THE OOLOGIST. 



185 



would have been lost had the notes 

 not been published. 



The wingless birds that are being 

 given sanctuary on Resolution Island 

 are the weka or wood-hen, the kakapo 

 or great ground parrot, the roa, and 

 the kiwi or apteryx. In addition to 

 thest, which are his special charge, 

 Mr. Henry writes of all the birds 

 which are either native to or visit the 

 island. It is the wingless ones, how- 

 ever, that are of chief interest. Had 

 New Zealand possessed amonst its na- 

 tive fauna any destructive animals, 

 such as the Australian dingo or the 

 Tasmanian devil, these birds would 

 have been extinct long ago. In settled 

 country both dogs and cats play havoc 

 with them, and the English weasel, 

 which, as Mr. Henry observes, would 

 never have been introduced had its 

 habits been known thoroughly, is also 

 destructive. When rabbits became 

 such a nuisance that poisoned wheat 

 was laid for them, some of the wing- 

 less birds were killed in thousands, 

 like the English pheasants, which had 

 been so successfully acclimatised. In 

 many of the public reserves of New 

 Zealand, such as the charming gardens 

 at New Plymouth, one can hear the 

 pheasant calling constantly in the 

 brush, and it is this thick native 

 underwood which gave originally com- 

 plete protection to the wingless birds. 



The weka or wood-hen is evidently 

 one of the most interesting of the resi- 

 dents on Resolution Island. The 

 quaint ways and quick sagacity of two 

 of them, "Chicken" and "Scrag," 

 who visit the caretaker's house on the 

 look-out for table scraps, and share 

 the contents of the dog's dish without 

 risk, are amuseingly described. These 

 birds mate for life, and take turn about 

 in hatching and protecting the brood. 

 One of them is never absent from the 

 nest from the time the first egg is laid 

 until the young— which look like balls 

 of soft down— are able to protect them- 



selves. This care is the more necssary 

 as both the eggs and young are de- 

 stroyed by rats, weasels and sparrow- 

 hawks. Sometimes, of an evening, 

 when the tide is low, the wood-hens 

 take their families out on the beaches, 

 and the sparrowhawks watch for them 

 there, and kill the young by scores. 

 The weka is, in its turn, destructive. 

 Paradise ducks, like the wild ducks of 

 Australia, cover up their eggs carefully 

 with a mat of down when leaving the 

 nest, but the wekas have an hereditary 

 knowledge of the trick, and a young 

 bird, which has never seen a duck's 

 nest, tears away the down to get at the 

 eggs the moment it discovers one. If 

 they find a hen's nest with eggs un- 

 covered, they always go through the 

 motions of tearing away the nest be- 

 fore starting to eat the eggs. Al- 

 though on friendly terms with the 

 caretaker, they hide their own nests 

 away from him very carefully, and if 

 one of the pair comes to the house for 

 scraps for its mate, it always takes a 

 round-about track to the nest, and is 

 careful to see that it is neither watch- 

 ed nor followed. They kill each 

 other's young, so that every pair on 

 the island have their own run and no 

 others are allowed to intrude. Mr. 

 Henry considers these birds most val- 

 uable as insect-destroyers in an or- 

 chard, and observes that if they were 

 difficult to get fruitgrowers would be 

 quite keen about them. On the table 

 land above the Otira Gorge, when 

 crossing from the west coast, one often 

 sees the weka and her brood running 

 along the track in front of the coach. 

 When the first brood have baen hatch- 

 ed and are fairly grown, the hen hands 

 them over to her mate, and starts to 

 lay again. The male shepherds the 

 young persistently, apparently gives 

 them all the food he can find, and if 

 they call for help in danger, he is with 

 them in an instant, keen for a fight. 

 When he finds a rat he tackles it in- 



