™~^^^^gH^HHI 



77 



/ 



To be exact, this abnormal example was obtained at the head of the Shotover river, 

 on the western side of the Motutapu. 



Lord Onslow, some years ago, presented a pair of these birds to the Zoological Society, 

 and, since then, others have been deposited in the Gardens, from time to time, but they 

 have seldom survived long. I attribute this to their being consigned to the Parrot-house, 

 with its quasi-tropical heat, to which they are, of course, unaccustomed. In the Antwerp 

 Zoological Gardens, under the admirable management of Mons. Michel Lhoest, I saw, 

 on my last visit there, a very healthy and vigorous example of this species ; but the bird 

 had been placed in a capacious cage in a cool house, with not too much light ; and, under 

 these conditions, it will probably live many years, to justify its name and to interest the 

 citizens of Antwerp. 



Order PSITTACIFORMES.l 



[Family NESTORIDiE. 



NESTOR ESSLINGI 



(YELLOW-BELTED KAKA.) 



Nestor meridionalis, var, esslingii (Souance); Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. i., p. 152. 



Consistently with the views put forward on pages 2 and 3, I can no longer refuse to 

 accord specific rank to Nestor esslingi. It was originally named by De Souance, and was 

 figured and described by Mr. Gould in the supplement to his superb folio work on ' The 

 Birds of Australia,' and the type specimen is still preserved in the National Collection. 

 I treated it (vol. i., p. 152) as a variety of the highly variable Nestor meridionalis. Count 

 Salvadori, however, who is an acknowledged authority on Parrots generally, admitted it as a 

 species in the ' Catalogue of Birds ' at the British Museum (vol. xx., p. 9.) without any 

 expression of doubt. 



Since the publication of my work I have had the opportunity of examining no less than 

 six examples, all obtained in the Marlborough district. My hesitancy about recognizing the 

 species as distinct was strengthened by noticing in one of these specimens an appearance of 

 albinism on the lower mandible, and similar traces on the toes of another. In all of them, 

 however, the broad transverse band of yellow was conspicuous, the cheeks highly coloured, 

 and the bill narrow or more attenuated in form than in the common Nestor, approaching more 

 nearly to that character in Nestor notabilis. In this respect, as well as in its general 

 coloration, it seems to occupy a midway position between N. meridionalis and N. productus 

 of Norfolk and Philip Islands, specimens of which are very rare.* 



* In a letter to the author, dated March 9th, 1901, Professor Newton says : " As to Nestor productus, I 

 know of only six specimens in this country, and not one of them is ever likely to come into the market : three 

 in the British Museum, one at Liverpool (formerly Tristram's and in very poor condition), one at Norwich 

 (obtained by Owen Stanley), and our own, which Strickland bought at Edinburgh in 1852, at a time when the 

 bird was not known to be extinct ; indeed, somewhere about 1850 or 1851 there was a live one in London, which 

 Gould saw. Of course a specimen might turn up at any time, but I have looked through many local museums 

 without finding one." 



