I 2 2 Stray Feathers. [ is f Oct. 



Notes on Some New Zealand Birds. — During the winters of 

 1 88 1 and 1882 I had opportunities of observing a few New Zealand 

 birds, and of obtaining some skins. Some of these birds are 

 becoming rare ; it may therefore be advisable to record even the 

 little that I learned about them. One day I entered a wood on 

 the outskirts of Invercargill, and, after waiting for a long time, 

 descried two large, silent birds in the tree-tops, which from their 

 movements I knew to be Parrots. They were Kakas {Nestor 

 meridionalis), and as I saw no more of the Kaka I concluded 

 that it rarely showed itself in the daytime in the neighbourhood 

 of dwellings. At Queenstown I obtained the skin of a Kakapo 

 (Stringops habroptilits), and heard that it still haunted the 

 regions around Earnslaw (9,165 feet). A thick under-covering 

 of down feathers protects it from their Alpine cold. The 

 face of the Kakapo has been compared to that of an Owl. 

 But the head is cuneate, not discoid. The Kakapo, with 

 a wing io-| inches long, is believed to have lost the 

 power of flight in comparatively recent times, and to 

 have formerly been arboreal in its habits. The upper mandible 

 is festooned, and the culmen channelled laterally for about the 

 half of its length. The under surface of the lower mandible is 

 deeply channelled lengthwise. The festoons may have enabled 

 the Kakapo to retain a firmer hold of fruits or their stones than 

 it could otherwise have done. The channels, by virtue of a law 

 of physics, strengthen the mandibles, and thus lessen the risk 

 of fracture. The distal portions of the rachises of the projecting 

 feathers near the gape and the nostrils are devoid of webs and 

 hair-like. The Lesser Grey Kiwi {Apteryx oweni) is furnished 

 with long hairs* near the gape and on the forehead. One of 

 the hairs on a stuffed skin is I \ inches in length. May not these 

 hairs serve the Kiwi as feelers in the dark ? 



At Akaroa in July I found the Korimakos (Antkornis melanurd) 

 feasting on the honey in the blossoms of the loquats, whilst 

 Kingfishers {Halcyon vagans), in bright attire of blue and green 

 and fawn, darted into and out of the gardens, but whereas it 

 was a difficult matter to drive the Korimakos away from the 

 tree, the Kingfishers would not allow one even to approach them. 

 There are no Maluri or Acanthizce in New Zealand, and I saw 

 no birds which resembled them in point of domesticity, nor any 

 which reminded me of the Scarlet-breasted and Flame-breasted 

 Robins of Australia and Tasmania. I have known a male of 

 the latter species to perch on a stick held in the hand, and, on 

 another occasion, one of these birds snatched a grub from my 

 outstretched hand. — J. R. M'CLYMONT, M.A. Sandy Bay, 



Tasmania. 



# * * 



Performing Parrots. — It is exceedingly interesting to know 

 that our Australian birds exhibit undoubted reasoning powers, 



* Used provisionally of a non-mammalian product. 



