4480 Tue ZooLocisT—JUNE, 1875. 
modified: at a certain period of the year weeks of drought prevail. 
The kokako, loving a moist temperature, will probably soon entirely 
forsake its ancient places of resort. These remarks on Banks 
Peninsula, as an habitat for arboreals, are more or less applicable 
to a very large extent of country on the eastern side of the 
Southern Alps. 
Under favourable conditions the kokako may be found on the 
outskirts of the bush, in the open glades that fringe some of the 
larger rivers. The gentle, confident manners, the rich flute-like 
notes, the peculiar mode of progression even, cannot fail to draw 
the attention of the observer, albeit he may not be imbued with 
enthusiasm for gazing on the life that stirs in our woods. The 
ardent naturalist, who has the chance of knowing this bird, must 
learn to love it. In the earlier spring months we have watched 
it out on the open glade cropping various species of Graminez, 
Gnaphalia and Polypodia: often has its soft note attracted us to the 
bush, where it has been feeding on the leaves of Melicytus, Car- 
podetus, &c. As summer advances, ripening the clustering drupes 
and berries, the fruit of the Fuchsia and the Coriaria afford an 
abundant supply of a favourite food. We have found it engaged, 
seemingly, in a search for insects, prying amongst the hoary fila- 
ments of the drooping graybeard moss that decks the branches of 
so many trees in some of the gloomy alpine valleys. The long 
tarsi carry the body well above the damp mosses, when collecting 
its food on the ground; its mode of progression, by a series of 
leaps or bounds, may also tend to keep its plumage clear of humid 
plants. When really alarmed it leaps with great rapidity, covering 
a wide space of ground with each effort. Like the keropia, it seeks 
safety amidst the low undergrowth of the forest. The sexes appear 
to be united in close companionship. We have noticed a pair on 
some favourite fruit-bearing tree caressing each other with their 
beaks. A pair kept in confinement lived thus imprisoned for about 
two years, but when one died its mate only survived some few 
days. 
In December, 1869, Donald H. Potts, one of the writer’s sons, 
found a nest on the outstretched limb of a broad-leaf tree (Griselinia 
littoralis), a few feet above a creek. This was on the Havelock 
River. In January last, whilst exploring the bush that fringes 
Milford Sound, the writer was so fortunate as to discover five nests, 
at heights varying from ten to seventeen feet above the ground. 
SS 
