Potts. — New Zealand Birds. 179 



in the Canterbury Museum. This summer the blight bird is far less abundant 

 than it has been for several years, the exceptionally severe winter of 1872 having 

 greatly diminished its numbers. Birds of this species, dead and dying, were 

 often observed after storms of snow-sleefc, or even cold rain ; this tenderness 

 of constitution is a strong argument in favour of the opinion of the writer, 

 that the Zosterops is but a recent settler amongst us. 



No. 36. — Keropia crassirostris, Gray. 

 Pio-pio. 

 Thrush. 



[Notes of a Paper forwarded to the Linncean Society.] 



In writing on the natural history of our birds, the bewailment of their 

 lessened numbers has come to be a matter of course, the rapid settlement of 

 the country has, in the case of the thrush, limited its range greatly, few birds 

 having retreated with so much haste before the efforts of the cultivator. 



Let us take a section of this island, say one hundred miles in width, 

 including Banks Peninsula, and stretching from the eastern to the western 

 shore, this will afford some information as to its present habitat. 



Within this range at one time, the pio-pio might be found in any bushy 

 place, not too far from water, where belts of shrubs afforded shelter and 

 abundance of seeds ; ten years at least have passed since we heard of its 

 occurrence in this neighbourhood (G-overnor Bay); on Banks Peninsula proper 

 it is now scarce ; in the bush-dotted gullies of the Malvern Hills, the 

 Thirteen-mile Bush, Alford Forest, and many other localities, it was not very 

 uncommon ; now, let an enthusiastic naturalist traverse these places in quest 

 of our feathered philosopher, he will find it has become a rara avis indeed. 



We must pass through these portals of the mountains, the river gorges, 

 to catch sight of the thrush hopping about the openings of the bush, much 

 after the fashion of its English namesake ; but even here its numbers have 

 become woefully diminished ; four or five years ago, on either side of the 

 Upper E-akaia, where the bushes descend the mountain slopes, these birds fairly 

 teemed in their favourite haunts, but they are already becoming rare. They 

 may be seen about the bushes that skirt the cold streams of the Havelock, the 

 Upper Waimakariri, and the Bealey; through the romantic gorge of the Otira 

 to the more level ground that stretches away to the Teremakau it may be 

 frequently seen, always appearing to prefer the timbered forests, the mixed 

 scrub, made-up of moderate sized bushes of Coriaria, Olearea, Veronica, and 

 Coprosma. 



As we reach the western coast, about the Arahura river it was, three 

 years since, most abundant. Last December we searched one of their 

 former favourite haunts, a large island in that river more or less covered 



