PKEFACE TO THE FIEST AND SECOND 

 EDITIONS. 



In this work we have endeavoured to combine popular 

 information with the purely scientific, and have intermingled 

 stories of quaint habits and characteristics with accurate 

 deserij^tions of all the animals dealt with. 



Our object has been to publish a volume that will be useful to 

 naturalists, and at the same time interesting- to the general 

 public. The first consideration has been accuracy ; the second, 

 sufficient information in small space. To attain this end, we 

 have drawn largely on the works of others. Chief among these 

 is the late Mr. T. H. Potts. He knew our fauna before its 

 destruction had been fairly begun, and he devoted stupendous 

 energy to the study of the habits of our native birds. As a 

 result of his labour of love, New Zealand possesses unique 

 records in its literature on natural history. The main part 

 of his observations is embodied in stray articles in the 

 Christchurch newspapers, in the Transactions of the New 

 Zealand Institute, and in a little book entitled Out in the Open. 

 No work dealing adequately with the natural history of this 

 colony would be complete without quotations from Mr. Potts 's 

 writings; and as Mrs. Potts has kindly placed all his 

 publications at our disposal, we have introduced into this 

 volume some of the best of them. Where large and important 

 collations have been made, we have indicated the source or the 

 writer ; but we have found it impracticable to do so in regard 

 to all quotations, as we have had to take a few lines here and 

 a few there, and to weld them together in order to make a 

 connected whole. We have exercised much care in taking 

 extracts. A portion of the popular part of the information was 

 published as a series of copyright articles in The Lyttelton 

 Times in 1903; but these have been revised and added to, 



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