Sydney Porter—•Notes on New Zealand Birds



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the country, its cheerful chirping note being heard on every hand,

whilst its nest might be confidently looked for in every suitable clump

of undergrowth. Now the banks are silent and the Whitehead has

gone ! ” From 1880 or so, the bird was to all intents and purposes

extinct on the mainland, while a small number existed on the Little

Barrier, a prey to every avaricious collector who cared to make a

journey over there. A matter of twenty years or so ago the Bird

Protection Act was brought in and ever since then the Whitehead

has steadily come back to the forest reserves, until now it is found

in many places on the mainland. As mentioned before, from a mere

remnant on the Little Barrier, it is now the commonest bird on the

island, everywhere one goes from the highest peaks to the nanuka

scrub by the seashore one is sure to find flocks of them. So strongly

is the gregarious spirit developed that one never sees a solitary bird,

they are always in small flocks. This is perhaps the only true endemic

bird which does so.



The Kara or New Zealand Nestor (.Nestor meridionalis)


In the Maori language, the name of the lovely Lake Waikari-iti

(3,000 ft. above sea level) means “ Little Sea of Glittering Waters ”

and the full significance of this is brought home when one sees for the

first time its sparkling crystal waters.


Between this lake and its sister Lake Wai-karemoana, which is a

thousand feet lower, is a forest reserve with a walk of over six miles

through the most wonderful virgin forest and it was in these glades of

unsurpassed splendour that I had ample opportunities of observing this

strange aberrant parrot, for in this forest it is to be found perhaps

more plentifully than anywhere else in the North Island to-day. In

other parts the birds are few and far between and very wary, no doubt

owing to the incessant persecution, for the Kaka was esteemed alike

by the white man and the Maori for food. In fact, such an important

.article of diet was it to the natives that battles have been fought

regarding certain areas containing a plentiful supply of the birds.


At Waikaremoana the Kaka was comparatively tame and one

day, when on the bush track coming down from the higher lake, I had



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