484 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
past; even should there be any quail left, there is no room to hope 
that a few scattered individuals that may possibly linger in some 
remote corners of the land can long survive the fate that has 
ruthlessly swept away the race from before us. It seems a strange 
statement to make that probably no youngster however enthusiastic 
has ever found a nest of the native quail. Whether carried off by 
some epidemic or destroyed by the great grass fires need not be 
discussed here, the species is believed to be lost tous. In former 
days on the Canterbury plains this very excellent gamebird was seen 
in great abundance. The wayfarer constantly sprang bevies. The 
nest was a very slight affair, composed of a few grass bents 
twisted into a depression in the ground. The eggs were very 
numerous, it is said as many as twelve have been counted in 
one nest; incubation lasted twenty-one days. The eggs were oval 
or ovoido-conical; buffy-white irregularly sparkled with rich deep 
brown and small specks of the same colour; yellowish-buff of which 
little appeared, almost the entire surface being diffused with yellowish 
brown intermixed with deep brown; pale stone colour dotted with 
very small marks of blackish brown; light buff with very small 
freckles and specks of yellowish brown, towards the smaller end 
larger marks of yellowish brown ; buff with large blotches of deep 
yellowish brown with almost a greenish shade. One peculiarity was 
their glossiness, as though varnished; during incubation this was 
somewhat impaired. Length one inch three lines, with a breadth of 
eleven lines; this would be a fair average Some specimens in the 
writer’s collection taken from “the paddock,” near Hokitika, are 
slightly in excess of this measurement; specimens from the Waitangi 
flats rather less. The last nest I saw was in the Rockwood valley, 
Malvern Hills, perhaps half a-mile or so from the homestead; it was 
just as above described composed of a few grasses arranged in a 
slight depression, chosen where there was some shelter from a small 
tussock. It contained nine eggs, highly varnished. Mr. E. Dobson 
found a nest on the Waitangi flat as late as 1869. From the district 
near Hokitika, eggs were found up to a year later. In 1857, as late 
as the 9th and 10th of April, I saw several bevies of quite young 
birds, on the flats in the riverbed above the gorge of the Rakaia. The 
young had their plumage like adult females, they grew very fast, so 
that at the age of three months they appeared full grown. 
(To be continued ). 
GENERAL NOTES. 
> 
OccuRRENCE OF HyaLea IN NEw Zeatanp.—As I do not think 
that specimens of this have been found in New Zealand, it may bea 
matter of interest to know that, quite recently I received two perfect 
shells from the Great Barrier Island. They were washed up on the 
sandy beach of Tryphena harbour. One specimen agrees with the 
description given in Hutton’s “Manual of the New Zealand Mollusca ” 
in all points; the other, however, does not, and may prove to be a new 
species—this one I have deposited in the Auckland Museum.—Cuas, 
WINKELMANN, Kaipara Harbour, Auckland, 26th May, 1885. 
