of the woods being then so exceedingly plentiful, these no 

 doubt formed its chief articles of food, and this the little 

 aerial legions well knew, and so naturally united to persecute 

 him. I have good reasons, however, for knowing that some 

 of our larger insects, especially of the Orthopterous order, as 

 the big grasshoppers in the plains, and the wetas (Deinacrida 

 and Hemideina) in the forests, formed a portion of the food of 

 our owl ; and now since mice have been introduced and become 

 so numerous, and the indigenous small birds on the other 

 hand have become so scarce, our owl does his share in the 

 economy of nature to keep their number down, and therefore 

 should never be wantonly destroyed as if he were an enemy 

 and invader of the " rights of man." 



Before I close I would briefly refer to that exquisitely con- 

 ceived and highly natural legendary fable of the ancient 

 Maoris — viz., the great fixed "battle between the land and 



