BuLLER. — Ornithology of New Zealand. 215 



characters, and illustrated by twenty -nine coloured figures, many of them 

 being life-size. But Mr. Grray's most valuable contribution to southern 

 ornithology is the synopsis which appeai^ed^in "The Ibis" of July, 1862, 

 in which his former list is reproduced with corrections, the newly recorded 

 species added, and the list extended by the incorporation of the birds hitherto 

 found on Norfolk, Phillip, Middleton's, Lord Howe's, Macaulay's and Nepean 

 Islands. This enumeration contains 173 species, of which number 122 are 

 noticed as occurring in New Zealand and the Chatham Islands. 



The new species and stragglers since discovered* swell the number of 

 our known birds to 133 ; and there is every reason to believe that, as the 

 country becomes more thoroughly explored, the list will be considerably 

 augmented. 



When we reflect that New Zealand is cut off from the rest of the earth 

 by a wide expanse of ocean, we can hardly be surprised that of the number 

 stated, only sixty-nine species are, strictly speaking, land birds ; yet if we 

 take the aggregate number of our recorded birds, including a few that only 

 appear at remote intervals as stragglers, we find that for the extent of 

 country the list is a comparatively large one, being about one-fourth of the 

 total number found in Europe. 



But the ornithology of New Zealand, if not very important numerically, 

 possesses many peculiar features of considerable interest to the general 

 zoologist. 



The former existence in these islands of a race of giant wingless birds 

 not only constitutes a most important fact in natural history, but tends to 

 enhance greatly the interest of the existing avifauna, which is found to 

 contain diminutive types of some of the extinct colossal forms. Like the 

 dodo of the Mauritius, the moa and its kindred have passed away almost 

 within the memory of man, and till very recently it was generally believed 

 that some of the smaller species still existed in the remote and unexplored 

 parts of the country. Of their former existence in great numbers we have 

 ample evidence in the traditions of the Maoris and in the abundance of their 

 fossil remains. It appears that when the Maori ancestors first settled in 

 these islands, about five hundred years ago, they found them tenanted by a 



* The author has communicated to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury notices of 

 the following species, yiz. -.^—Sirix haastii, Gerygone assimilis, Miimis carunculatiis, Creadiori 

 cinereus, Nycticorax caledonicus, Mallus featherstonii, Nesonetta aucJclandica, and Lestris 

 antarcticus ; but as the Proceedings of the Society have not yet been published, to avoid 

 confusion in treating of new species, descriptive notes will be added to this essay. In the 

 large and valuable collection of New Zealand birds formed by Dr. Ilector, and now de- 

 posited in the Provincial Museum at Dunedin, there is a line specimen of this Lestris, 

 beside many other rare and interesting birds, all of which have been collected in the Province 

 of Otago. A list of the birds in this interesting collection has been prepared for the - 

 catalogue of the New Zealand Exhibition by the author of this essay. 



