420 BIRD SANCTUARIES OF NEW ZEALAND, 



New Zealand, such as the charming gardens at New Plymouth, one 

 can hear the pheasant calling constantly in the brush, and it is this 

 thick native underwood which gave originally complete protection 

 to the wingless birds. 



The weka, or wood hen, is evidently one of the most interesting of 

 the residents on Resolution Island. The quaint ways and quick 

 sagacity of two of them, " Chicken " and " Scrag," who visit the 

 caretaker's house on the lookout for table scraps, and share the con- 

 tents of the dog's dish without risk, are amusingh' described. These 

 birds mate for life, and take turn about in hatching and protecting 

 the brood. One of them is never absent from the nest from the time 

 the first egg is laid until the young, which look like balls of soft 

 down, are able to protect themselves. This care is the more neces- 

 sary, as both the eggs and young are destroyed by rats, weasels, and 

 sparrow hawks. Sometimes, of an evening, when the tide is low, 

 the wood hens take their families out on the beaches, and the spar- 

 row hawks watch for them there and kill the young by scores. The 

 weka is, in its turn, destructive. Paradise ducks {Casarca variegato) , 

 like the wild ducks of Australia, cover up their eggs carefully with a 

 mat of down when leaving the nest, but the wekas have an heredi- 

 tary knowledge of the trick, and a young bird, which has never seen 

 a duck's nest, tears away the down to get at the eggs the moment it 

 discovers one. If they find a hen's nest with the eggs uncovered, 

 they always go through the motions of tearing away the nest before 

 starting to eat the eggs. Although on friendly terms with the care- 

 taker, they hide their OAvn nests away from him very carefully, and, 

 if one of the j^air comes to the house for scraps for its mate, it always 

 takes a roundal)out track to the nest, and is careful to see that it is 

 neither watched nor followed. They kill each other's young, so that 

 every i)air on the island has its own run. and no others are allowed 

 to intrude. Mr. Henry considers these birds most valuable as insect 

 destroyers in an orchard, and observes that, if they Avere difficult to 

 get, fruit growers would be quite keen about them. On the table- 

 land above the Otira Gorge, when crossing from the west coast, one 

 often sees the weka and her brood running along the ti-ack in front 

 of the coach. When the first brood have been hatched and are fairly 

 grown, the hen hands them o^er to her mate and starts to lay again. 

 The male shejjherds the _young persistently, appareuth^ gives them 

 all the food he can find, and if they call f(>r help in danger he is with 

 them in an instant, keen for a fight. ^Mien he finds a rat ho tackles 

 it'instantly, though uot strong enough to kill it single hau(l(Ml. Tli(> 

 scjuenkiug of the rat is a signal to another weka, who rushes uj) jiiul 

 helps to kill the enemy. 



It is surmised that the kakapo, or great iiround jiarrot — the only 

 parrot which does not fh' — had once the use of its wings. Finding in 



