THE HUIA, OR NEW ZEALAND WOOD-CROW. 19 



tiny bars of its prison in its futile efforts to escape ; and many species that appear to submit readily to 

 their changed condition of life ultimately pine, sicken, and die. There are other species, again, which 

 cheerfully adapt themselves to their new life, although caged at maturity, and seem to thrive fully as 

 well under confinement as in a state of nature. Parrots, for example, ai-e easily tamed ; and I have 

 met with numerous instances of their voluntary return after having regained their liberty. This 

 character of tamability was exemplified to perfection in the Huias. 



" They were fully adult birds, and were caught in the following simple manner : Attracting the 

 birds, by an imitation of their cry, to the place where he lay concealed, the native, with the aid of a 

 long rod, slipped a running knot over the head of the female and secured her. The male, emboldened 

 by the loss of his mate, suffered himself to be easily caught in the same manner. On receiving these 

 birds, I set them free in a well-lined and properly ventilated room, measuring about six feet by eight 

 feet. They appeared to be stiff after their severe jolt on horseback, and after feeding freely on the 

 huliu grub, a pot of which the native had brought with them, they retired to one of the perches I had 

 set up for them, and cuddled together for the night. 



" In the morning I found them somewhat recruited, feeding with avidity, sipping water from a 

 dish, and flitting about in a very active manner. It was amusing to note their treatment of the Imhu. 

 This grub, the larva of a large nocturnal Beetle (Prionoplus reticidaris), which constitutes their 

 principal food, infests all decayed timber, attaining at maturity the size of man's little finger. Like 

 all grubs of its kind, it is furnished with a hard head and horny mandibles. On offering one of these 

 to the Huia, he would seize it in the middle, and at once transferring it to his perch, and placing one 

 foot firmly upon it, he wo\ild tear off the hard parts, and then, throwing the grub upwards to secure 

 it lengthwise in his bill, would swallow it whole. For the first few days these birds were compara 

 tively quiet, remaining stationary on their perch as soon as their hunger was appeased. But they 

 afterwards became more lively and active, indulging in play with each other, and seldom remaining 

 more than a few moments in one position. I sent to the woods for a small branched tree, and placed 

 it in the centre of the room, the floor of which was spread with sand and gravel. It was most 

 interesting to watch these graceful birds hopping from branch to branch, occasionally spreading the 

 tail into a broad fan, displaying themselves in a variety of natural attitudes, and then meeting to 

 caress each other with their ivory bills, uttering, at the same time, a low affectionate twitter. They 

 generally moved along the branches by a succession of light hops, after the manner of the Kokako 

 (Glaucapis ciiierea), and they often descended to the floor, where their mode of progression was the 

 same. They seemed never to tire of probing and chiselling with their beaks. Having discovered that 

 the canvas lining of the room was pervious, they were incessantly piercing it and tearing off large 

 strips of paper, till, in the course of a few days, the walls were completely defaced. 



" But what interested me most of all was the manner in which the birds assisted each other in 

 their search for food, because it appeared to explain the use, in the economy of nature, of the differently 

 formed bills in the two sexes. To divert the birds, I introduced a log of decayed wood infested with 

 the Imhu grub. They at once attacked it, carefully probing the softer parts with their bills, and then 

 vigorously assailing them, scooping out the decayed wood till the larva or pupa was visible, when it 

 was carefully drawn from its cell, treated in the way described above, and then swallowed. The very 

 different development of the mandibles in the two sexes enabled them to perform separate offices. 

 The male always attacked the more decayed portions of the wood, chiselling out his prey after the 

 manner of some Woodpeckers, while the female probed with her long pliant bill the other cells, where 

 the hardness of the surrounding parts resisted the chisel of her mate. Sometimes I observed the male 

 remove the decayed portions without being able to reach the grub, when the female would at once 

 come to his aid, and accomplish with her long slender bill what he had failed to do. I noticed, how- 

 ever, that the female always appropriated to her own use the morsels thus obtained. 



" For some days they refused to eat anything but huhu ; but by degrees they yielded to a change 

 of food, and at length would eat cooked potato, boiled rice, and raw meat minced up in small pieces. 

 They were kept supplied with a dish of fresh water, but seldom washed themselves, although often 

 repairing to the vessel to drink. Their ordinary call was a soft and clear whistle, at first prolonged, 

 then short and cmickly repeated, both birds joining in it. When excited or hungry, they raised 

 their whistling note to a high pitch j at other times it was softly modulated, with variations, or 



