ANSERIFORMES 105 



Chinese Goose (Cycnopsis cycnoides) 



The Canterbury Society imported some of these birds about 1874, 

 when there were eleven in their enclosures; but in 1877 there were 

 only four, and there is no further record. 



Common Goose ; Grey-Lay Goose (Anser cinereus) 



The common goose is particularly interesting as the first species 

 of bird which it was attempted to naturalise in New Zealand. When 

 Captain Cook was at Dusky Sound in March-May, 1773, during his 

 second voyage to New Zealand, he liberated some geese. In his 

 Journal he says: 



Having 5 geese out of those we brought from the Cape of Good Hope, 

 I went with them next morning to Goose Cove (named so on this account), 

 where I left them. I chose this place for two reasons ; first, because, here 

 are no inhabitants to disturb them ; and secondly, here being the most food. 

 I make no doubt that they will breed, and may in time spread over the 

 whole country, and fully answer my intention in leaving them. 



Dr McNab, commenting on this in "Murihiku," says: 



The non-success of the importation of geese was doubtless due to the 

 depredations of the weka. To show how deadly the weka could be to the 

 harmless goose, the author instances a case which came under his own 

 notice in Dusky Sound. The party disturbed a swan (black swan?) sitting 

 on her nest, and although less than one minute elapsed before they reached 

 the spot, the solitary egg, which proved to be quite fresh, had in that short 

 time been tapped by a weka, and the contents partially extracted. No 

 imported geese could successfully contend with such an ever-present foe. 



The weka is no doubt responsible for the failure of many attempts 

 to establish introduced birds, but it is only one of the agents. 



The next recorded attempt at naturalisation was made by the 

 Southland Society in 1867, when seven geese were liberated on the 

 banks of the Mataura River. They were duly advertised as protected, 

 but evidently that did not protect them from pot-hunters, for they 

 disappeared. 



A more successful attempt was made by the Otago Society, which 

 in 1892 placed a number of goose-eggs in black swans' nests on Lakes 

 Kaitangata and Waihola, Lake Onslow near Roxburgh, and in the 

 Upper Taieri. At first these half- wild geese were shot, but later on 

 they were allowed to increase, till in 1905, permission to shoot them 

 was granted, when they were nearly or quite exterminated. The 

 average (so-called) sportsman is a man out to kill something, and he 

 does not concern himself as to the amount of trouble and expense 

 which has been gone to in order to provide him with the thing to 

 be killed. 



