Order RALLIFORMES.] 



[Family RALLIDiE. 



OCYDROMUS GEEYI. 



(NORTH-ISLAND WOOD-HEN.) 



Ocydromus greyi, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. ii., p. 105. 



This species of Wood-hen is still numerous on the wooded hill-sides and mountain gullies 

 in the Murimotu-Taupo district. It is seldom met with in the open country, except at one 

 particular season, when the birds are exceedingly fat, and the natives catch large numbers 

 by running them down with dogs. 



It is a very remarkable fact in local botany that on the arid lands forming the Onetapu 

 Desert, and on the slopes of Euapehu Mountain, where the climate is very rigorous, certain 

 native pines, which in the lowlands attain to a considerable height as forest trees, are represented 

 by dwarfed forms of the same species, not more than a few inches in height, and often assuming a 

 creeping habit. These degraded forms, which are specifically identical with their forest relations, 

 resemble them exactly in their fructification. The berries borne by these pigmy growths equal 

 in size, and sometimes even exceed, those of the forest trees— the fruit of the dwarf totara, for 

 example, being sometimes double the size of the normal berry, while those of the miro, kahikatea, 

 and rimu are at least fully equal to the berries produced by the forest trees. When these 

 miniature woods are laden with ripe mast the Wood-hen leaves the shelter of the woods and 

 comes out into the open to revel in plenty. As already stated, the birds then become unusually 

 fat and, owing to their diminished activity, become an easy prey to the natives. Captain Mair 

 informs me that he has known of a native with a good dog, fifteen years ago, killing as many as 

 eighty in a single day. Pigeons and Kakas, also, are said to resort to these sub-alpine woods in 

 considerable numbers to feed on the ripe fruit. When camped on the edge of a red-birch forest 

 near the Mangataramea Stream (at an elevation of 3,000 feet) I heard the loud cry of the 

 Wood-hen every night, but I never met with the Jbird in the open country, and the sheep-farmer 

 with whom I was staying appeared never to have seen one. 



I was much struck with the beauty of these clumps of bush in the Murimotu highlands, 

 where the Wood-hen was so numerous. Some of them consist entirely of kawaka (Librocedrus 

 doniand), a very ornamental tree of bright-green foliage and tapering growth, with a trunk like 

 a miniature Sequoia. This is plainly seen when a fire has passed through the forest and left the 

 trees dead and naked. In some places you meet with the strange sight of the whole forest 

 apparently hewn down, and strewing the ground with bleached and charred trunks. The explana- 

 tion is this : that these trees are generally hollow near the ground, and have only a feeble support 

 of lateral roots. Consequently, when a fire has passed through and killed the trees, the dead 

 timber cannot long resist the action of the weather, and one after another the "cedars" topple 

 over with the passing blast, till at length not a single trunk remains standing, and an appearance 

 is presented of utter wreck and desolation. For the most part, the trees are of small size, but 

 Captain Mair informs me he has often met with them four feet in diameter at the base. Another 

 tree that adds to the novelty of these subalpine woods is the silver-birch — a graceful and elegant 

 tree of bright foliage, resembling at a short distance the larch, and showing up conspicuously 

 amongst the black- and red-birch with which it mingles. In these mountain solitudes, however, 

 there is very little animal life to engage the attention of the naturalist. On the summit of Gentle 

 Annie, in fine weather, I met with what appeared to be a smaller and very bright variety of the 



