NATURAL HISTORY NOTES IN NEW ZEALHND. 182 
A few years ago parrots and parrakeets were a great nuisance 
to the orchardist. The most remarkable and the largest parrot is a 
flightless bird called the ground parrot or kakapo (STRINcops 
HABROPTILUS). Its colour is a vivid green with yellow markings, 
and it is only found on the West Coast of the South Island. 
The Government ranger and custodian on the West Coast, Mr. 
Henry, of Resolution Island reserve, who has had special opportun- 
ities of studing the kakapo, and has removed a number to the island 
sanctuary, says that like some other of the West Coast birds it only 
breeds every second year—not independently, but all breed one 
season and none the next. He is sure of this, having observed the 
“drumming” of the birds in the breeding season only ; and in 1892, 
which was their due season, they did not breed, and thus skipped two 
seasons. He has been greatly puzzled, and speculates that the cause 
is a prophetic forethought of the shortness of its fruit diet. As its 
wings cannot be used for flight, it is to be feared that the kakapo will 
soon cease to exist on the mainland in the presence of the acclim- 
atised pests. A splendid specimen may be seen in Derby Museum. 
Three Nestors are given by Buller. One is the kea (N. 
Notasiuis) well known to every reader of popular natural history as 
a bane of the sheep farmer. Rightly or wrongly the kea is accused 
of a very grave crime —that of alighting upon the back of a live sheep 
and literally tearing its way to the kidney fat of the animal in order 
to gratify its craving for that delicacy. There is no doubt of its 
fondness for the fat, but whether any but a sickly sheep is killed by 
the kea or otherwise, the indictment is, I believe, scarcely proven, 
but recent evidence is most incriminating. The kea is not very 
formidable in size. 
The only other common nestor is the kaka parrot (N. MERIDION- 
Auls). A splendid bird for the table, it has suffered much from the 
gun. Asa decoy I have seen scores attracted to the trees overhead 
by scraping a nail upon the lid of a tin wax-vesta box, but a wounded 
