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According to native tradition, the Kakapo was formerly abundant all over the North * and South 
Islands ; but at the present day its range is confined to circumscribed limits, which are becoming 
narrower every year. In the North Island it is rarely heard of ; but it still exists in the Kai-Manawa 
ranges, and, as I have been assured by the chief Herekiekie, it is still occasionally met with in various 
parts of the Taupo district f . 
Until within the last few years the Kakapo abounded in the Urewera country, and the natives 
were accustomed to hunt them at night with dogs and torches. The Maori proverb, “ Ka puru a 
putaihinu,” relates to the former abundance of this bird. The natives say that the Kakapo is 
gregarious, and that when, in the olden time, numbers of them congregated at night their noise could 
be heard to a considerable distance. Hence the application of the above proverb, which is used to 
denote the rumbling of distant thunder $. 
The first published account of this singular bird is that given by Dr. Lyall, R.N., in a paper 
read before the Zoological Society of London, on the 24th of February, 1852, and which I have tran- 
scribed from the ‘ Proceedings ’ of that year : — “ Although the Kakapo is said to be still found occa- 
sionally on some parts of the high mountains in the interior of the North Island of New Zealand, the 
only place where we met with it during our circumnavigation and exploration of the coasts of the 
islands in H.M.S. * Acheron,’ was at the S.W. end of the Middle Island. There, in the deep sounds 
which intersect that part of the island, it is still found in considerable numbers, inhabiting the dry 
spurs of hills or flats near the banks of rivers where the trees are high and the forest comparatively 
free from fern or underwood. The first place where it was obtained was on a hill nearly 4000 feet 
above the level of the sea. It was also found living in communities, on flats near the mouths of 
rivers close to the sea. In these places its tracks were to be seen, resembling footpaths made by 
man, and leading us at first to imagine that there must be natives in the neighbourhood. These tracks 
are about a foot wide, regularly pressed down to the edges, which are two or three inches deep 
amongst the moss, and cross each other usually at right angles. 
“ The Kakapo lives in holes under the roots of trees, and is also occasionally found under 
shelving rocks. The roots of many New-Zealand trees growing partly above ground, holes are 
common under them ; but where the Kakapo is found, many of the holes appeared to have been 
enlarged, although no earth was ever found thrown out near them. There were frequently two 
openings to these holes ; and occasionally, though rarely, the trees over them were hollow for some 
distance up. The only occasion on which the Kakapo was seen to fly was when it got up one of 
these hollow trees and was driven to an exit higher up. The flight was very short, the wings being 
scarcely moved ; and the bird alighted on a tree at a lower level than the place from whence it had 
come, but soon got higher up by climbing, using its tail to assist it. Except when driven from its 
holes, the Kakapo is never seen during the day ; and it was only by the assistance of dogs that we 
were enabled to find it. Before dogs became common, and when the bird was plentiful in inhabited 
parts of the islands, the natives were in the habit of catching it at night, using torches to confuse it. 
It offers a formidable resistance to a dog, and sometimes inflicts severe wounds with its powerful 
* To Heuheu’s father, Ngatoroairangi, a renowned Maori naturalist of former times, was a successful Kakapo-huntcr. He 
was (so the natives relate) accustomed to lie in ambush near the beaten tracks of these birds, and capture them, in the early 
dawn, on their way to their hiding-places. This good old chief is said to have attempted the introduction of the Snapper into 
the Taupo Lake. He planted the island of Mokoia, in the Rotorua Lake, with totara, and left behind him other evidences that 
he was a “ scientific man ” far in advance of his time. 
f Through the kindness of Mr. White, It.M., I obtained a native-prepared skin of the Kakapo from Taupo, for comparison 
with examples from the South Island. It was a very small specimen, measuring only 21 inches in length and 8’5 in the wing ; 
but I was able to satisfy myself of the real identity of the species in both islands. 
J Of. Hote on Stringops liabroptilus and its skeleton by E. Deslongchamps, Ann. Mus. H. N. Caen, i. pp. 49-53 ; also skeleton 
as figured by A. B. Meyer, Abbild. Yogelsk. 
