PASSERES. 



31 



41. Heteralocha aeutivostris, Gould. 



IIUIA. 



(Plate XIV.) 



Glossy black, with a band of white at the end of the tail ; wattle, large, and orange 

 colour ; bill, white. 



Male.— Ij., 19-25 ; W., 8 ; B., 2 3 ; T., 32. 

 Female.— Jj., 21-5 ; W., 8-3 ; B., 4.-3 ; T., 3-2. 

 Hab. — South part of the North Island. 



" It is confined witliin narrow geographical boundaries^ being met 

 with only in the Ruahine^ Tararua, and Rimutaka mountain-ranges, 

 with their divergent spurs, and in the intervening wooded valleys. 

 It is occasionally found in the Fayus forests of the Wairarapa 

 Valley, and in the rugged country stretching to the westward of 

 the Ruahine Range, but it seldom wanders far from its mountain 

 haunts 



" In the summer of 18G1 I succeeded in getting a pair of live 

 ones. They Avere caught by a Native in the ranges, and brought 

 down to Manawatu, a distance of more than fifty miles, on horseback. 

 The owner refused to take money for them, but I negotiated an 

 exchange for a valuable greenstone. I kept these birds for more 

 than a year, waiting a favourable opportunity of forwarding them to 

 the Zoological Society of London 



" It was amusing to note their treatment of the huhu. This 

 grub, the larva of a large nocturnal beetle fPrionoplus reticularis), 

 which constitutes their principal food, infests all decayed timber, 

 attaining at maturity the size of a man's little finger. Like all grubs 

 of its kind, it is furnished with a hard head and horny mandibles. 

 On offering one of these to the huia he would seize it in the middle, 

 and, at once transferring it to his perch and placing one foot firmly 



