AUGUST. 153 



finished. They were also thriving in Christchurch about 

 the same time. Their conspicuous colour and curious call 

 made them "kenspeckle," (to use a very suggestive Scotch 

 expression), but they have evidently been crowded out by 

 the starlings, which have increased so remarkably in this 

 their new home. 



Between 1865 and 1869 the Otago Acclimatisation Society 

 turned out about ninety Australian magpies, and these 

 throve for a time, but eventually died out also. Both in 

 the neighbourhood of Dunedin and on Inchclutha they 

 began to build and breed, but were mostly destroyed by 

 lack of protection. The average so-called "sportsman," 

 the man or boy who goes out with a gun to kill something, 

 is an enemy to the naturalist and to all who love Nature 

 and the things of Nature, and the wanton destruction of 

 these handsome and very conspicuous birds was almost due 

 to this class of people. I remember, in the early seventies, 

 being out with a troop of High School boys on one of our 

 Saturday rambles, when we had an encounter with a 

 magpie. One lad in front of the party called out to those 

 behind him to stop throwing things at him, as he affirmed 

 that someone had hit him on the head either with a bit of 

 stick or a sod. While we were looking in his direction, 

 and denying indignantly that anyone had been guilty of 

 such enormity as to shy any missile at another, a magpie 

 suddenly swooped down from a neighbouring tree and hit 

 the same lad a sharp blow on the head, knocking his cap 

 off. And there, high up above us, was a nest, probably 

 with eggs or young in it, and the male bird was taking 

 this method of warning off intruders. Probably my 

 presence protected the birds from molestation, but I can 

 well imagine that had no restraining power been there 

 that bold magpie's days would have been numbered. I 

 never saw the birds in later years. 



Why some birds should have increased so abundantly 

 after being liberated, and others of somewhat similar habits 

 should have either disappeared at once or died out in a few 

 years, is a problem which we have no means of elucidating. 

 We can only conjecture the causes. Thus in 1867 and the 



