JBuller. — On the Ornithology of New Zealand. 105 



the complete acquisition of the Little Barrier Island were being 

 pushed forward, and with every prospect of speedy success, 

 and that both there and on Eesolution Island a custodian or 

 ranger was being maintained by the Government. It is dis- 

 heartening, however, to learn from the last report of the 

 Auckland Institute that " in the meantime several natives 

 and Europeans are living on the island, fires have been 

 allowed to spread, and in the last week of January of this 

 year a serious one was reported, which lasted at least a week." 

 It is also alleged in the report that ' ' the island has been 

 visited by collectors, and specimens of the very birds which it 

 was hoped might survive have been shot and brought to Auck- 

 land." I understand that effective steps are now being taken 

 to prevent such depredations for the future. And, from what 

 I can gather in the department, there is every reason to hope 

 that within a measurable time the last of the native owners 

 will have been settled with, and the private title extinguished. 

 The whole of the island will then be Crown land, and will be 

 under more effective control. All over the scientific world the 

 action of the Government in this matter has been applauded. 

 The efforts now being made, whether in the end completely 

 successful or not, will in any case save us from the reproaches 

 of posterity. If they should prove successful, as I believe they 

 will, I venture to think that this service to science will bring 

 credit and praise to the present Government when many of 

 their more ambitious schemes and projects have been buried 

 and forgotten. But it must be borne in mind that the conserva- 

 tion of the two islands I have named is only a partial carry- 

 ing-out of Lord Onslow's recommendations and of the decision 

 come to by the Government in 1892. The original proposal 

 w T as not merely to protect the birds already existing on the 

 two island reserves, notably the Stitchbird and the Whitehead 

 on the Little Barrier, and Notornis mantelli, Kiwis, and 

 Kakapos on Eesolution Island ; but that many other birds 

 now living on the mainland, although becoming scarcer every 

 year, should be systematically trapped from time to time and 

 turned loose upon the islands. In addition to a further supply 

 of Kiwis and Kakapos, of the different species, the birds 

 specially marked out for these attentions were the Huia 

 (Heteralocha acatirostris) and the Blue-wattled Crow (Glau- 

 eopis wilsoni) in the North Island, and the Thick-billed 

 Thrush (Tumagra crassirostris) and the Orange-wattled Crow 

 (Glaucoj)is cinerea) in the South Island. This could be done 

 now, and at comparatively trifling cost ; but every year it will 

 become more difficult. It has now become a truism that the 

 rarer New Zealand birds are passing away and will soon be 

 extinct. But even species that were formerly very abundant 

 all over the country are following suit, not only on the main- 



