THE ZooLoGisT—JUNE, 1875. 4479 
insects he has collected to the close neighbourhood of the busy 
female, and calls her to the feast. The female commences sitting 
before her full number of eggs is laid, and when she leaves—not 
when she is driven from—her charge, feathers are carefully arranged 
above the eggs or young. Compared with some species, the young 
birds are fed for rather a long time in the nest. A pair this season 
built in the roof ofa bedroom in Christchurch, but did not succeed 
in rearing any young ones. The male weighs not quite half an ounce, 
being slightly heavier than the female. Note.—Jan. 11,1873. Nest 
on moss-covered stump, Milford Sound. 
Keropia crassirostris,Gmel.—The average weight of thrushes of 
either sex may be called three ounces and a half. 
Flycatchers (Rhipidura).— August 28th and 29th. At Ohinitahi, 
this spring, the writer had two wnion nests under observation almost 
from the foundation of the structures being fixed. In one case the 
black parent bird (R. fuliginosa) was distinguished with the white 
spot over each ear; in the second instance the dark bird had not 
any white spot. As these nests were being built simultaneously, 
season had nothing to do with the assumption of the white plume- 
lets. The weight of R. flabellifera does not exceed a quarter of 
an ounce. 
Kokako, Orange-wattled Crow, or Wattle-bird (Glaucopis 
cinerea, Gmel.).—The representatives of the Corvide are to be met 
with on either side of Cook Strait. The Middle-Island species is 
the orange-wattled crow (G. cinerea): it is being driven away by 
the approach of the colonist, for as the coast-line of a large portion 
of New Zealand exhibited signs, or echoed the sounds of the work 
of the settler in his encroachments on the tangled wilderness of 
Nature, the kokako retired to the higher and more remote bushes 
of the interior. To give an instance: Banks Peninsula, so often 
cited by Dr. Finsch, where the crow once abounded, is now divided 
into sheep runs or dotted with dairy farms; the once-silent woods 
now resound with the blows of the felling-axe or the harsh grating 
of the saw-mill. It is not a matter for surprise that the wattle-bird 
is no longer to be found in its old haunts; it seeks shelter amongst 
the higher parts of the bushy gullies—a refuge at once precarious 
and temporary. It may be thought that the bird has attained a 
secluded habitat, but the condition of the forest is rapidly changing 
under the effects of clearings and constantly-recurring bush fires. 
There is not much doubt that the climate of the district has become 
