55 



overtaken by darkness, and had to camp in the open, using our saddles as pillows. It was a line 

 night, although somewhat dark, and my companion's little dog spent the night in catching Wood- 

 hens ; but these were all of the other species, Ocyclromus cmstralis. The ground was pretty 

 thickly covered with stunted Coriaria, and the birds were, no doubt, feeding on the berries of that 

 plant ; at any rate, the dog had no difficulty in running them down. The speedy and very 

 general destruction of the Wood-hens on the Canterbury Plains was occasioned chiefly, I think, 

 by the tussock-fires which about that period, and later on, were so universal for the purpose of 

 improving the grazing capabilities of the newly-occupied sheep runs. That this bird will increase 

 rapidly enough when under careful protection is beyond doubt. I remember seeing at Government 

 House, in Wellington, about the year 1863, a cage full of them which Sir George Grey had brought 

 from the South Island, and was taking up to his island in the Hauraki Gulf. When, many years 

 later, I visited the " great proconsul " at Kawau, he told me that the Wood-hens had so increased 

 and multiplied that he was practically unable to keep any other ground-birds on the island. The 

 Maori member, Mr. Parata, on the occasion referred to above, urged as a reason for preserving 

 the Wood-hen that the oil produced from its fat was useful medicinally. To the zoologist other 

 more cogent reasons will suggest themselves. As every student knows, as a flightless bird it is 

 one of the most interesting of our endemic forms (see vol. ii., pp. 108-9). 



To show how completely the Wood-hen has disappeared from some districts, I may mention 

 that Mr. Morgan Carkeek, during several months' surveying several years ago in the mountainous 

 district of Marlborough, met with only a single example. This, in a district where at one time 

 it was extremely abundant, is very significant. 



The same remarks apply, in a modified degree, to Ocydromus greyi in the North Island. In 

 certain restricted localities it appears to be increasing. A few years ago it had quite disappeared 

 from the Ohau district, and its pleasing cry — so like the plaintive call of the European Curlew — 

 was a thing of the past. But during the last two seasons, prior to my leaving the Colony, it had 

 reappeared at Papaitonga, breeding in a wooded gully near the homestead, and on the approach 

 of evening announcing its presence by its shrill cry. On any quiet evening at the lake you could 

 hear the Weka's cry, in which both sexes join ; and, mingling with it, the call of the Pukeko in the 

 sedges, the loud boom of the Bittern in the swamp below, and the pleasant chattering of number- 

 less Wild-duck and Teal, of which there are sometimes five hundred or more on the bosom of the 

 lake.* 



I have in my collection a remarkable albino of the Brown Wood-hen. The forehead, face, 

 fore-neck, and breast are pure white ; five of the quills in one wing and six in the other are entirely 

 white ; there are a few white feathers scattered among the wing-coverts, and there is a large 



* On this subject I have received the following very interesting letter from the Hon. L. Walker, M.L.C. (of ' Four 

 Peaks,' Geraldine) : "I read with much pleasure the signed article contributed by you to the Press as to the disappear- 

 ance of certain of the New Zealand birds. Among these you mention the Wood-hen. All about my place I have a lot 

 of scrub and (sub-alpine) bush, and the number of Wood-hens that I used to have was something wonderful. I think it 

 was somewhere about five years ago that they suddenly disappeared, and for three or four years their note was never 

 heard in the evenings, nor at any other times. The bush was still there for them, for I never allow a stick to be cut out 

 of it. However, last year I began occasionally, but rarely, to hear them tuning up in the evenings, and this year there 

 are hundreds of them. But they seem to stick about the gardens and under the Lawsonias, cedars, &c, rather than go 

 into the bush. This, I fancy, they do so as to be handy to the hens' nests, for my women say they take most of the 

 eggs. I used to have thousands of Tuis, Bell-birds, and Pigeons : the last, of course, are clean gone. But I have still 

 a good lot of the other two, although they come and go at different seasons. Just opposite my house I have got a lot 

 of kowhai-trees, which in the beginning of October are a mass of yellow blossom. Then comes the holiday time for the 

 Tuis, Bell-birds, and Kakas. They are there in hundreds ; but most of them go away as soon as the blossom is over, 

 which, as you know, is but a short time. However, there is never a sunshiny day in winter that I have not a few native 

 birds singing in my garden. ' ' 



