450 Proceedings. 



Eighth Meeting: llth November, 1887. 



Dr. Hutchinson, President, in the chair. 



Papers. — 1. "On the Korotangi, or Stone Bird," hy Major 

 Wilson ; communicated hy Mr. Tregear. 



2. "On Red Deer, and their Ways," by the Hon. J. W. 



Fortescue. 



Abstract. 



The rapid increase of the various species of Deer that have been accli- 

 matized in the New Zealand mountains, renders it interesting and important 

 that exact information should be made known respecting their habits. The 

 author having enjoyed special facilities for acquiring such information, was 

 led to communicate his observations to the Society. 



Hinds consort with stags in their second year, and as a rule produce but 

 one calf at a time ; though there are instances of twins. The calves till four 

 months old are white spotted. Male calves begin to grow horns in their 

 second year, and as a rule have, till eight or nine years, larger horns every 

 year. The age of a deer cannot be proved from his horns alone. Injury 

 tells directly on the growth of the horns. Castration of a male calf stops 

 the growth of the horns. Partial castration has no such effect. Castration 

 of a stag causes the horns to be soft and to remain cased in the velvet. 



Deer may often be distinguished in their sex by the manner of picking 

 up their food, as in the case of turnips and growing corn. Both sexes of 

 deer bite at a turnip till it comes out of the ground ; but a stag has the 

 stronger neck, so uproots them the quickest. A stag takes half an ear of 

 corn, a hind the whole. 



The slot, or footprint, of a stag differs from that of the hind, being 

 broader at the heel and blunter at the toe. As a rule, the older the stag the 

 blunter the toes, and the broader the heel. It is often difficult to distinguish 

 between the slots of the hinds and of young male deer. 



Generally speaking, all deer tend in extreme old age to revert to the 

 appearance of their youth. The horns grow smaller, and in some cases the 

 slot and body also. The points of the horns also are blunt and ill 

 developed. 



The shooting season for stags should begin when the new grown horn 

 is fully developed, i.e. when the stag has shed the velvet, and should cease 

 at the beginning of the rutting season. When stags begin to bell, or bellow, 

 the rutting season has commenced. Hinds may he shot from the end of 

 the rutting season for about three months, after which time they are too 

 heavy in calf to be of much value, though barren hinds may be shot even in 

 the spring. 



Sir James Hector would like to ask Mr. Fortescue, as an expert on the 

 subject, whether the chief use of the antlers was not so much for fighting, as 

 for facilitating the progress of the stag through dense woods. He had con- 

 siderable experience with the Wapiti, in North America, and found that by 

 throwing up the head, thereby placing the horns along the back, the anim lis 

 were enabled to go forward with great rapidity ami follow the hinds. He 

 asked this, as it had been stated at a previous meeting of the Society that 

 the antlers tended to entangle the deer. 



Mr Fortescue said tliat Sir .lames Hector was quite correct in sta 

 that the antlers assisted the stags in penetrating dense forests. 



Mr. Iligginson also bore out this statement from hisexperience in India. 



3. " On Earthquakes in New Zealand," by Sir James 

 Hector. 



This paper is an attempt to place on record all earthquakes that have 

 been noted in New Zealand. The author held that earthquakes, like other 



