GREEN GROUND PARROT. 123 



caverns, and that while arranging for their winter quarters, and before 

 dispersing for the summer, they become very noisy, and raise a deafening 

 clamour." 



Are we to infer from the above quotation that these birds are in 

 the habit, as Swallows are said to be, of hybernating? we think not: 

 the practice is one foreign to bird nature; birds are incapable, as a 

 rule, of enduring prolonged abstinence, and the winters in New Zealand 

 are not of such severity as to deprive the indigenous races of their 

 accustomed food, as happens in higher latitudes. 



We are unable to record the "native" name of the Green Ground 

 Parrot, but the Owl Parrot (Strigops habroptilus) is called by the 

 Maoris "Kakapo", no doubt from its cry: like its Green Ground 

 relative, it is weak of wing, and, as Mr. Wood continues, "seldom 

 trusts itself in the air, taking but a very short flight when it rises 

 from the ground. Neither it is seen much in trees, preferring to in- 

 habit the ground, and making regular paths to and from its nest, by 

 means of which its habitation may be discovered by one who knows 

 the habits of the bird. These tracks are about a foot in width, and 

 so closely resemble the paths worn by the footsteps of human beings 

 that they have been mistaken for such by travellers": and might very 

 readily become the means of saving life; for a man lost in the "bush", 

 and nearly dead from starvation, following one of them up, thinking 

 it led to a human dwelling, and finding a nest of young birds, as large 

 as a good-sized fowl, would be able to keep himself alive on their 

 succulent flesh, until discovered by the party sent out to look for him. 



It has been conjectured that the absence of predatory mammals in 

 New Zealand is the main reason of the departure of these curious 

 birds from the common habits of the race; and that from seeking, 

 unmolested, their food on the ground, they, in the lapse of ages, 

 acquired terrestrial preferences, and lost, or almost lost, the use of their 

 wings from sheer long-continued inaction — surely a lesson for indolent 

 folk, who prefer riding their thoroughbred horses, or being driven 

 about in their luxurious carriages, to using the means of locomotion 

 provided for them by nature. 



This hypothesis, however, will scarcely account for the presence of 

 Pezojphorus in Australia and Tasmania, where small predatory animals 

 are found in great abundance, and terrestrial Parrots are not by any 

 means uncommon. 



The late John Gould, F.E.S., frequently found nests of these birds 

 under the stumps of trees, and among rocks; the eggs were laid on 

 the bare ground, in a little hollow evidently fashioned by the birds 

 themselves, and without any attempt at nest making. Whatever may 



