GIBB : KOUGH LEGGED BUZZARD. 



245 



which, is now called Notornis Mantelli, is known to the natives as moJio \ it 

 is believed to be also extinct, for no other specimen has ever been seen alive. 

 It is a wingless bird, about the size of a fowl, with red beak and legs, dark 

 purple body, the back tinged with green and gold, and a scanty caudal ap- 

 pendage. If th.e nioa exists anywhere in ISTew Zealand, we may confidently 

 point to the secluded regions of the Middle Island, as the place of its last 

 retreat. This island was never very densely populated, and thirty years ago it 

 was well-nigh depopulated by a raid of a certain neighbouring tribe. Owing to 

 its peculiar physical conformation, a precipitous mountain-range running 

 north and south, the people were confined to the east coast. Their traditions 

 point to the western side of the hills as the home of the moa ; but as they 

 also represent it as infested by the terrible taniwa, a gigantic lizard, which 

 has a taste for human flesh, and as no lizard larger than eighteen inches has 

 ever been found in New Zealand, no reliance can be placed on this, at best 

 mythological source of information. On an examination of a resume of tbe 

 evidence for the utter extinction of the moa, we cannot but inevitably come 

 to the conclusion that human eyes have seen the last of these gigantic birds 

 of l^Q-w Zealand, and that they have now completely passed away. 



Victoria Terrace, Headingly, 



ROUGH LEGGED BUZZARD. 



By T. H. Gibb. 



A magnificent female variety of this rare visitant was captured on the 

 21st October, at Holy Island, in a field near the castle, whilst it was being 

 botly pursued by an audacious crow, and a host of small birds. Its hapless 

 advent on the Island may be traced to a " stress of wind and weather" for 

 at the time an easterly gale swept down upon our rock-bound coast sufficiently 

 strong to induce any biped particularly one of the species in question, whicli 

 had perhaps journeyed from some morass in IsTorway or Sweden, to seek 

 shelter and rest from its violence. With it also arrived and doubtlessly 

 from the same cause, a large number of woodcocks. It is evidently a rare 

 bird on the Island and I am not aware that it has been observed there for a 

 great number of years. 



