BuLLER, — Replies to Button's Notes. 127 



endorse all my views. Besides, as I have explained in my preface, onr present 

 knowledge of many of the rarer species is confessedly imperfect, while in 

 regard to all of them some new fact is being constantly added to the general 

 stock of information. The notes and corrections of impartial observers in New 

 Zealand will be very valuable to me, as they will assist in making a future 

 edition of my work more exhaustive and complete. The first contribution of 

 this kind is Captain Hutton's paper, which appeared in the last number of 

 "The Ibis." But, in attempting to correct my inaccuracies, Captain Hutton 

 appears to have fallen into many errors himself] 



*' SCELOGLAUX ALBIFACIES. 



" I cannot agree with Dr. Buller's remark that * the extinction of the 

 native rat has been followed by the almost total disappearance of this singular 

 bird,' nor with the conclusion that he draws from it ; for I have elsewhere 

 pointed out (Trans, E". Z. Inst. Y., p. 230) that there is no evidence that an 

 indigenous rat ever existed in this country ; and supposing even that there 

 had been a ' native rat,' it could only have been exterminated by other rats 

 and mice taking its place. There is also no evidence to show that the Laughing 

 Owl was formerly ' moi'e plentiful than it now is,' or that it has now almost 

 totally disappeared. During a short tour of six weeks through the Nelson 

 Province last summer, I twice heard it, once at Fox Hill, and again on the 

 river Conway. 



" Besides its laugh it has a peculiar note, like two branches of a tree rubbing 

 together, repeated twice over at considerable intervals. 



" Its laugh is very different from that of the bird that I heard on the Little 

 Barrier Island (Trans. N.Z. Inst. L, p. 162), which I think must be of 

 another species." 



[Capt. Hutton states that there is no evidence to show that the Laughing 

 Owl was formerly more plentiful than it now is, or that it has almost totally 

 disappeared. Of the former fact I haA^e abundant evidence in the accounts 

 given by the Maoris. As to its present scarcity, it may be sufficient to state 

 that I have never heard of more than a dozen specimens, and have never seen 

 but one living example. Capt. Hutton does not state that he has ever met 

 with the bird outside of a mviseum ; and the peculiar sound, " like two 

 branches of a tree rubbing together," which he has so often heard in the 

 forest, may, I think, be accounted for in a very simple manner.] 



"Stringops habroptilus. 



" Dr. Buller's mistake in supposing that the superficial analogy of the 

 facial disk of this bird to that of an Owl, as well as the softness of its plumage 

 and its nocturnal habits, seem 'to prove that it supplies in the grand scheme 

 of nature the connecting link between the Owls and Parrots,' has been already 



