182 Transactions. — Zoology. 



extinction of some particular form, and until we have before us well-considered 

 observations on both these subjects, we must remain unable to account for 

 such cases as those last above referred to. 



A very remarkable instance of rapid and apparently unaccountable ex- 

 tinction is presented to us in the North Island, in the case of Anthornis 

 melanura. For years after this colony had been settled this bird was 

 common all over both islands ; but it seems to have disappeared from the 

 North Island, although at present it is not merely abundant but actually 

 increasing in numbers on the other side of the Straits. The rat and the bee 

 may each have played a part in bringing about its disappearance from the 

 North Island, as both of these swarm all through the forest there, whilst in 

 the South Island the rat has been nearly extirpated from the great Fagus 

 forests by the woodhen (Ocydromus), and the bee is limited in its range to 

 the cultivated districts. But the cause of the disappearance of this bird is 

 mere matter of speculation, and I have only cited the case in order to show 

 how little we really know of the circumstances which may govern or limit 

 the distribution of any particular species. 



I do not know upon what authority Dr. Buller (in his Manual) has given 

 the Chatham Islands as a habitat of Stringopis habroptilus. I find no men- 

 tion of this in his larger work. He probably follows Mr. Wallace in making 

 the statement, but without giving the reasons assigned for it by that writer. 

 Mr. Wallace says (speaking of the Chatham Islands) " that the Natives 

 • — I presume the Morioris — declare that both the Stringops and Apterycc 

 once inhabited the islands, but were exterminated about the year 1835." 

 In the first place, so far as I have been able to ascertain, the Morioris had 

 no knowledge whatever of either Stringops or Apterycc. In the next place, 

 the date fixed for their extirpation is singular. It was in that year that a 

 numerous war -party of the Ngatitama (one of the most savage and ruthless 

 of the New Zealand tribes) chartered a whaleship to take them to the 

 Chathams, the existence of that group and its occupation by a peaceful 

 and well-fed people having been reported to them by a member of their 

 tribe, who was serving as a sailor in an European vessel which had then 

 recently come into Wellington Harbour after visiting that group. 



The Ngatitama invaded the islands for the sole purpose of slaughter and 

 cannibalism, and, in the course of a very few months, had nearly "extir- 

 pated " the unfortunate Morioris, one of the leading chiefs of the invaders 

 (whose taiaha, made from the bone of a whale, is in the Wellington Museum) 

 actually living for many months almost exclusively upon the flesh of young 

 children. Until the statement above referred to had appeared in Mr. 

 Wallace's work, my son, who was the first to collect systematically the 

 fauna and flora of the Chatham Islands, and who spent upwards of a year 



