336 TUTIRA 



Starlings (Sturmts vulgaris) were imported from Otago by the 

 Hawke's Bay Acclimatisation Society, though two years later additional 

 birds were brought from Auckland. According to the late Mr J. N. 

 Williams, the local success of this introduction was never in doubt. It 

 was nevertheless not until ten years later that starlings were reported 

 in the minutes of the local Society to be spreading rapidly. 



Starlings were liberated in Auckland in '67. Next year the Ac- 

 climatisation Society of that district reports that the starling has 

 " perhaps multiplied more rapidly than any other species introduced." 

 The minutes of the Society give the further information that starlings 

 doubtless lost individual birds, "their plumage worn and shabby" had 

 been noticed " twenty miles from the point of liberation within a few 

 days." At a meeting in the following year the wide spread of the starling 

 was again remarked. In spite, however, of the Auckland Acclimatisation 

 Society's belief in the rapid increase of the species, its forward movement 

 cannot compare in celerity with that of other migrants liberated about 

 similar dates. Starlings, for instance, were not in Poverty Bay in '96 ; 

 when black crickets during late autumn of that year ravaged my brother's 

 farm, no starlings appeared to combat the plague. 1 



Such are the general claims of south and north. There can be little 

 doubt that starlings reached Tutira from the former direction, for only 

 ten years after liberation in Hawke's Bay they were building on the 

 Bluff in Napier, the huge pitted limestone cliff of Scinde Island. It was 

 not until 1895, however, that they reached Tutira, a flock remaining on 

 the station during the autumn and winter of that year. Then for several 

 successive seasons each year they extended their winter range, large 



reason unknown, pukeko have also migrated in a body ? Were their runs at last overstocked ? 

 Lastly, is there any inference to be deduced from the fact that the three pair left in two 

 localities were practically domesticated, that being protected, close to men's homes, they had lost 

 in some degree the full force of the racial feeling, that in a migration, for whatsoever reason 

 undertaken, they alone had declined to participate ? The possibility of migration, at any rate, 

 might help to solve a difficulty in another part of New Zealand over which I have puzzled for 

 years the absence of certain species from very extensive areas perfectly fitted to their wants in 

 climate, breeding accommodation, and food supplies. 



In the hinterland of Poverty Bay, for instance, in the fertile, virgin marl lands of Mangatu, 

 kiwi and weka have always been unknown. Weasels, doubtless, there may have been in the 

 district, but not in larger numbers than at Tutira prior to 1914, when, as we know, pukeko 

 swarmed and weka and kiwi were very plentiful. 



1 Had the birds been in the district they would have gathered in multitudes, as once 

 happened in later years on Tutira. One of my plough contractors had sown a patch of oats 

 which, when flowering, was attacked by an army of caterpillars, millions of whom had appeared 

 as if by magic. At once I rode out to note their horrid depredations, but was surprised to find 

 not caterpillars but starlings in the ascendant ; the latter had in a few hours collected in such 

 numbers as entirely to save the threatened crop. 



