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the elevated wooded country ; but of late years it has become comparatively scarce, while in some 

 districts it has disappeared altogether. This result is attributable, in a great measure, to the 

 ravages of cats and dogs, to which this species, from its ground-feeding habits, falls an easy prey. 



Dr. Hector informs me that, during his exploration of the West Coast in the years 1862-63, 

 he found it very abundant, and on one occasion counted no less than forty in the immediate 

 vicinity of his camp. They were very tame, sometimes hopping up to the very door of his tent to 

 pick up crumbs ; and he noticed that the camp-dogs were making sad havoc among them. He 

 is of opinion that in a few years this species also will be numbered among the extinct ones. 



Mr. Buchanan, of the Geological Survey, assures me that in the woods in the neighbourhood 

 of Dunedin, where it was formerly very common, it has been quite exterminated by the wild cats. 

 It may be here observed that there is no indigenous cat in our country ; but ill-fed or ill-used 

 members of the race, in the struggle for existence, frequently quit the settlers' houses and betake 

 themselves to the woods, where they, in course of time, produce a purely wild breed. To this 

 cause is partly owing the almost entire extermination of the Quail and other ground species. 



The habits of this bird differ in no respect, so far as I am aware, from those of its congener 

 in the North Island. The following incident is illustrative of its predaceous nature : — My brother, 

 Mr. Fletcher Buller, while residing in Canterbury, obtained a live one from the woods, and 



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placed it in a cage with a pair of tame Parrakeets {Platycercus novce zealandim). On the follow- 

 ing morning he found, to his dismay, that the newly introduced bird had slain both of his fellow 



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prisoners, and was actually engaged in eating off the head of one of them ! 



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