330 Tra nsac t ion s . — Zoology . 



the cases, of not infrequent occurrence, when the sea-beach 

 is found strewn with the dead bodies of Prion turtur and 

 other oceanic species, because it is well known that this is the 

 result of a sudden gale towards the land, or some other wide- 

 spread cause, the deaths in this case being violent rather than 

 natural ones. So at the Auckland Islands, and in similar 

 localities, the ground is sometimes found covered with hun- 

 dreds of dead Penguins ; but this is apparently due to some 

 fatal epidemic, causing widespread mortality. On the main- 

 land you may wander for months in the woods withovit ever 

 seeing the body of a bird "'dead from natural causes." 

 Nowadays, unfortunately, nothing is more common than to 

 find a Kiwi or a Woodhen lying on the bush-path torn and 

 mutilated by stoats and weasels ; but this, again, is the result 

 of violence. I remember years ago picking up a dead Eiroriro 

 [Gerygone flaviventris) under a huge kauri-tree. This was after 

 very severe weather, to which the little warbler had apparently 

 succumbed. On another occasion, when seeking refuge from 

 a violent storm on the Island of Motu-taiko, in the Taupo 

 Lake, on making an exploration in the vicinity of our camp 

 I found on a rocky ledge the perfect skeleton of a large River- 

 shag, which had evidently died a natural death there and 

 escaped tlie vigilant eyes of the ubiquitous Harrier {Circus 

 gouldi). Once I found a Kaka by the roadside in a dying 

 condition, and occasionally I have met with dead bodies of 

 the Tui and Korimako. But the occurrence is confessedly a 

 rare one. The same observation has been made by naturalists 

 all over the world. That careful observer, Nordenskiold, 

 says, "During my nine expeditions in the arctic regions, 

 where animal life during sunnner is so exceedingly abundant, 

 the case just mentioned" — that of finding a number of self- 

 dead fish on the sea-bottom near one of the islands in the Arctic 

 Sea — " has been one of the few in which I have found remains 

 of recent vertebrate animals which could be proved to have died 

 a natural death. Near hunting-grounds there are to be seen 

 often enough the remains of reindeer, seals, foxes, or birds 

 that have died from gunshot wounds, but no self-dead polar 

 bear, seal, walrus, white whale, fox, goose, auk, lemming, 

 or other vertebrate. The polar bear and the reindeer are 

 found there in hundreds, the seal, walrus, and white whale in 

 thousands, and birds in milHons. These animals must die a 

 ' natural ' death in untold numbers. What becomes of their 

 bodies? Of this we have for the present no idea, and yet we 

 have here a problem of immense importance for the answering 

 of a large number of questions concerning the formation of 

 fossiliferous strata." Eeferring to this, Mr. H. H. Howarth 

 says, "This is true not only of Siberia; it is universally 

 true, and notably of the great pachyderms. Travellers who 



