Fulton. — Disappearance of New Zealand Birds. 495 



Islands say that the bird is becoming very scarce everywhere. 

 He is very common on the outlying islands, where there are no 

 cats, weasels, or bees ; but on the mainland he is rare. 



The kaka is a splendid bird, with a harsh cry but a melodious 

 whistle. His sociable habits, his fine plump berry-fed body, 

 and his comparative fearlessness, have made him an easy prey 

 to sportsman and settler alike. The kaka hatches out two or 

 three chicks, but, according to Mr. Richard Henry, is credited 

 with deliberately sacrificing whichever of her offsprings she 

 judges to be the weaker. This practice has not been confirmed 

 by independent observation, and I cannot yet accept such an 

 instance of parental wickedness. The kaka was snared by the 

 thousands before, the white man came, and the early settlers 

 in the sixties failed to make much impression on them, when 

 they lined stable-roof and grain-stacks, eating the grain, and 

 doing immense damage. They were shot in hundreds, often a 

 dozen at one shot, but even that did not exterminate this deter- 

 mined creature. At Catlin's he is now becoming scarce ; and 

 can you wonder at it, when Dunedin " sports " come back 

 from their expeditions with three, four, or six sacks full of 

 kakas and pigeons ? The kaka still swarms in the dense bush 

 in Nelson, Marlborough, and Stewart Island, but must eventually 

 go. In Maruia he is found in thousands. Last year three men 

 shot four hundred in three days in that district, and the state- 

 ment was made to me that they were required for food ! The 

 bird is also plentiful on the coast range of the Bay of Plenty. 



The kea will remain stationary unless a determined crusade 

 of flockowners is made against him. Powerful of flight, savage 

 and strong with bill and claw, he can effectively deal with 

 ferret and rat — probably turn the tables upon them, and make 

 them food for his young. Nesting deep in the rocks, where 

 seldom the eggs or young can be found ; inhabiting wild and 

 mountainous country, seldom visited save by the shepherd ; 

 wary and alert ; tame in the early days — he has no doubt 

 become more fearful on the approach of man. He has acquired 

 a taste for mutton, which may prove his undoing ; still, the kea 

 has a chance of surviving most of our feathered friends of New 

 Zealand. 



Of our two cuckoos — the bronze and the long-tail — we need 

 have no apprehension. Both migrants, and both parasitic, 

 they are finding homes for their young in the nests of the 

 imported birds. When our warbler, our robin, our tomtit, 

 and our canary go, there will still be the nests of the sparrow, 

 linnet, blackbird, and thrush for his workhouse brats. The 

 canary and robin and others may all go under, but the koekoea 

 will never fail to find homes for his young and nests to rob from 



