Pakk. — Takahe versus Kakapo. 113 



ground vibrate distinctly for a distance of several yards 

 around. 



On the 29th January we shifted camp to the forks of 

 Matukituki, opposite Mount Aspiring, and while camped there 

 vre again heard the same strange booming note ; but, as before, 

 all efforts to capture its mysterious author were futile. How- 

 ever, on one occasion I caught a passing glimpse of it, and on 

 examining the same place next day I found that it had been 

 scratching in the sand. I also examined its footprints in the 

 soft mud near the bank of the river, and at the time made a 

 sketch of them on a loose slip of paper. I did not mention 

 this latter circumstance in my paper on the takahe because I 

 was unable to lay my hand on the sketch, but I remember 

 quite distinctly that the footprints had a general resemblance 

 to those of the weka. They certainly had no resen^iblance to 

 the shuffling track of the kakapo. 



After a lapse of seven years I again met oiu- booming visit- 

 ant of the Matukituki Valley. In the beginning of January, 

 1888, I visited Dusky Sound, and the day after my arrival, 

 while accompanying Mr. Docherty to his pyrrhotine lode on 

 the slopes of Mount Hodge, I heard the old, familiar, but al- 

 most forgotten, booming note of 1881. On returning to the 

 hut in the evening my field-hand informed me that while 

 fishing off the point he had heard the boom of the takahe 

 in the direction of Mount Hodge. He said he had been rab- 

 biting on the Mararoa Flat, and had seen and heard the 

 takahe killed there in 1881. Previous to this occasion I had 

 never heard the Notoriiis referred to as the takahe. I con- 

 sidered this circumstantial evidence, and my own previous 

 experience, sufficient to justify me in arriving at the conclusion 

 that the takahe was the author of this mysterious note. 



Mr. Meliand's case is, I understand, as follows : He has 

 heard, he says, the booming note described by me. He admits 

 its unusual and startling character, and speaks of it as a 

 "powerful and alarming sound," which, he says, he has 

 "heard across the still waters of Lake Te Anau, a distance 

 of five or six miles. '"■= As to the author of this unusual note 

 he professes to have no doubt whatever, the mystery having 

 been solved some years ago by Mr. E. Henry, of Lake Te 

 Anau. It is strange that a "powerful and alarming sound" 

 like this should remain unsolved until the arrival of Mr. 

 Henry, a few years ago, and stranger still that, when solved, 

 it was not thought worth recording. 



The kakapo is a comparatively common bird among the 

 sounds and mountains of south-west Otago, and it seems 

 to me improbable that such a remarkable note should have 



' Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxii., p. 298. 



