80 
beds of the Rakaia, advancing in a very hurried manner, not high in the air, as migrations are usually 
performed, but close to the ground, and occasionally resting. But that this bird is capable of 
protracted flight is evidenced by the form of its wings, which are of the lengthened, acuminate 
character common to most birds of passage. 
During a visit to Dunedin, in the summer of 1860, the Rev. Mr. Stack observed numerous flocks 
in the gardens and thickets in the environs of the town. At this season they had disappeared from 
the Province of Canterbury and all the country further north. In the following summer (1861) I 
met with numerous stragglers in the northern parts of the Canterbury Province, and I understand 
from Mr. Potts that since that time it has been a permanent resident there, increasing in numbers 
every year. Mr. Buchanan, late artist to the Geological Survey Department, informs me that he 
observed the Zosterops at Otago, on his first arrival there in 1851, five years previous to its appear- 
ance in the North Island; and the following letters from correspondents go still fuither to prove that 
the species is an indigenous one there, and is only new to the country lying further north. 
Mr. Newton Watt, R.M., of Campbell Town (Southland), writes as follows : “ Paitu, a chief 
here, and I believe the oldest man in the tribe, says it was always here. Howell says that he first 
noticed them on the west coast, about Milford Sound, in the year 1832, in flocks of thirty oi forty, 
but never noticed them here (Riverton) till about 1863, when he saw them inland and in smaller 
flocks. On my way back from Riverton, I was mentioning it at the Club at Invercargill, and a 
gentleman present told me he had first noticed them, about eighty miles inland, about the year 1861, 
and that his attention was first called to them from the circumstance that they were gregarious,— a 
habit not common with New-Zealand birds. At Campbell Town it appeared to be more scarce, being 
seen only in small flocks, varying in number from six to twelve. In 1866 my sons noticed 
numbers of them among my cabbages, and observed that the cats caught many of them , and, further, 
that whilst my cabbages in the three preceding years were infested with blight, in that year there 
was little or no blight upon them till very late in the season. They appear to migrate from this 
locality in the winter, or at any rate to be scarcer 
Mr. James P. Maitland, R.M., of Molyneux, writes “ Prom what I hear from old settlers of 
seventeen or eighteen years’ standing (whom I can trust as men of observation), I am convinced we 
have had the birds here for that time at any rate, although all agree that they have become much 
more numerous everywhere during the last seven years; and this year (1867) in particular I observe 
them in larger flocks than ever. I confess I do not recollect noticing the bird until about six years 
ago ; but the smallness of their number at that time, and the smallness of the bird itself, may easily 
account for its being unnoticed in the bush. The gardens seem to be the great attraction here, and 
they are the best hands I know at picking a cherry- or plum-stone clean ! ’ 
All my own personal inquiries at Otago, during my first visit there in February I860, led me to 
the same conclusion. 
Referring again to the migration of Zosterops from the South Island in 1856, it may, I think, be 
assumed that the large flights which came across Cook’s Strait made the island of Kapiti in their 
passage, and tarried there for a time before they reached the North Island. It will be lemembered 
that the flocks which afterwards spread over the province appeared first at Waikanae and Paeka- 
kariki, on the lee shore from that island. I found Zosterops excessively abundant at Kapiti during 
a visit there in April 1875. Every bush swarmed with them, and sometimes fifty or more would 
crowd together in the leafy top of a stunted karaka, warbling and piping in chorus, producing sylvan 
music of a very sweet description. They appeared to be feeding on a species of Coccus that afllicts 
that tree. 
The large numbers of these birds that appeared in flocks at Waikanae and Otaki in the early 
