210 Transactions.—Z oology. 
Captain Hutton, in the communication referred to,* suggested that the 
districts in which the bird was all but exterminated were only those thickly 
inhabited by Maoris, to which the obvious reply was that the extensive 
wooded district lying between Whangarei and the North Cape is not 
inhabited by Maoris at all. Dr. Hector, who made a geological survey of 
that district in 1868, did not meet with a single korimako, whereas formerly 
these birds existed there by thousands. My remarks on the present 
scarcity of the species were intended to refer principally to the North 
sland, but even in the South, as I have already pointed out (“ Trans. 
N.Z. Inst.,” vol. IX., p. 880), it is far less plentiful than it formerly was. 
Doubtless it is only a question of a few years, and the sweet notes of this 
native songster will cease to be heard in the grove, and naturalists, when 
compelled to admit the fact, will be left to speculate and argue as to the 
causes of its extinction. 
My observations as to the extreme rarity of this species in the North 
Island, where in former years it was the commonest of the perchers, are 
confirmed by Captain Mair, who informs me that during the last eight 
years he has never met with it at all, except on the Island of Mokoia (a 
place of some historic interest in the Rotorua Lake, about 600 acres 
in extent), and in a tract of manuka bush covering about a thousand 
acres of land at the foot of Mount Edgecumbe. In both of these localities 
it is still very plentiful. : 
In 1868, Captain Hutton found the korimako abundant on Great Barrier 
Island, although even then scarce on the main-land ;ł and in 1871 Major 
Mair met with it on the Rurima Rocks and on Whale Island, in the Bay of 
Plenty, places about five miles apart. He records the delight with which 
he again listened to its sweet note, and adds, “the Maoris think that it is 
the sole survivor of the race, and that it flies backwards and forwards 
between these islands." ! 
Although I have travelled a good deal through the forests of the interior 
since my return from Europe in 1874, I have positively never met with a 
single example of this bird on the mairi-land ; but during a storm-bound visit 
to the island of Kapiti, in April last, I was charmed immediately on landing 
to hear the musical notes of the bell-bird again, and to meet with it in every 
direction among the stunted karaka groves that clothe the western slopes of 
the island. In the course of an afternoon I saw a score or more of them 
within a very limited area, and on a second and more extended visit on the 
following day I found them equally numerous. I met with another bird 
. * See “Ibis,” January, 1874. T “ Trans. N.Z. Inst.," L, p. 161. 
tł “Trans. N.Z. Inst." V., p. 152, 
