BOB 



123 



I have a mournful satisfaction in recording that the last heard-of pair of this 

 expiring species was seen, just before I left the Colony, in 1898, in the fringe of bush on the 

 northern side of the Papaitonga Lake, where, of course, they would receive the hospitality 

 and protection extended to all native birds desiring to establish a home there. 



It was in this same spot that I discovered, some years ago, as fully recorded at the 

 time,* the carnivorous properties of Aseroe rubra, a bright, flower-like fungus, which emits 

 a foetid odour, and secretes, in its surface cup, a viscid fluid, by means of which flies, 

 moths, and other insects are entrapped and absorbed into the system of the plant, after 

 the manner of the well-known Brosera. 



The birds were unmolested, and therefore had every chance; but whether they have 

 left any descendants or not it is, of course, impossible to say. All I can do now is to 

 give a picture of their last home from one of my daughter's photographs. 



In the old days it would have been impossible to enter such a wood without hearing 

 the strident note of this Eobin on all sides. 



Now let the reader turn to page 34 of my Second Edition (vol. i.), and he will see how 

 characteristic this bird was, as late as 1866, of the great silent forest around Mount Egmont. So 

 completely has the species disappeared, that one might spend months in these extensive woods ■ 

 now or, indeed, traverse the forest zone from north to south, without ever hearing its note. It 

 lingers still on the wooded islands in the Hauraki Gulf and on Kapiti Island in Cook Strait ; 

 and it is said to occur on the wooded parts of Whale Island, off the East Coast. 



Order PASSERIFORMES.] 



[Family MUSCICAPIDiE, 



MIEO BULLERI 



(ALPINE ROBIN.) 



Miro bulled, Sharpe, < History of the Bird -collection in the British Museum' (1905). 



After a careful investigation of the subject, and a comparison of a large number of 

 specimens, I arrived at the conclusion that there were in reality three forms of Wood 

 Eobin in New Zealand, all, of course, descendants from a common stock, but now sufficiently 

 differentiated to bear distinctive specific names. I took an early opportunity of communi- 

 cating my results to the Wellington Philosophical Society.! The North Island bird was the 

 first to be recorded. This is Miro australis, formerly the commonest species in our woods 

 and now almost, if not entirely, extinct on the mainland, but to be met with on the 

 Little Barrier Island at the north, on the Island of Kapiti in Cook Strait, and probably on 

 other outlying islands near our coasts. The two other forms belong to the South Island, 

 and have hitherto been confounded under the general term Miro albifrons. 



Mr. G. E. Gray, in the "Voyage of the 'Erebus' and 'Terror'" Birds, p. 7), thus 

 describes Miro albifrons : u Upper surface and forepart of neck sooty-black ; under-surface 

 pale-rufescent; front with a small spot of white. Length 7 in." This is the Turdus albifrons 

 of Gmelin (Syst. Nat., p. 822). 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxv., pp. 302-4. 



f Idem, vol. xxviii., pp. 337-39, 



