183 NATURAL HISTORY NOTES IN NEW ZEALAND. 
kaka is even a greater draw. The Maories used to take them in 
great numbers by means of a trap termed tutu and a call bird. 
There are two distinct parrakeets (PLatycorcus Nov® ZEALANDLE 
and P. aurRicEps), the red-fronted and the yellow-fronted. Fifteen 
years ago they were so numerous as to be sport for the schoolboy 
with his catapult. These parrakeets were great orchard thieves, but 
now it is difficult to find one in the settled parts. Like many others 
of the native birds they have either retired to the back blocks or 
have died out. 
I kept one or two of the red-fronted, at different times, till 
they were attacked and killed in their cage by the native kingfisher. 
The size of both parrakeets is about that of the hawfinch, and the 
plumage a vivid green, with red or yellow fronts respectively. The 
yellow is slightly smaller than the red-fronted. 
The royal bird of the Maoris is the huia (HETERALOCHA ACUTI- 
rosTRA), the black tail feathers of which, tipped with white, are the 
insignia of the chiefs. The huia is now exceedingly rare, and I 
never saw a live specimen, though they are still to be found in the 
North Island, some fifty miles from Wellington, in the Rimutaka 
and the Ruahine Ranges. It is somewhat less than the rook, and 
of asimilar plumage, with the exception of the white-tipped tail 
feathers, whilst it is a much more graceful bird. The female huia 
has a long curved bill, apparently for the purpose of extracting the 
larva of a peculiar locust or weta, from decayed tree trunks, after 
the male bird has exposed the larva by means of its shorter and 
stronger bill. 
The New Zealand Kingfisher (H. vacans), is plentiful all 
round the coast, never going very far inland, in my experience, 
except up the creeks and gullies to breed. In size the New Zealand 
kingfisher is double that of the English, and although endowed with 
a fine plumage of dull blue, has nothing of the brilliance of the 
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