THE OWL PARROT 



{STRIGOPS HABROPTILUS) 



TTERE we have another New Zealand species 

 whose complete extermination seems to be 

 speedily approaching. It is more than sad that 

 a species only known to science some fifty years 

 should be fast vanishing from the ranks of exist- 

 ing forms, and more so when we know that it is 

 one of those primitive forms from which so much 

 may be learnt, and which in this case anatomists 

 do not appear yet to have availed themselves to 

 any exhaustive extent. As is so often the case 

 with weakly and defenceless creatures, the Owl 

 Parrot is said to be chiefly nocturnal in its habits, 

 and probably to this fact may be due its prolonged 

 survival. Soon after its discovery it was said 

 to be an abundant bird in every part of the 

 country, but in nine years from that event it 

 appears to have been exterminated from the 

 settled districts, and is now one of the most local 



