10 
refuses food and dies untamable ; the fluttering little Humming-bird beats itself to death against the 
tiny bars of its prison in its futile efforts to escape ; and many species that appear to submit readily 
to their changed condition of life, ultimately pine, sicken, and die. There are other species, again, 
which cheerfully adapt themselves to their new life, although caged at maturity, and seem to thrive 
fully as well under confinement as in a state of nature. Parrots, for example, are easily tamed; and 
I have met with numerous instances of their voluntary return after having regained their liberty. 
This character of tamability was exemplified to perfection in the Huias. 
They were fully adult birds, and were caught in the following simple manner. Attracting the 
biids by an imitation of their cry to the place where he lay concealed, the native, with the aid of a 
long lod, slipped a running knot over the head of the female and secured her. The male, embol- 
dened by the loss of his mate, suffered himself to be easily caught in the same manner. On receivin'* 
these birds I set them free in a well-lined and properly ventilated room, measuring about six feet by 
eight feet. They appeared to be stiff after their severe jolt on horseback, and after feeding freely on 
the huhu grub, a pot of which the native had brought with them, they retired to one of the perches 
I had set up for them, and cuddled together for the nisrht 
n the morning I found them somewhat recruited, feeding with avidity, sipping water from a 
dish, and flitting about in a very active manner. It was amusing to note their treatment of the huhu. 
This grub, the larva of a large nocturnal beetle ( Prionojolus reticularis ), which constitutes their 
principal food, infests all decayed timber, attaining at maturity the size of a man’s little finger. Like 
all grubs of its kind, it is furnished with a hard head and horny mandibles. On offering one of these 
to the Huia, he would seize it in the middle, and, at once transferring it to his perch and placing one 
foot firmly upon it, he would tear off the hard parts, and then, throwing the grub upwards to secure 
it lengthwise in his bill, would swallow it whole. For the first few days these birds were compara- 
tively quiet, remaining stationary on their perch as soon as their hunger was appeased. But they 
afterwards became more lively and active, indulging in play with each other and seldom remainin'* 
more than a few moments in one position. I sent to the woods for a small branched tree, and placed 
it in the centre of the room, the floor of which was spread with sand and gravel. It was most 
interesting to watch these graceful birds hopping from branch to branch, occasionally spreading the 
tail into a broad fan, displaying themselves in a variety of natural attitudes and then meetim* to 
caress each other with their ivory bills, uttering at the same time a low affectionate twitter. They 
generally moved along the branches by a succession of light hops, after the manner of the Kokako 
( Glaucopis wilsom ) ; and they often descended to the floor, where their mode of progression was the 
same. They seemed never to tire of probing and chiselling with their beaks. Having discovered that 
the canvas lining of the room was pervious, they were incessantly piercing it, and tearing off large 
strips of papei, till, in the course of a few days, the walls were completely defaced. 
But what interested me most of all was the manner in which the birds assisted each other in their 
search foi food, because it appeared to explain the use, in the economy of nature, of the differently 
foimed bills in the two sexes. lo divert the birds, I introduced a log of decayed wood infested with 
the huhu giub. They at once attacked it, carefully probing the softer parts with their bills, and then 
vigorously assailing them, scooping out the decayed wood till the larva or pupa was visible, when it 
was carefully drawn from its cell, treated in the way described above, and then swallowed. The very 
different development of the mandibles in the two sexes enabled them to perform separate offices 
The male always attacked the more decayed portions of the wood, chiselling out his prey after the 
manner of some Woodpeckers, while the female probed with her long pliant bill the other cells 
where the hardness of the surrounding parts resisted the chisel of her mate. Sometimes I observed 
the male remove the decayed portion without being able to reach the grub, when the female would at 
once come to his aid, and accomplish with her long slender bill what he had failed to do. I noticed 
however, that the female always appropriated to her own use the morsels thus obtained. 
