202 • Transactums. — Zoology. 



Platyceecus nov^-zealandi^, Sparnn. — Eed-fronted Parrakeet. 



The Hon. W. Fox, who has just returned from a trip through the 

 Canterbilry district, informs me tlaat the farmers have suffered this season 

 a visitation, tens of thousands of these birds having descended on tlieir 

 ripening crops of corn and proved ahnost as destructive as an army of 

 locusts. It is difficult to account for these occasional irruptions in such 

 numbers, in the case of a bird not otherwise plentiful. 



Steingops habroptilus. Gray. — Owl Parrot. 



Until within the last few jesivs the kakapo abounded in the Urewera 

 country, and the natives were accustomed to hunt them at night with dogs 

 and torches. The Maori proverb, " Ka puru a putaihinu" relates to the 

 former abundance of this bird. The natives say that the Kakapo is 

 gregarious, and that when numbers of them congregated at night their 

 noise could be heard to a considerable distance. Hence the application of 

 the above proverb, which is used to denote the rumbling of distant thunder. 



It is said that the kakapo is stiU abundant on the v/ooded ranges of the 

 Kaimanawa, in the Taupo district. 



Halcyon vagans, Less. — Ne^ Zealand Kingfisher. 



Eeverting to an old controversy between Captain Hutton and myself,* 

 in which I maintained the piscivorous habits of our kingfisher, under 

 certain conditions, I may add to the argument the following note lately 

 received from Captain Mair : — '" The kingfisher is found in all the mountain 

 streams of the Urewera and Bay of Plenty districts. It subsists largely on 

 small fresh-water fish (mohiwai of the natives), also on flies, moths, and 

 beetles. Referring to your interesting account of its nesting habits in the 

 'Birds of New Zealand,' I may mention that I have found three or four 

 pairs building in close association in a clay bank, and that on one occasion 

 I counted ten pairs boring in the standing trunk of a dead and decaying 

 rimu. I have never found more than five eggs in a nest." 



ZosTEROPS LATERALIS, Reich. — Silver-eyc. 



I have lately had an opportunity of examining a beautiful series of 

 the nests of this species, and through all the variety of individual form 

 and structure they preserve two essential features — -namely, the large cup- 

 like cavity with thin walls, and the admixture of long hairs in the lining 

 material. I have already mentioned f the cu'cumstance of pigs' bristles 

 being pressed into the service in a part of the country not much frequented 

 by horses or cattle ; and in one of the nests forming the above series, the 

 proximity to civilization was proclaimed by a lining consisting of the flaxen 

 hair from a child's doll ! 



* " The Ibis," Jan., 187-1, " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," VI., p. 129. 

 t " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," Vm., p. 183. 



