NOTORNIS MANTELLI IN WESTERN OTAGO. 805 
during the day. On asking him what he knew of that bird, he 
said he was one of the party of rabbiters who caught the Takahe 
near Lake Te Anau in 1880; and, as he had often heard the call 
of that bird and its mate, which, by the way, was never captured, 
he was quite sure the booming note which he had heard during 
the day was that of a Takahe. In view of the determination I 
had previously arrived at, I considered this evidence conclusive 
that this was indeed the Notornis. I may mention that this was 
the first occasion on which I heard the Notornis spoken of as the 
Takahe, the only name by which it was known to my field-hand. 
That same evening, and every successive evening afterwards 
during my stay at Dusky Sound, I heard two Takahes in the bush 
at no great distance from the hut. In the course of my various 
excursions in this sound I heard the Takahe at the following 
places, not including those already mentioned :—In the left-hand 
branch of Docherty’s Creek, not far from the open country; at 
the north end of Cooper’s Island ; ina gully on the southern slopes 
of Mount Pender, apparently not far from the beach ; and on the 
south side of the sound, about opposite the upper end of Cooper’s 
Island. 
It will be remembered that the first specimen of Notornis, 
secured by Mr. Mantell, was captured at Duck Cove, Resolution 
Island, a distance of some seven miles from Cooper’s Island ; and 
the second at Secretary Island, in Thompson’s Sound, about thirty 
miles further up the coast. After a lapse of over thirty years a 
third specimen was captured in 1880, near Lake Te Anau; and 
the following year it was heard in the Upper Matukituki Valley, 
behind Mount Aspiring, by myself and others of an exploring 
party; and now, again, in the beginning of the present year, at 
Dusky Sound, by myself and others. When passing through 
Wellington some four months ago Docherty informed the Hon. 
Mr. Mantell that he had recently seen a Notornis at Dusky Sound. 
He said he came upon it in the bush close to the beach, and that - 
it flew some distance on to the water, and then made back to 
the shore. 
I think I have said enough to show that the Notornis still 
exists in the lonely sounds and mountain-recesses of Western 
Otago, in places far removed from the ordinary haunts of men. 
That it is gradually becoming extinct is no doubt quite true, but, 
whatever the cause, it can hardly be said to be on account of the 
