144 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



Eagle seized her from behind, killed her, and went oflf with 

 the game. 



I am, sir, your obedient servant, 



H. J. Elwes. 



Maxton, Dover, January 5 th, 1867. 



Sir, — Notornis mantelli, which some years ago, when the first 

 live specimens were introduced to public notice, was supposed to 

 be nearly extinct, is still numerous in some districts on the 

 west coast of the Middle Island of New Zealand. The dis- 

 covery in 1865 in that region of rich gold-diggings has brought 

 about an indefatigable rummaging of hundreds of miles of wild 

 solitudes, chiefly mountains, densely covered with timber, the 

 echoes of which never before awoke to the human voice ; and 

 parties of wandering " prospectors " have not unfrequently had 

 to subsist for days on their captures of the great " Ground- 

 Parrot," as Notornis mantelli is called in that quarter by those 

 who came upon it without having any previous notice of its 

 existence. The district forms a break-weather against the im- 

 petuous deluging gales (chiefly south-westerly) which are pre- 

 valent in that latitude a great part of the year, and is the 

 stormiest and dampest in New Zealand ; but, the country being 

 very much broken and wooded, shelter is abundant. 



Living examples of Notornis have only been found on the 

 western side of the Alpine range which divides the Middle 

 Island, and, so far as 1 can learn, only in the southern half of 

 that region. Although the whole of the North Island, except 

 some mountain and forest tracts, became occupied by the Mao- 

 ries, only the north and east parts of the Middle Island were 

 peopled, and the mountains and forests of the west coast re- 

 mained generally a solitude. There is abundant evidence to 

 show that extensive tracts of the pasture-land on the east coast 

 were formerly covered with heavy timber, which was burnt off. 

 The circumstance that the region in which Notornis mantelli 

 still occurs was not subjected to the ravages of bush-fires or 

 to the occupation of man may partly account for its continued 

 existence there. 



Prospectors who had been exploring in the district men- 



