148 THE ANIMALS OF NEW ZEALAND 



a partial or total failure of ordinary food supplies. "This 

 coutention," he says, "is fully borne out by the miserably lean 

 and generally starving condition of the birds when they first 

 arrive in the district, and by the poor state of the plumage, 

 and the presence of numerous parasites on their bodies. In 

 New Zealand, in seasons of failure of the indigenous berry-bearing 

 trees and shrubs, the parrakeets are not the only birds that suffer, 

 as the failure effects, with a few exceptions, all other bush birds. 

 A season of scanty blossoms produces a scarcity of the insects 

 depending on them for support, and this affects insectivorous 

 birds. The same effect is felt by the honey-suckers, such as the 

 kaka, the tui, the bell-bird, and others, which, during the spring 

 and summer months, depend for much of their nutriment on the 

 melliferous flowers of the bush." Mr. Smith also states that 

 simultaneously with a previous invasion of parrakeets, the towns 

 and villages on the West Coast were invaded by an army of rats. 

 These animals, which subsist during several months of the year 

 on the fallen berries of many forest trees, were driven from their 

 haunts in the bush by precisely the same cause as that which 

 affected the parrakeets. 



The Antipodes Island Parrakeet. 



Cyanorhampii us unicolor. 



Green, the base of tlie outer primaries bluish. Eye crimson. Length 

 of the wing, 6 in.; of the tarsus, 1 in. The female is slightly smaller. 

 Antipodes Islands. The wing is shorter in proportion to the length 

 of the tarsus, than in the other species. The crest of the sternum has 

 about the same proportion of length to breast as in C. erythrotis. It 

 feeds largely on the seeds of the Acaena sanguisorbae. 



