AND INTRODUCED FAUNAS 511 



The increase of this bird has no doubt been due to the vast 

 increase of rabbits, whose young are often caught by it, and of small 

 birds ; and also to the protection accorded to the species. A humourist 

 could find excellent material on which to exercise his talents were 

 he to summarise the literature and the oratory which has been ex- 

 pended on this hawk in New Zealand. The sheep-farmer protects 

 it because it is more or less destructive to rabbits which are his great 

 pest, though it is really too slow in its movements to keep down such 

 an active and wary creature as the rabbit. Formerly it lived mainly 

 on lizards and insects, but it has now a much larger menu. Wherever 

 game fanciers prevailed, the bird was mercilessly destroyed, and 

 rewards were offered for heads, as it certainly is a most active agent 

 in keeping down pheasants, quail, wild ducks and other imported 

 game. Where farmers grew grain crops the hawk was protected as 

 an antidote to the small bird pest; but where poultry were largely 

 kept, it was ruthlessly trapped and destroyed on account of its 

 predilection for chickens. Altogether the record is a very mixed 

 one, but on the whole the bird seems to have more than held its own, 

 and is very common throughout New Zealand. 



The grey warbler (Pseudogerygone igatd), yellow-breasted tit 

 (Petroeca macrocephala), the fan- tailed flycatchers (Rhipidura flabel- 

 lifera and R.fuliginosa), and the pipit or ground lark (Anthus novee- 

 zealandiee) appear to have more than held their own. This may be 

 due to a certain measure of protection accorded them by settlers, 

 but they have been mostly left alone, and their most active enemy is 

 the cat. Yet it is quite surprising how common the ground larks 

 are in all open country, and especially in country districts, and how 

 the others named penetrate into gardens, even in the larger towns. 

 Their food supply consists mostly of small insects and other in- 

 vertebrates, many of them introduced species, and these are very 

 abundant. 



The wax-eye or blight-bird (Zosterops ccerulescens) has apparently 

 increased very much since it was first recorded in 1832; the facts 

 which are known as to its spread and increase are recorded at p. 161. 

 These little birds are very fond of meat, and especially of fat, and 

 come about houses and stock -yards for the sake of the animal food 

 to be obtained. Dr Fulton says that many of his correspondents 

 consider that the long- tailed cuckoo (Urodynamis taitensis) has become 

 increasingly numerous during the past thirty years, and they attribute 

 this to the increase of small European birds, on whose eggs and young 

 they feed. In and about trout-hatcheries they do a great deal of 

 mischief. They also destroy numbers of young birds, such as sparrows, 

 wax-eyes (Zosterops), goldfinches, etc. 



