Chai\mak. — Oil the Islands soutli of New Zealand. J 95 



Island, spreading by means of rhizomes instead of by turning 

 down its stolons and rooting them. 



Everywhere there is a strong smell of birds, not generally 

 strong enough to be overpowering ; in the penguin rookeries it 

 is so strong that one feels inclined to bolt through them. 

 These are numerous aiid extensive. There are many on the 

 shores, and many in the forest or scrub. Wherever a rookery 

 is formed the timber or scrub dies, and we often found places 

 where the penguins had taken up new ground, killing a piece 

 of scrub alongside a rookery. The noise in the large rookeries 

 was deafening ; the big penguins brayed and the young ones 

 squealed. As we walked through the rookeries there was added 

 to other sounds the roar caused by the tramp of thousands of 

 lilliputian feet as the armies fled before us, raising a miniature 

 cloud of dust as they went. Though very harmless birds, 

 they were very pugnacious, and often preferred to stand and 

 fight rather than get out of the narrow tracks. 



There were no nestlings ; we could only see the sites of 

 downtrodden nests. At the top of the hill we were attacked 

 by sea-hawks or skua-gulls (Stercorarius antarcticus), which 

 watch constantly to surprise young and weak birds. They 

 flew at us furiously, and we had frequently to hold up some- 

 thing to ward them off. Often we could hear the rush of 

 their wings as they passed a foot from a man's head. They 

 are pretty dark birds, with a light-checked colouring on the 

 wings. They are called skua-gulls from their resemblance to 

 a northern species {Stercorarius catarractes), and appear to be 

 rare in New Zealand proper. One mollyraawk was noticed 

 nesting alone. 



Of small birds we saw a good number — pretty black tom- 

 tits (Miro traversi), ground-larks {Anthus novcs-zealandice), 

 grass-birds {Splienceac^is fulvus) of a species now rare in New 

 Zealand, and beautiful little snipe. All these were very tame, 

 and were often caught by hand. Mr. Eeischek claims that 

 several of them are new species, differing from those described 

 by Sir W. Buller and other writers, but I think I am naming 

 them correctly according to Dr. Otto Finsch. 



The snipe (Gallinago aucldandica) is a very graceful little 

 bird. It soon dies in captivity — I suspect of starvation. One 

 got loose on the ship and visited my bed early one morning, 

 and sat upon my chest, close to my face, jumping at flies about 

 the porthole. I tried to catch some of these snipe, following 

 them up closely by the sound as they whistled to each other 

 within a yard of mo among the tussocks, but I found that they 

 slipped nimbly into the holes made in the ground by sea- 

 birds. 



In the course of the day I managed to secure specimens of 

 nearly all the birds for the Otago Museum. There was one 



