Drummond. — On Introduced Birds. 231 



or the captain blundered, and the latter took on board thir- 

 teen dozen house-sparrows, which are generally known by the 

 common name of " spaiTOw." He was very attentive to them 

 on the voyage out, believing that they were the valuable hedge- 

 sparrows which the colonists were anxious to secure. Most of 

 them died, however, and when he reached Lyttelton, in Feb- 

 ruary, 1867, only five were left. The officers of the society, 

 realising that a mistake had been made, refused to accept the 

 straiigers. The captain then took them out of fcheir cage, and, 

 remarking that the poor little beggars had had a bad time, set 

 them at hberty. They flew up into the rigging and remained 

 twittering there for some time. The members of the society 

 had gone down below to look at other birds. When they reached 

 the deck again the sparrows had flown. The birds stayed about 

 Lyttelton for three weeks ; then they disappeared, and when 

 next heard of had been seen at Kaiapoi, about twenty miles 

 distant, where, at the end of 1869, they were reported as being 

 " particularly numerous." The Otago society liberated three 

 sparrows in 1868 and eleven in 1869. Other consignments were 

 brought out later on, until the colony was well stocked. Sir 

 Walter BuUer frankly pleads guilty to having been accessory 

 to the importation of sparrows to Wanganui. He, on behalf 

 of the acclimatisation society there, advertised in the London 

 newspapers offering a reward of £100 for a hundred pairs of 

 sparrows delivered alive. Both advertisements and importations 

 were successful. 



Previous to that, in 1868, the Canterbury society introduced 

 small numbers of birds, including skylarks and goldfinches. 

 In shipping offices in London the society circulated lists of 

 the sums of money it was wilhng to give for different species 

 of birds, which it was intended should be brought out by 

 emigrants from England ; but that system was not successful, 

 and it was nob until definite arrangements were made with 

 agents and captains of vessels that any satisfactory results were 

 achieved. It was Captain Stevens who brought the first hedge- 

 sparrow to the colony, and, it is claimed, to the Southern 

 Hemisphere. It came in the " Matoaka," together with the 

 first house-sparrows. It was the only sur\avor of a consign- 

 ment. For a long time it was an object of interest in the 

 society's grounds in Christchurch, many people journeying to 

 the gardens to see the stranger. 



The sight of the introduced birds seemed to fall in with the 

 early colonists' desire to make Canterbury as like England as pos- 

 sible. Their minds were full of the place they)had left. The 

 Old Country was their Holy Land, and anything that reminded 

 them of it and its associations was given a hearty welcome. 



