194 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Major Mail' reports another example from the Pirongia ranges in the 

 Waikato f- a second has been met with in the bush near Major Marshall's 

 (Upper Eangitikei) ; and a third is reported from Auckland. Of the last-men- 

 tioned Mr. T. F. Cheeseman, the Curator of the Auckland Museum, writes 

 me :- — " You will be interested to hear that a solitary individual of the black 

 fantail has been repeatedly seen near Auckland this winter. It was first 

 noticed by Mr. James Baker in his garden at Remuera ; afterwards it visited 

 Mr. Hay's nursery garden where it remained for some weeks ; and it has 

 since been noticed about several of the residences at Eemuera. I was 

 fortunate enough to see it one evening when walking home, and can 

 consequently vouch for its being the South Island species. Its occurrence 

 so far to the north is certainly very remarkable." 



Cakpophaga NOViE-zEALANDi^, Gray. — Wood-pigeon. 



At the Rev. Mr. Chapman's old mission station at Te Ngae (Rotorua), 

 formed in 1835, and now much out of repau' and overgrown, there are 

 several hundred acres of sweet-briars, run wild and presenting quite an 

 impenetrable thicket. During the autumn months, when the red berries of 

 the briars are fully ripe, large numbers of our wood-pigeons resort to these 

 grounds to feed on this fruit, and at this season become exceedingly fat. 



In the Rev. Mr. Spencer's fine old garden at Tarawera, where well- 

 grown specimens of English oak, elm, and walnut mingle in rich profusion 

 with almost every kind of native tree and shrub, a pair of these birds some 

 time ago took up their abode and bred for two successive years, at a s^oot 

 not fifty feet from the reverend pastor's study windows. And they would 

 doubtless have coiatinued to breed in this quiet retreat had not one of the 

 Maori school-boys, anxious to try his fowling-piece and wholly unmindful 

 of the occasion, shot both birds during the breeding season, leaving a i^air 

 of callow young to perish miserably in their nest. 



Teinga canutus, Linn. — The Knot. 



Mr. Cheeseman, of Auckland, sends me the following note, under date 

 August 1-i : — " flas the kaot (Tringa canutus) been previously recorded 

 from the North Island? My brother shot a specimen (in winter plumage) 

 in Hobson Bay a few months ago, and the skin is now in the Museum. I 

 believe that I have frequently seen it on the extensive mud flats near the 

 mouth of the Thames river." 



This is the first authentic record of this species in the North Island ; but 

 Captain Mair has described to me a bird found associating, in considerable 

 numbers, with the kuaka and dottrel on the East Coast, which I have no 

 doubt is the same. It has not, however, been met with yet on the Wellington 

 coasts ; and the only specimen in the Colonial Museum is one which I 



* Vide " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," IX, p. 330. 



