Order KALLIFOEMES.] 



[Family EALLIDiE. 



OCYDROMTTS EAELI. 



(BEOWN WOOD-HEN.) 



Ocydromus earli, Gray, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. ii., p. 115. 



As you drive down the magnificent Buller Gorge — shut in by majestic mountain sides covered 

 with dense vegetation — you occasionally get a distant view of the wooded mountain country 

 beyond, as, for example, from the summit of the Hope Saddle, and you see range upon range, far as 

 the eye can reach, culminating in the Spencer Mountains, with their mantle of everlasting snow. 

 These ranges are clothed almost entirely with the sombre black birch (Fagus) of this region and 

 especially as seen through the mist, are suggestive of a never-ending rolling sea. This is the 

 home of the Brown Wood-hen, which is still by far the commonest bird in this part of the country. 

 The stoats and weasels are, no doubt, very destructive to the eggs and young of this, as of all 

 other accessible, species ; but the bird itself is able to fight these marauders, and is at present 

 sufficiently abundant to withstand their depredations. As I have recorded elsewhere, this 

 species holds its own in undiminished numbers, whilst the other species of Wood-hen are fast 

 disappearing. 



The subjoined photograph gives an adequate idea of the natural beauty of the region I have 

 here indicated. It is reproduced, by kind permission, from a negative by Mr. Morris, of Dunedin, 



THE BULLER RIVER, N.Z. 



