Ornithology of Neiv Zealand. 113 



tempting: to correct my inaccuracies Captain Hutton has fallen 

 into some errors himself. 



SCELOGLAUX ALBIFACIES. 



Captain Hutton states that there is no evidence to show 

 that the Laughing Owl was formerly more plQntiful than 

 it now is, or that it has almost totally disappeared. Of 

 the former fact I have abundant evidence in the accounts 

 given by the Maoris. As to the present scarcity of the bird, 

 it may be sufficient to state that I have never heard of more 

 than a dozen specimens, and have never seen but one living 

 example. Captain Hutton does not state that he has ever 

 met with this bird outside of a museum ; and the peculiar 

 sound " like two branches of a tree rubbing together/^ which 

 he has so often heard in the New-Zealand forest, may, I think, 

 be accounted for in a very simple manner, without inventing 

 an Owl. 



Stringops habroptilus. 



Caj)tain Hutton ought to have quoted the whole of the sen- 

 tence ; for I stated that " in all the essential characteristics of 

 structure it is a true Parrot.^' My statement that " there is 

 no physiological reason why the Kakapo should not be as 

 good a flier as any other Parrot," must of course be read with 

 the context. My argument was that disuse, under the usual 

 operation of the laws of nature, had, in process of time, occa- 

 sioned tliis physical disability of wing. My statement that 

 this species subsists chiefly on mosses rests on the authority 

 of Dr. Haast, who has collected and dissected far more sj)e- 

 cimens than any other person in the colony, and whose close 

 study of the bird in its native haunts is sufficiently manifest 

 from the paper which appeared in ' The Ibis ' of 1864 (pp. 340 

 -346) . Captain Hutton does not inforai us what particular 

 kind of moss he ofi'ered in vain to his captive bird. 



Nestor occidentalis. 



I am very doubtful myself about this species; and Dr. Finsch 

 may therefore be right in uniting it to N. meridionalis (see 

 my remarks, B. of N. Z. p. 50). I have in my possession, 

 however, a note from Captain Hutton declaring himself in 



