Wellington Philosopliical Society. 503 



imported bird. He thought the author was quite justified in his con- 

 clusion that the weka was largely concerned in the decrease of the 

 pheasant. 



Mr. I\IcKay would merely remark that in the Bay of Islands district, 

 where there were no wekaa, plenty of dogs, and hawks were very rare, the 

 pheasant had almost disappeared, although once plentiful. 



The President said there appeared, as he had contended on a former 

 occasion, to be some kind of law by which birds or beasts introduced 

 from other countries became exceedingly numerous for a time and then 

 died away. An imj^ortant question raised now was, whether such birds 

 or beasts must not be preserved more strictly if they are intended to in- 

 crease, instead of following the usual New Zealand principle of letting a 

 thing " slide " after you had once obtained it. 



2. "On the Takahe {Notornis mantclli) in West Otcago," 

 by J. Park, F.G.S. {Transactions, p. 226.) 



The Hon. Mr. Mantell said that the western shores of Lake Te Anau 

 were known to the primeval Slaoris as " The Land of the Takahe." This 

 bird was plentiful there in 1851, but the natives set a high value upon 

 it, and were unwilling to procure specimens for Europeans. 



Mr. McKay said that it was true, as described by Mr. Park, that the 

 supposed bird was hunted by torchlight two successive nights at the 

 camp on Cascade Creek, and several hours each night were devoted to 

 this purpose ; but the bird was never seen. For the first time he now 

 became aware that the bird had been seen by Mr. Park. At the time, he 

 (Mr. McKay) was under the impression that all tliree supposed it to be the 

 moa, and such it was suggested it might be by both Dr. Hector and 

 Dr. Buller at the first meeting of the Society after the return of the ex- 

 pedition. 



In reply to Mr. !iIcKay, Mr. Park said he could not be mistaken, as 

 he had taken notes of the occurrences at the time. At Cascade Creek 

 Mr. lilcKay devoted very little time to hunting the strange bird, 

 only assisting for a few minutes at the decoy-fire on the evening of the 

 22nd January. He did not jom the camp at the Forks until the begin- 

 ning of February, and was absent when the incidents narrated took place. 

 In arriving at the conclusion that the strange bird was the Notornis Mr. 

 Park said he was largely guided by the opinion of Mr. Buchanan, who 

 was an accomplished naturalist. Some time after this Dr. Hector sug- 

 gested it might be the Aptornis. 



3. " The Knowledge of Cattle among the Ancient Poly- 

 nesians," by E. Tregear, F.E.G.S. {Transactions, p. 447.) 



Mr. Coleman Phillips, whilst congratulating Mr. Tregear upon the 

 research which his paper displayed, took exception to its heading. He 

 had attended this meeting of the Society especially to hear what Mr. 

 Tregear had to say upon "The Knowledge of Cattle'among the Ancient 

 Polynesians." That was the heading of the paper. What he had heard 

 was really very little else than a philological paper. Mr. Tregear's paper 

 was actually a following of the root "aA;"(from '^yak," the cow of the 

 Oxus people, the generally-accepted early home of the Aryan race) 

 through the different languages of the earth. In his opinion the paper 

 this evening should have been so called. It was scarcely fair, either to 

 the subject or to Mr. Tregear himself — the able author of the paper — to 

 name it otherwise. A considerable amount of doubt was expressed con- 

 cerning all Mr. Tregear's philological investigations, owing to the fact 

 that he endeavoured to confine them strictly to New Zealand or Poly- 

 nesia. In Polynesia Mr. Phillips knew almost for a certainty that the 

 present race of people there knew nothing whatever about cattle. He 

 remembered in 1872 taking a ride of about twelve miles along the eastern. 



