BuLLER. — On the Ornithology of Neio Zealand. 9 



night in catching Woodhens. The ground was pretty thickly 

 covered with stunted Coriaria, and the birds were, no doubt, 

 feeding on the berries of that plant ; at any rate, the dog had 

 no difficulty in running them down. The speedy and very 

 general destruction of the Woodhens on the Canterbury 

 Plains was occasioned chiefly, I think, by the tussock-fires 

 which about that period, and later on, were so universal for 

 the purpose of improving the grazing capabilities of the 

 newly occupied sheep - runs. That this bird will increase 

 rapidly enough when under careful protection is beyond 

 doubt. I remember seeing at Government House, in Welling- 

 ton, about the year 1863, a cage of them which Sir George 

 Grey had brought from the South Island, and was taking up 

 to his island in the Hauraki Gulf. When, many years later, 

 I visited the "great proconsul" at Kawau he told me that 

 the Woodhens had so increased and multiplied that he was 

 practically unable to keep any other ground-birds on the 

 island. The Maori member, Mr. Parata, urged as a reason 

 for preserving the Woodhen that the oil produced from its fat 

 was useful medicinally. To the zoologist other more cogent 

 reasons will suggest themselves. As every student knows, 

 as a flightless bird it is one of the most interesting of our 

 endemic forms ; however, I will not enlarge upon that sub- 

 ject now. To show how completely the Woodhen has dis- 

 appeared from some districts, I may mention that Mr. 

 Morgan Carkeek, during several months' surveying last year 

 in the mountainous district of Marlborough, met with only a 

 single example. This, in a district where a few years ago it 

 was extremely abundant, is very significant. 



The same remarks apply, in a modified degree, to Ocy- 

 dromus greyi in the North Island. In certain restricted 

 localities it appears to be increasing. A few years ago it had 

 quite disappeared from the Ohau district, and its pleasing 

 cry — so like the plaintive call of the European Curlew — was a 

 thnag of the past. But during the last two seasons it has re- 

 appeared at Papaitoiiga, breeding in a wooded gully near the 

 homestead, and on the approach of evening announcing its 

 presence by its shrill cry. On any quiet evening now at the 

 lake you may hear the Weka's cry, in which both sexes join, 

 and mingling with it the call of the Pukeko in the sedges, the 

 loud boom of the Bittern in the swamp below, and the pleasant 

 chattering of numberless Wild-duck and Teal, of which there 

 are sometimes five hundred or more on the bosom of the 

 lake."- 



* On this subject I have received the following very interesting letter 

 from the Hon. L. Walker, M.L.C. (of" Four Peaks," Geraldine) : " I read 

 with much pleasure the signed article contributed by you to the Press as 

 to the disappearance of certain of the Nev? Zealand birds. Among these 



