COG MR. T. U. POTTS ON KEROPIA OEASSTROSTRIS. 



(Q-overnor'a Bay on Banks's Peninsula); it is now scarce in the 

 bush-dotted gullies of the Malvern Hills, the Thirteen-mile Bush, 

 Alford Forest, and in many other localities where it was not very 

 uncommon. Let an enthusiastic naturalist now traverse these 

 places in quest of our feathered philosopher, he will find he has 

 becoiiio a rara avis indeed. 



Now we must pass through those portals of the mountains, 

 the river-gorges, to catch sight of the Thrush hopping about the 

 openings in the bush, much after the fashion of his English name- 

 sake ; but even here its numbers have wofully diminished. Tour 

 or five years ago on either side of the Upper Rakaia, where the 

 bushes descend the mountain-slopes, these birds fairly teemed in 

 their favourite haunts; they are already becoming rare. They 

 may be seen about the bushes that skirt the cold streams of the 

 Havelock, the Upper AVaimakariri, and the Bealey, through the 

 romantic gorge of the Otira to the more level ground that stretches 

 away to the Tcremakau ; there it may be fi-equently heard and 

 seen, always appearing to prefer the timbered forests, the mixed 

 scrub made up of moderate-sized bushes of Olearia, Coriaria, 

 Veronica, and Goprosma. 



We have now almost reached the western coast. About the 

 Arahura river it was, three years since, most abundant. Last 

 December we searched one of their former favourite haunts (a 

 large island in tliut river, more or less covered with scrub-bush 

 dotted with ti trees) ; two or three specimens only were to be seen. 

 They have been driven away from Arahura by the clearances for 

 paddocks to supply the requirements of west-coast cattle-trade. 



Last December, in travelling along the coast from E-oss to 

 Okarito, we saw this bird in abundance on the face of those 

 bluffs which form such picturesque breaks in that journey ; up the 

 river-flats it was equally numerous. 



Settlers have given the name of the Thrush to the Piopio, from 

 its size and brown plumage recalling their favourite of the old 

 country : it possesses not in the slightest degree that charm of 

 song which distinguishes the Throstle ; yet it enjoys the power of 

 giving utterance to several pleasing notes. 



It does not stir so early as many other birds ; its morning 

 salute is along-drawn rather plaintive note ; this peculiar whistle 

 it indulges in at times only. Its habit, when close to the water, 

 is to pipe thrice in a way that at once recalls the Red-bill 

 (^HcBinatoptis) ; the imitation is so like, that the writer and his 



