107 



conditions of existence and new environment will do. Before it was destroyed this little 

 beast had killed six hens ! The taxidermist of the Museum, when exhibiting the skin, informed 

 me that not long before a female ferret had got access to his dovecot, and, in a single night, 

 killed no less than twenty adult pigeons. Sir James Hector, however, outdid this narrative 

 by assuring me that one of his neighbours lost thirty-seven hens and chickens in a single 

 night, whilst another lost about forty. In both these cases the marauding ferret was killed 

 and afterwards preserved in the Colonial Museum. As Sir James remarked to me, a blood- 

 thirsty beast like the one killed by Mr. Gore — as large as an ordinary cat— would not 

 hesitate to attack and kill a child. In all these cases the destroyer of the ferret rendered 

 himself liable to a penalty of Five Pounds, recoverable summarily ! From this point of view 

 there was nothing unreasonable in the suggestion of a " son of the soil" that the "man 

 in authority who authorised this importation into the colony deserved to have his ears 

 struck off and nailed to the back of the Museum door as a caution to evil-doers ! " 



The mistaken zeal of the Government and of the various Acclimatisation Societies 

 is producing the result of which Professor Newton warned the colonists years ago. The 

 following paragraph from a Canterbury newspaper sufficiently attests the fact : — 



The Small Bird Nuisance. — So great a pest has the small bird nuisance become in Canterbury that 

 the local Road Boards and County Councils are taking steps towards shaping a course of united action.. 

 Over £3,000 have been spent this season in purchasing heads and eggs of Sparrows and Blackbirds. The 

 largest number of eggs received in one day by a local body was 28,152 by the Springs Boad Board. In- 

 some districts men and boys are reported to have made from 30s. to £2 per week in collecting heads and! 

 eggs, but in spite of this there does not appear to be any decrease in the number of birds. They seem 

 to be for ever on the increase. The Waimate County Council spent about £300 in purchasing heads and 

 eggs, paying away as much in one day as £21 17s. 4d. The Levels County Council has expended during 

 the season £350, the Ashburton Council £582, and the Selwyn Council over £300. The figures available; 

 show that about 4,000,000 eggs were taken during the year. 



Order PASSERIEORMES.l 



[Family XENICIDiE. 



XENICUS STOKESI. 



(NORTH-ISLAND WREN.) 



; 



Xenicus stokesi, G. R. Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 129. 



Mr. Ogilvie Grant, in October, 1904, made a communication to the British Ornithologists' 

 Club, showing conclusively that the bird obtained by Captain Stokes in the Eimutaka Eanges, 

 near Wellington, and named by Mr. G. E. Gray Xenicus stokesi, is really distinct from Xenicus 

 lo?igipes, from the South Island, with which it has long been confounded. Captain Stokes 

 collected two specimens, one of which Mr. Gray referred erroneously to Xenicus longipes, making 

 the other the type of his new species. As a matter of fact, both of these birds belonged to one 

 and the same species, the proposed type being the young of the other. As Mr. Grant has pointed 



