194 Transactions.— Zoology. 
Major Mair reports another example from the Pirongia ranges in the 
Waikato ;* a second has been met with in the bush near Major Marshall's 
(Upper Rangitikei); and a third is reported from Auckland. Ofthe last-men- 
tioned Mr. T. F. Cheeseman, the Curator of the Auckland Museum, writes 
me :—'* You will be interested to hear that a solitary individual of the black 
fantail has been repeatedly seen near Auckland this winter. It was first 
noticed by Mr. James Baker in his garden at Remuera ; afterwards it visited 
Mr. Hay's nursery garden where it remained for some weeks; and it has 
since been noticed about several of the residences at Remuera. I was 
fortunate enough to see it one evening when walking home, and can 
consequently vouch for its being the South Island species. Its occurrence 
so far to the north is certainly very remarkable." 
CARPOPHAGA NOVE-ZEALANDIZ, Gray.— Wood-pigeon. 
At the Rev. Mr. Chapman's old mission station at Te Ngae (Rotorua), 
formed in 1835, and now much out of repair and overgrown, there are 
several hundred acres of sweet-briars, run wild and presenting quite an 
impenetrable thicket. During the autumn months, when the red berries of 
the briars are fully ripe, large numbers of our wood-pigeons resort to these 
grounds to feed on this fruit, and at this season become exceedingly fat. 
In the Rev. Mr. Spencer's fine old garden at Tarawera, where well- 
grown specimens of English oak, elm, and walnut mingle in rich profusion 
with almost every kind of native tree and shrub, a pair of these birds some 
time ago took up their abode and bred for two successive years, at a spot 
not fifty feet from the reverend pastor's study windows. And they would 
doubtless have continued to breed in this quiet retreat had not one of the 
Maori school-boys, anxious to try his fowling-piece and wholly unmindful 
of the oceasion, shot both birds during the breeding season, leaving a pair 
of callow young to perish miserably in their nest. 
Trinega canutus, Linn.—The Knot. 
Mr. Cheeseman, of Auckland, sends me the following note, under date 
August 14 :—“ Has the knot (Tringa canutus) been previously recorded 
from the North Island? My brother shot a specimen (in winter plumage) 
in Hobson Bay a few months ago, and the skin is now in the Museum. I 
believe that I have frequently seen it on the extensive mud flats near the 
mouth of the Thames river.” 
This is the first authentic record of this species in the North Island ; but 
Captain Mair has described to me a bird found associating, in considerable 
numbers, with the kuaka and dottrel on the East Coast, which I have no 
doubt is the same. It has not, however, been met with yet on the Wellington 
coasts ; and the only specimen in the Colonial Museum is one which I 
* Vide “Trans, N.Z, Inst.,” IX, p. 330, 
