xlii 



INTBODUCTION. 



"THE OLD OBDEB CHANGETH." 



In the earlier part of this Introduction I dwelt upon the distinctive natural features of 

 the native avifauna and directed attention to peculiarities in the local distribution of many 

 of the species. But all this is now undergoing a rapid change. The Colonial "rage for 

 acclimatisation," as it has been termed, is altering the face of everything. The ubiquitous 

 House-sparrow now dominates the land ; song-birds and game-birds from Europe abound every- 

 where ; Indian Mynahs and Australian Magpies, and Books from the dear old country, in our 

 plantations, with Black Swans and White Swans,* English Mallards and Wigeons on our lakes. 

 Most of these birds, under the more favourable conditions of existence, are increasing pro- 

 digiously and imparting an entirely new feature to the New Zealand Ornis. 



In my General Introduction (vol. i., p. xlvii.) I mentioned the circumstance of my having, in 

 1873, sent out to New Zealand a living pair of the Wood-owl (Symium aluco) with instructions 

 to have them turned out in the Hawke's Bay district ; that this was done accordingly, under 

 Government protection, and that subsequently the birds fell victims to popular prejudice. This 

 latter report appears to have been unfounded ; because, shortly before I left the Colony in 1898, 

 a period of twenty-five years having elapsed, a Wood-owl, in perfect plumage, was killed in the 

 city of Wellington, some 200 miles further south. Late one evening in March, two gentlemen 

 (the well-known city architect, Mr. Turnbull, being one of them) were walking down Wellington 

 Terrace, when a large bird flitted past and one of them succeeded in knocking it down with his 

 walking-stick. Mr. Turnbull had it skinned by a local taxidermist and shortly afterwards kindly 

 presented it to me. This proved to be an adult Wood-owl, and it was evidently a wild bird, the 

 feathers being perfectly clean and fresh. As no other importation of the kind had been recorded, 

 this was without doubt a descendant from the pair introduced by me so long before. This 

 specimen is now in my collection ; and on comparing it with the large series of this species in the 

 British Museum, I found that it had developed an unusually reddish plumage, there being only 

 one other example in that collection, as far as I could see, at all resembling it. 



Apart from the widespread introduction of foreign forms, we are, in the Colony itself, taking 

 effective steps for obliterating the old boundary lines and changing the local habitat of many of the 

 native species. As already stated, the Government has wisely set apart two island reserves— the 

 Little Barrier at the North and Eesolution Island in the South— and birds from all localities are 

 being brought to these sanctuaries, where they will be secure from the depredations of stoats, 

 weasels, and, perhaps worst of all, wild cats. Kakapos and Boas from the extreme south have been 

 successfully removed to the Little Barrier, in the far north, where they have settled down and 

 promise to do well in their new environment. It is to be hoped that Mr. Ballance's original idea 

 of transporting thither some Huias from their home in the Tararua and Euahine ranges will yet be 

 given effect to, for this is the only possible chance of preserving a remnant of this beautiful Mountain 

 Starling. It is well that we should record, before it is too late, all that we can learn about the 

 local and geographical distribution of our native birds, because, in a few years, all will have 

 become so changed by artificial agencies that the task will be impossible. Already the Hon. 

 Walter Eothschild, in one of his essays on the genus Apteryx, has fallen into the error of 

 assigning a North Island range to Apteryx haasti from information that examples of this bird 

 existed on the small wooded island in Papaitonga Lake. These (as Mr. Eothschild afterwards 



* Besides the English Mallard and other introduced waterfowl, the White Swan is now firmly established on the 

 Papaitonga Lake. Five cygnets, a gift from the Royal flock at Kew Gardens, were turned out on the lake by the 

 author, in 1893, and these have bred and multiplied, spreading themselves to the Horowhenua Lake, where — much to 

 the popular indignation — an ignorant settler shot a pair of them, the result being that this ' Eoyal bird ' is now 

 protected by law. 



