206 Transactions.—Z oology. 
July, at which time they are very fat. They are caught by a very simple 
artifice. The natives, having marked their principal haunts, drive rows of 
stakes into the swampy soil at distances of a few feet. These are connected 
by means of flax-strings, from which are suspended hair-like nooses (made 
of the fibrous leaf of Cordyline) arranged in close succession, with the edges 
overlapping, and placed just high enough from the ground to catch the bird’s 
head as it moves along the surface in search of food. As the swamp-hen 
is semi-nocturnal in its habits, being most active after dusk, it has less 
opportunity of avoiding the treacherous loops. It frequents the Maori 
plantations in considerable numbers and proves very destructive to the 
young crops, and later in the season it plunders the potato fields and 
kumera beds. The snaring of these birds, therefore, on this large scale, 
answers a double purpose, inasmuch as they are excellent eating when 
roasted in their own fat. Their eggs also are much sought after in the 
nesting season, being esteemed as great a delicacy as ‘‘ plover’s eggs." 
HIMANTOPUS NOVE-ZEALANDIA, Gould.—Black Stilt. 
This species, as well as the pied stilt, is very plentiful in the Lake 
district. They appear to subsist chiefly on the dead gnats that float on 
the surface of the water in the sulphur springs. The plovers are continually 
to be seen wading about in the warm yellow water of these springs, feeding 
on the floating scum and on the small salamander worms which abound in 
these places. 
ANARHYNCHUS FRONTALIS, Quoy et Gaim.—Wry-billed Plover. 
This very peculiar bird with an asymmetrical bill is tolerably common 
in the Bay of Plenty. They associate freely with the flocks of godwit on 
their feeding-grounds and resting-places during the alternation of the tides. 
ARDEA SYRMATOPHORA, Gould.— White Heron. 
This stately bird appears so rarely in the North Island that the natives 
distinguish it as “the bird seen once in a life-time.” In the summer of 
1865 a pair visited the Mangrove Swamp at Whangarei, and remained 
there several weeks. The year before a pair was seen in Whangape Lake 
in the Lower Waikato; in 1867 another pair frequented, for some time, the 
marshy ground at the mouth of the Maketu River, and again in 1867 a pair 
visited the banks of the Waihi in the same district. The natives made 
every possible effort to obtain these birds for the sake of the white plumes. 
In both of the last-mentioned cases they succeeded in killing one of them, 
the survivor remaining in the locality for several months, leaving only on 
the approach of winter. 
ARDEA SACRA, Gmelin.—Blue Heron. 
A pair was seen by Captain Mair on the Taupo Lake iu October, 1875, 
It is tolerably common along the shores of ihe Bay of Plenty. 
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