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nestling got strong and robust, but was so noisy in the early morning that the men complained 

 of its disturbing their rest, so the owner passed it on to a settler in the Makuri valley. He 

 kept it for a considerable time, but one frosty night its cage was left exposed, and in the 

 morning the Huia was dead. Shortly after this, one of the survey hands brought him two 

 Huias taken from one nest. The old birds remained in the vicinity ; and after facetiously 

 'making a new species," by snipping off the white tips of the tail-feathers with a pair of 

 scissors, he turned the young birds adrift, whereupon they joined their anxious parents and 

 disappeared in the woods. 



The nesting-season of this species must be well over at the end of November, for all 

 the female birds I obtained at that date, although greatly denuded of feathers on their 

 under-parts by their protracted, labours in the way of incubation, were recovering their yellow 

 fat in various parts of the body. I think the male bird must assist more or less in the 

 work of incubation, for most of those I killed at that period had the under-parts bare, but 

 to nothing like the extent presented by the other sex. In the stomachs of eight which I 

 opened at this season I found very few insect remains, but abundance of vegetable matter, 

 among which I was able to distinguish a ripe berry of porokaiwiria and the pulp of others, 

 with numerous seeds of tawhero and kaikomako. In the stomach of one I found a spider, 

 and the remains of a small weta or tree-cricket. 



I was informed by the late Mr. Drew, of Waganui, that he had a beautiful albino Huia 

 offered to him in the flesh, but unfortunately allowed it to pass him. I afterwards endeavoured 

 to trace this specimen, but without success. 



I know it is the fashion to raise a wail over the disappearance of the New Zealand 

 birds, and to invoke the powers in the way of protective measures. But there are certain 

 species which, from the nature of the case, it is impossible to preserve, and it seems to me 

 that the Huia is one of these. The Maoris, with their usual directness, struck the nail on 

 the head when they said to the Government : " You have prohibited the killing of the Huia, 

 under a heavy penalty, and yet you allow the forests, whence it gets its subsistence, to be 

 destroyed! Where is the consistency of that?" This was on the occasion when the Govern- 

 ment, out of a very proper feeling, and, in compliance with the Governor's request, issued 

 a proclamation protecting this beautiful bird, whose name Lord Onslow had adopted for his 

 New Zealand-born son. The argument is true enough, and, indeed, unanswerable. From 

 what I have related, it will be seen that, with the progress of settlement the forests where 

 the Huia formerly abounded have almost entirely disappeared. It was hoped that the Huia, 

 on being driven from these domains, would take refuge in the mountains; and to a certain 

 extent they have done so, but the cold of the winter drives them down to the lowlands, and 

 and now their forest home no longer exists. From the accounts I have given of my own 

 ascents of the Tararua and Euahine Mountains, it is clear that, whatever be the cause, they 

 do not survive to any great number in the supposed refuge. For this reason, I think it is 

 to be regretted that more specimens of a bird destined ere long to become extinct do not 

 exist in our local museums. A few years hence it will be impossible to obtain any. For- 

 tunately, long before the introduction of the prohibitory law, I had secured a dozen or more 

 superb specimens for my own collection. Without exception, these were obtained in what 

 was then known as the " Forty-mile Bush," a district now entirely covered with green fields 

 and smiling farms, as I have already stated. One is glad, of course, to see the country thus 

 reclaimed, but it is no less gratifying to reflect upon the fine representative series of these 

 birds obtained, before it was too late, for the student of the future. No one is more in 

 sympathy with protective legislation than myself, that is to say, where it can be applied 

 with any success ; but here, as in everything else, we must be rational. Even Professor 



