Letters from the Pacific. 395 



a European. As I learn from those acquainted with the 

 Huia^ it is by no means a shy bird ; but the great difficulty is 

 to find them. It woukl therefore have been the greatest 

 chance to go out for one day and to succeed in seeing Huias 

 or Pogonornis. The same feeling held me back from execu- 

 ting a plan in regard to Notornis mcmtelli which I formed 

 upon seeing the fine specimen in the Museum of Dunedin. 

 This specimen^ the third in existence, had been obtained by 

 a shepherd near Lake Te Anau, or rather by his dog, and had 

 been bought by a lady, to find its way to England, as Pro- 

 fessor Parker told me. This gentleman was so kind as to 

 show me the skeleton of this specimen, and to allow me 

 to observe its interesting peculiarity in having only a rudi- 

 mentary keel to the sternum, like Stringops habroptilus. 



Having spoken of the rarest birds in New Zealand, I may 

 now also mention the most common, and may unhesitatingly 

 say that there are none more so than our Common Sparrow 

 {Passer domesticus) , our Sky-Lark {Alauda arvensis), and the 

 native Pipit [Anthus novcE-zealandice) . I saw the Sparrow in 

 nearly every place during my travels in the Old and New 

 Worlds, but nowhere so plentiful and of such general distri- 

 bution as in New Zealand. Here it is not only seen in every 

 city, village, and dwelling-place of man, as is usually the 

 case, but also in the most remote localities, where no men 

 live. I observed the Sparrow on the barren cliffs of the 

 west coast of the North Island, in the flax-scrubs [Phormium 

 tenax) of Taranaki, and in the centre of the woods of Ohine- 

 mutu, in all of which localities it was not merely a visitor, 

 but a settler, and a settler which sticks to the place, and is 

 not easily driven away. ' This will be well known to the 

 societies which have been founded with the object of rooting 

 out the Sparrow by all means, and which accordingly offer 

 rewards for heads and eggs of the bird. I really do not know 

 what is the reason for these cruel measures, except that I 

 heard people say that the Sparrows were a nuisance and 

 damaged the flowers and seeds in the garden, and so on. On 

 my way to the Alps I observed Sparrows as high up as Burke's 

 Pass (about 2500 feet) ; but a most reliable authority, 



