Buller. — Oil some Curiosities of Bird-life. 137 



the solution of the great problem of the age — ' the origin 

 of species.' " 



There is another point on which I should like to say a word 

 before exhibiting the specimens. I have recorded only five per- 

 fect albinoes of Apteryx oweni and one case of partial albinism.* 

 It will be seen therefore that this condition of plumage is a 

 rarity. I do not hesitate to say, however, that in a few years' 

 time a specimen of the Grey Kiwi in the ordinary plumage 

 will be as rare in New Zealand as the abnormal example I am 

 presenting to you to-night ; and I will tell you why. Not 

 many years ago this species existed in great abundance in cer- 

 tain parts of the South Island. It was of course to be ex- 

 pected that a bird incapable of flight and devoid of any means 

 of self-defence would diminish in numbers as the country 

 became settled, and dogs and cats, running wild, spread them- 

 selves over the interior; but a new factor has come into exist- 

 ence which threatens the speedy extermination of not only 

 Apteryx oivcni but of many other indigenous forms. I refer 

 to the introduction, at the instance of a former Government, 

 of polecats, stoats, and weasels. From a naturalist's point 

 of view, I regard this act in the light of a crime. The vermin 

 that every farmer in the Old Country was trying to extirpate 

 as an unmitigated evil our wise Government bought up by the 

 hundred and imported into this country, in the vain hope that 

 these "carnivorous beasts" would change their habits and 

 take to a rabbit diet, to the exclusion of everything else ! No 

 doubt, to abate the rabbit-nuisance, which was causing wide- 

 spread loss and even ruin to our sheepfarmers in many parts 

 of the country, was a most desirable object. But it is a ques- 

 tion whether, in the introduction of polecats, stoats, and 

 weasels, the Government was not establishing, even from the 

 farmers' point of view, a still greater evil. As shipment after 

 shipment of this vermin from over the water arrived in New 

 Zealand, I raised my voice in protest against so insane a 

 policy, and so did others — notably Professor Newton of 

 Cambridge — but all to no purpose. The imported animals 

 were turned loose north and south, and have now become 

 .firmly acclimatized in a country where the conditions of life 

 ;are so favourable to their existence that no power on earth 

 will ever dislodge them. The Wairarapa w T as the principal 

 seat of the rabbit-plague in this provincial district ; so the 

 destroyers, of whom so much was expected, were liberated 

 there. But they did not stay long with the rabbits. Swarm- 

 ing over the dividing-range, and crossing in summer the snow- 

 capped ridges of the Euahine, they descended upon the fertile 

 lands of the west coast, where they are now fairly established, 



" Birds of New Zealand," 2nd ed., vol. ii., p. 328. 



