20 



them, about eighty miles inland, about the year 1861, and that his attention 

 "was first called to them from the circumstance that they were gregarious, — a 

 habit not common with New Zealand birds. At Campbell Town it appeared 

 to be more scarce, being seen only in small flocks, varying in number from six 

 to twelve. '^ "^ * In 1866 my sons noticed numbers of them among my 

 cabbages, and observed that the cats caught many of them ; and further, that 

 whilst my cabbages in the three preceding years were infested with blight, in 

 that year there was little or no blight upon them till very late in the season. 

 They appear to migrate from this in the winter, or at any rate to be scarce." 



Mr. James P. Maitland, E,.M., of Molyneux, writes: — "Fi-om what I 

 hear from old settlers of seventeen or eighteen years standing — whom I can 

 trust as men of observation — I am convinced we have had the bii-ds here for 

 that time at any rate, although all agree that they have become miich more 

 numerous everywhere during the last seven years; and this year (1867) in 

 particular, I observe them in larger flocks than ever. I confess I do not 

 recollect noticing the bird until about six years ago ; but the smallness of their 

 number at that time, and the smallness of the bird itself, may easily account 

 for its being unnoticed in the bush. The gardens seem to be the great attraction 

 hei*e, and they are the best hands I know at picking a cherry or plum stone clean !" 

 All my own personal enquiries at Otago, during my first visit there in 

 February, 1865, led me to the same conclusion. 



In the selection of its breeding home, this bird has manifested with us the 

 same erratic tendencies : thus, for the first three or four years after its perma- 

 nent location in the North Island, it wintered in the low lands and the districts 

 bordering on the sea coast, and retired in summer to the higher forest lands of 

 the interior to breed and rear its young. In the summer of 1865, a few 

 stragglers were observed to remain behind all through the season, and in the 

 following year they sojourned in flocks and freely built their nests in our shrub- 

 beries and thickets, and even among the stunted fern and tea-tree (Leptospermu'ni) 

 near the sea shore. From that time to the present it has ranked as one of our 

 commonest birds all the year round ; and, what is even more remarkable, it 

 has very perceptibly increased in numbers, while most of our other insectivo- 

 rous birds are rapidly declining and threaten ere long to be extinct. 



To the philosophical naturalist the history of the Zosterops in New Zealand 

 is pregnant with interest, and I feel that no apology is needed for my having 

 thus minutely recorded it. 



A specimen which I gave to the Hev. E.. Taylor, and forwarded by him 

 to the British Museum, was identified by Dr. J. E. Gray as Zosterops dorsalis. 

 A notice thereof appeared in the Annals of Natural History, and in other 

 scientific papers, and the supposed migration of the species from Australia to 

 New Zealand excited considerable interest. Zosterops dorsalis is foimd to be 

 identical with Z. lateralis, Latham, and Mr. Gould's Z. ccerulesceTis is merely a 



