82 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
: NOTES FROM LAKE TE ANAU.—The following letter, which 
is both interesting and amusing, has been handed tous by the 
hon. secretary of the Otago Acclimatisation Society :— 
“Te Anau Lake, 
“ Linwood Station, Mararoa, 
“December 15, fac. 
“Mr. Arthur. 
“Dear Sir,—Not being very profitably employed in October 
last, and having a boat, I thought I would spend a month or 
two on the lake getting bird skins and seeing the place, and 
keeping a particularly sharp look out for the great swamp-hen 
you mentioned. Though I have an extra good dog, and camped 
for Gays in swampy places, I saw nothing of it. 
“With the kiwi I have got very little better acquainted, they 
are so scarce and shy ; while the kakapo are quite plentiful, and 
easily caught with a good dog. The scentofthe latter issostrong 
that the dog willholduphisnose and go away for hundreds of yards 
to a kakapo’s den—a bit of a hole under a bank or old tree, so 
paltry that the dog seldom wants any assistance in getting one 
out. They are such poor fists at hiding or defending themselves. 
Though they can bite a little, and pinch with their great claws, 
they do it in so slow andaimless a way, thatthe appearance they put 
is by far the most formidable part of their defence. I saw one 
in great trouble one evening at dusk. JI was camped by the 
river, and just across ita Maori hen had taken in hand to thrash 
a kakapo, and he was doing it properly. It was laughable to 
see the lively way the Maori hen danced round him and the dis- 
tressed toddle of the kakapo with his drooping wings, and to hear 
all the noises he made until he took refuge in a sapling. They are 
now living on the leaves and tender shoots of the broadleaf, and are 
very fat and gluttonous. Some of their crops in the morning are 
as big as a man’s fist, filled with green pulp. Had they been 
undisturbed, with their lack of enemies and abundance of food, 
they were in a fair way of developing to replace the moas. As 
it is they are the easiest things in the world to exterminate. A 
few wild dogs would clear the country ina decade, for my dogs 
are very fond of them to eat and also delight in hunting them, 
so much so that while there are any about it is useless for me to 
look for kiwi, for the dogs will not trouble them. Some one 
has put ferrets across the Waiau, under Mt. Luxmore. I was 
trapping rabbits there and caught two ferrets, so that I think the 
end of the kakapo has already begun. 
“The kiwi may stand it out better; though they live in deep 
holes in the day time, yet they are very vigorous and are demons 
to kick; I know this by the savage way my dog treats them. 
“ There are two sorts of kiwi here, one is much taller and has a 
distinct claw on its wing which the other has not, and has a much 
hoarser voice, more like a rattle. The small one has a dribbling 
scream often repeated. They are laying now, (the kakapo is not 
thinking about it yet). I got one of the small ones with a.ma- 
