162 
These pets are never caged, but are secured to a perch by means of a “ poria ” made of bone, in 
the form shown in the accompanying woodcut, the bird’s foot being squeezed through the ring, so 
as to make the latter encircle the tarsus, and a thong of plaited flax-fibre, of 
convenient length, being then attached to the outer process and tied to the perch*. 
As will he seen by the full descriptive notes given above, very beautiful 
varieties of the Kaka are met with. I have never seen a pure albino ; but I 
am assured by the natives that they are occasionally found, and Major Messenger 
of Taranaki has the skin of one which he has kindly promised to send me. I 
am informed that a bird very nearly approaching that condition was shot at 
Whauwhau (in the county of Marsden) in the summer of 1863. The value set 
on these rare varieties by the natives may he inferred from the following circumstance : — A “ kalca- 
korako ” was seen by a party of Eangitane in the Upper Manawatu, and followed through the woods 
as far as the Oroua river, every effort being made to take it alive. The Oroua people (of another 
tribe) then took up the chase, and followed the bird to the foot of the Euahine range , and although 
carrying guns, to their credit they allowed it to escape rather than shoot it, in the remote hope that it 
might hereafter reappear in their district. Nor were they disappointed. Two seasons later the 
bird came back to the Oroua woods, and was taken alive by a native trapper. It was forwarded to 
Wellington by Mr. Alexander MacDonald, and, after passing through several hands, was ultimately 
sent to Europe. Finally it came into the possession of the late Mr. Dawson Eowley of Brighton, and 
formed the subject of the beautiful plate which faces page 26 of his ‘ Ornithological Miscellany,’ 
part i. 
From some unaccountable cause the Kaka has always been a comparatively scarce bird m the 
forests north of Auckland, although there is no lack of its ordinary food supply. In some other 
districts it is less common than it formerly was ; but it still exists, in very considerable numbers, in 
various parts of the country. In the months of December and January when the rata is in flower, 
thousands of these birds are trapped by the natives, in the manner already indicated, and which 
I will presently describe more fully. Partly owing to this cause and partly to the extension of 
settlement in some districts, where, in former years, they were excessively abundant, their cry is 
now seldom or never heard ; but in the wooded parts of the interior they are as plentiful as ever. 
Certain wooded ranges are noted as Kaka-preserves, and are very jealously protected by the native 
tribes owning them, who annually resort to them for the purpose of trapping these birds as an 
article of food. Nor is this its only practical value. Some half-dozen of the pillows in my house 
are filled with the feathers of the Kaka ; and they are so delightfully soft and elastic that it is a 
positive luxury to sleep on them. These feathers were obtained at Eaukawa, in the Upper Manawatu, 
some twenty years ago, when Kakas were far more plentiful in that part of the country than they 
are now. With the march of settlement, roads have been made, townships have sprung up, and 
a railway-line is being laid down within a mile or two of Eaukawa, thus altering the whole face of 
the country. At the time to which I refer this place could be only reached by a canoe journey of 
some eighty or ninety miles from Foxton, or by a rude bush-track— one of the Maori war-paths of 
former times. The Manawatu gorge, lying just above, has now become a highway of busy traffic ; 
the telegraph-wire already connects it with the commercial centres, and so, indirectly, with every 
* Tko Rev. "W. Colcnso F.R.S. remarks : — “ The poor prisoners had not tho common chance allowed them of biting and 
tearing their perch, or any wood (and this from mere thoughtlessness and carelessness, or long-continued custom, on the part of 
their Maori owners), for they were invariably kept fastened by a bone ring or carved circlet around one leg, and thus tied 
securely but loosely, with a strong, short cord to a slender, polished, cylindrical hard-wood spear, up and down which, for the 
space of’ 2 or 3 feet, the poor bird ran and danced and flapped his wings, always without water, and frequently in the hot 
burning sun, without any shade.” 
