IIG Transacikins. — Zoology. 



the Mararoa district. Of course this is not evidence, and I 

 might answer in the same manner, and say that the booming 

 note which Mr. MeUand ascribed to the kakapo was really that 

 of the bittern, which is common in his district. But, admit- 

 ting for the moment that Jinnny may often have heard the 

 bittern near Lake Te Anau, why should he suj)pose the call of 

 such a common bird to be that of the takalie ? And, again, 

 what should lead him at Dusky Sound to attribute the boom, 

 of what Mr. INIelland says was a kakapo, a second time to the 

 mysterious takahe? Mr. Melland has no difficulty in recognising 

 the unusual note described by me in my paper on the takahe, 

 and yet he has no hesitation in making Jimmy's ears deceive 

 him twice. I picked Jimmy up at Chalky Inlet, where he 

 was prospecting. I gathered from him that he had spent 

 many years about Eiverton, Orepuki, Waiau, Lakes Te Anau 

 and Manapouri, and the West Coast sounds; and it would 

 certainly be strange if he had not in his travels become familiar 

 with the calls of a comparatively common bird like the 

 kakapo. 



The third person of our party at Dusky Sound was Mr. 

 William Doclierty, the well-known prospector and explorer, 

 who, at the time of my visit in 1888, had spent the greater- 

 part of eight years at Dusky Sound and Wet Jacket Arm. He 

 had camped for lengthened periods on the open grass- country 

 above the limits of forest-vegetation, where kakapos were 

 always plentiful. Perhaps no one on the West Coast was 

 better acquainted with the kakapo than Docherty, and yet, 

 when, with me, he heard the booming note on the slopes of 

 Mount Hodge, he did not recognise it as the call of the kakapo 

 or any other bird whatever. So sudden and startling was the 

 sound that he maintained to the last that it was a subter- 

 ranean noise in some way connected with volcanic action. In 

 explanation of this strange theory, Docherty said that in a 

 previous year he had often heard the same sound. His mate 

 at the time was a Scandinavian, who informed him that 

 noises of a subterranean character were often heard among 

 the mountains of Norway. 



Mr. Meiland next appeals to the experiences of Mr. A. 

 Keischek, F.L.S., and says, "The mere fact that the inde- 

 fatigable Mr. Eeischek had been industriously searching for 

 the takahe in the very district mentioned for many months 

 without success might have given Mr. Park some doubt as to 

 the truth of his theory. "=■' Unfortunately for Mr. Melland's 

 argument, about the first person I met on boarding the s.s. 

 " Stella " when I was leaving Dusky Sound was Mr. Eeischek 

 himself, to whom I narrated the circumstances of the boom- 



* I.QC. cit., p. 297. 



