16 Transactions. — Zoology. 



and an organized crusade for their destruction. As an in- 

 stance of this, I may refer to a newspaper paragraph to the 

 effect that during a period of three months the Knapdale Eoad 

 Board (Otago) purchased the large number of 56,612 birds'- 

 eggs, for the purpose of destroying them. I am glad, therefore, 

 to give the following from my excellent local correspondent, 

 Mr. Eobert Wilson : "The Blight-bird is undoubtedly on the 

 increase in the Rangitikei district. They seem to have found 

 a winter food in the introduced insects, and may now always 

 be seen flying about the run in flocks. The food they are 

 now chiefly subsisting on is a little caterpillar— a striped- 

 green species, which does great harm to the crops in summer. 

 These are now — September — to be found all over grass-lands 

 — under logs, sticks, &c. — and the Blight-bird pursues them 

 indefatigably. When I am working at a fence they will 

 sometimes be within a couple of yards of me, searching every 

 cranny for insects. They are particularly fond of diving out 

 of sight into a common tussock {Carex), the plant which 

 grows so freely on the hills, and they crawl about under any 

 fallen scrub, looking for insects, and keeping up a pleasant 

 cheeping all the time. I have sometimes seen them with a 

 caterpillar nearly as big as themselves battering it against 

 a wire on a fence till it was reduced enough to swallow. 

 They must do immense service to farmers at this time of the 

 vear, as one caterpillar now means thousands in summer. 

 As every one knows, it is very fond of the American blight, 

 which is so destructive to the apple-trees. There is an 

 orchard close to a patch of native bush on the farm, and the 

 Blight-birds keep it entirely free from this pest. Though the 

 blight sometimes, in hot weather, makes a start on the trees, 

 in winter these birds always keep it under." 



At Fiji I saw small flocks exactly resembling our Blight- 

 bird in their flight and habits, but on shooting one I found 

 that it was quite a distinct species. It has a more con- 

 spicuous eye-ring, with a beautiful lemon-yellow throat, and 

 only the slightest indication of brown on the sides of the 

 body. 



Clitonyx albicapilla, Lesson. (The White-head.) 



1 am glad to be able to announce the recent appearance of 

 a pair of this now rare species in the bush on the northern 

 shore of the Papaitonga Lake.* 



* Professor Newton accepts my suggestion that the disappearance of 

 the White-head and some other New Zealand perchers is, in a large 

 measure, a displacement due to the introduction of exotic birds, which, 

 being morphologically higher and constitutionally stronger, speedily 

 establish themselves at the expense of the lower, weaker, and earlier 

 forms. ( " Dictionary of Birds," p. 1037.) 



