BuLLEK. — On the Oniithology of Nezv Zealand. 27 



Ardea egretta. (White Heron.) 



On my visit to Paterson's Inlet (Stewart Island) I saw a 

 beautiful White Crane, which, it was said, had been frequent- 

 ing that locality for ten or twelve years. We found him 

 perched among, or very near to, a colony of Pied Shags, 

 which were nesting in a tree "rookery," but the vigilant bird 

 took alarm and sailed away long before our boat had reached 

 the spot, or the Shags, ever on the alert, had shown any sign 

 of uneasiness. We saw him later on in the day, on the other 

 side of the cove, perched high up on a rimu-tree, and looking 

 very conspicuous among the surroundmg vegetation ; but, al- 

 though it was fully a quarter of a mile off that our boat landed, 

 the bird took alarm and was off again. I was amused and 

 pleased at the objection of the lad who rowed me to any 

 attempt being made to shoot the Crane, because, as he put 

 it, "We've seen him here ever so long." 



About six months later an ardent collector, after much 

 careful stalking, shot this beautiful Crane, and sent me the 

 skin. I purchased the specimen, but wrote to my correspondent 

 expressing my regret that he had interfered with this par- 

 ticular bird, "in his reply he said, " If I had known so much 

 of the history of this Crane as I know now I never would 

 have shot it." It proved to be a female, and at the time it 

 was killed — the month of August — it had no dorsal plumes. 



It is an interesting sight to watch this stately bird fishing. 

 It wades into shallow water, as far as its long legs will 

 enable it, and then it remains perfectly motionless till its prey 

 comes within reach, when it will strike forward with the 

 rapidity of an arrow, seize it with its powerful yellow man- 

 dibles, and instantly swallow it. It is quite possible, as 

 suggested by the Duke of Argyll in the case of an allied 

 European species, that the small fish are attracted by the 

 gleaming reflection in the water of the bird's snowy plumage. 



The inention of this solitary Kotuku in Stewart Island 

 reminds one of a passage in Canon Stack's interesting 

 brochure, already referred to: "In his island home at Eakiura 

 (Stewart Island) Kana te Pu dreamt that he caught a White 

 Crane, which kicked him in the chest while vainly struggling 

 to get free. Interpreting this dream to mean that he was 



ing before our eyes ere that lesson can be learnt. Assuredly the scientific 

 naturalist of another generation, especially if he be of New Zealand 

 birth, will brand with infamy the short-sighted folly, begotten of greed, 

 which will have deprived him of interpreting some of the great secrets 

 of nature, while utterly failing to put an end to the nuisance — admit- 

 tedly a great one. The provoking part of the thing is that, as shown by 

 Mr. Sclater ("Nature," xxxix., p. 493), there exists a way, the discovery 

 of Mr. Rodier, at once simple, natural, and efficacious, of reducing the 

 rabbitpest." (" Dictionary of Birds," pp. 224-225.) 



