BuiiEer.— Ornithology of New Zealand. 223 
Very beautiful varieties of the kaka are sometimes met with. We have 
seen one with the whole of the plumage of brilliant scarlet shaded with 
brown, another of uniform pale yellow, and a third with green metallic 
reflections on all the upper parts. Pure albinos also are of occasional 
occurrence. These varieties are distinguished by the natives as kakakura 
kakakereru, and kakakorako, and are in high demand among them. 
Like most parrots, it is a long-lived bird.. One in the possession of the 
Upper Wanganui tribes has been chained to its pole for nearly twenty years, 
and presents the curious feature of its overgrown mandibles completely 
crossing each other! This is probably attributable to the fact of its having 
been constantly fed with soft food, thereby depriving the bill of its wear-and- 
tear incident to a state of nature. 
The remarkable genus Strigops, or night parrot, is strictly a New Zealand 
one. Besides the well-known species Strigops habroptilus (kakapo), there 
probably exists another “characterized by the light blue colour on the sides 
and tip of each plume, in the place of yellowish green; also by the plumes 
being white instead of yellow, and by their being more numerously banded 
with black.” Mr. Gray, from whose remarks we quote, proposes that, if 
hereafter proved to be distinct, the new species be named Strigops greyi, in 
honour of Sir George Grey, the Governor of this colony, who presented to 
the British Museum the specimen from which this description is taken. 
A highly interesting paper on the structure and habits of the kakapo 
was read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, in June, 1863, 
by Dr. Julius Haast, who, during his explorations on the West Coast of the 
South Island, where this bird is still comparatively plentiful, had ample 
opportunity for investigating the subject. The observations which he has 
so carefully and minutely recorded are a valuable contribution to science, 
for there can be little doubt that, as colonization spreads into the kakapo 
country, this species, like many others, will rapidly disappear. Birds pos- 
sessing so feeble a development of wing as to be unable to fly, cannot, in the 
struggle for existence, long withstand the oppression of men and their 
domestie attendants, dogs and cats. The introduced rat (which has multi- 
plied to a prodigious extent, and has almost exterminated the indigenous 
one) contributes also to the extinction of these races by preying on their 
eggs and young. 
yellow. Under surface of tail-feathers pale scarlet for two-thirds of their extent, and 
banded on their inner vane with brighter, ashy beyond, and yellowish towards the tip. 
Bill and legs "und bipinh gray. Extreme length, 20 inches; wing from flexure, 11}; tail, 
7%; rictus; 2} ; , 1; longest toe and claw, 2%. This extremely rare and beautiful 
parrot is an jaita of the alpine heights of the South Island. Several specimens 
have been obtained, one of which has recently been deposited in the Canterbury Museum 
by Alfred Cox, Esq. 
