90 



Major Mair informs me that the Kakapo, according to the Maoris, is still to be found in the 

 Upper Wanganui. Formerly it was very abundant there, as also in the Kaimanawa Eanges, in 

 the direction of Taupo. Major Mair adds : " The natives caught the Kakapo by the aid of 

 trained dogs. The birds, when going out to feed, always placed one on sentry. The object with 

 the Kakapo-hunter was to bag this one first, then the whole family would be secured ; but if the 

 sentinel gave the alarm the others all slipped over the side of the ridge. The dogs used to wear 

 a rattle, called by the Whanganui tatara, and by the Ngatimaniapoto rore. The purpose of this 

 rattle was that the masters of the dogs should know where they were." 



Captain Gr. Mair writes me that, according to the Maoris, on Hauhangataho, an isolated hill 

 about ten miles to the westward of Euapehu and the watershed of the Manganuiateao, Kakapos 

 are still plentiful. His informant, Wi Takerei, showed him the feathers of two he had killed 

 at the foot of the Kaimanawa Range, near Tokano. 



The food of the Kakapo consists entirely of vegetable matter, and it has a prodigious 

 appetite. In a standard American work appears the extraordinary statement that it " burrows 

 in the ground or in holes in the rocks, and feeds upon worms and grubs " ! 



I have described in Vol. I. (pp. 179-189) the natural surroundings of the Kakapo in its 

 favourite haunts. The subjoined reproduced photograph gives a very good idea of the home of 

 this remarkable Parrot. This is one of my daughter's most successful efforts, the negative being 

 itself very sharp and the details of the picture well produced. It was taken at Wet Jacket Arm, 

 on the West Coast, where this Parrot abounds. The Kakapo browses, so to speak, on the green 

 mosses that carpet the ground, and its colours are so closely assimilated to those of the vegetation 

 as almost to defy detection, even at close quarters. Although nocturnal in its habits, it also 

 comes out to feed in the shade during dull weather and towards evening, when this protective 

 colouring must be a great safeguard to the bird. 



Mr. Roberts, when camping out with his survey party, saw three Kakapos deliberately 

 warming themselves by his wood fire. They preened their feathers and seemed perfectly at 

 home. From the Maitai River southward to Milford Sound he found Kakapos pretty numerous 

 in all the Fagus forests. To the northward of the Maitai River he never met with it, although 

 examples have been obtained from the wooded ranges behind the Ross Diggings. Sir J. Yon 

 Haast met with it on the Maruia Plains, as recorded in his exploration of the Nelson Province. 



A specimen in the Southland Museum presents the blue glint on the plumage of the upper 

 surface, characteristic of the so-called Stringops greyi, Gray. 



As showing how tenacious the British Museum Catalogue is of its nomenclature, I may 

 mention that Stringops greyi is retained as a good species, by Count Salvadori, notwith- 

 standing that I showed conclusively in 1872 ('Birds of N. Z.,' 1st ed., p. 27) that it 

 was a mere individual variety of Stringops habroptilus. Even in his recently published 

 1 Handlist ' Dr. Sharpe includes it as a recognised species, adding, however, in a footnote : 

 " The Hon. Walter Rothschild (in litt.) considers that S. greyi is only an abnormally coloured 

 example of S. habroptilus." 



I have described in Vol. I. (pp. 177-78) several remarkable varieties of this bird, the 

 tendency generally being towards a more or less yellow plumage. I received from Martin's 

 Bay a paler-coloured specimen than I had previously seen, the entire under-surface being dull 

 lemon-yellow clouded with obscure green and brown, the upper parts much suffused with yellow, 

 the tail-feathers clear lemon-yellow with black shafts and obscurely barred and toothed with 

 brown, the primaries lemon-yellow and the secondaries greenish-yellow, with similar blackish- 

 brown markings to those of the ordinary bird. 



My collector, Mr. Charles Robinson, gave me the following note : "I forgot to mention to you 

 the fact that I have invariably found that the Kakapo assimilates its colour to the vegetation 



