282 Sydney Porter—Notes on the Cyanorhamphus Parrakeets


on the islands and deliberately set fire to the forest during dry

weather.


If the New Zealand Government paid as much attention to

the wicked and wanton burning of forests, with its terrible toll of bird

life, which goes on everywhere unchecked, as it does to the slight moral

lapses of some of its citizens it would earn the thanks of posterity.


Buller says, in writing of this species in the second edition of his

work, published in 1888 : “ It is quite the cottagers’ friend in New

Zealand. Riding or driving through the suburbs of the provincial

towns—Porirua and Karori districts, for example, near Wellington—■

you will notice in many of the farmers’ houses and roadside cottages

small wooden cages of primitive construction (often merely a candle-

box or whisky-case, faced with wire-netting or thin bars) fixed up to

the front of the building or under the simple verandah. On closer

inspection each of these cages will be found to contain a tame

Parrakeet—the pet of the rustic home and ‘ Pretty Poll ’ of the

family. I have often been quite impressed at finding how attached

these simple people become to their little captive.” Now all is changed,

for, search as I would from one end of the country to the other in my

endeavour to obtain examples of this Parrakeet, I found only four

examples in captivity, and these belonged to two naturalists who kept

them and did not wish to part with them. Most New Zealanders do

not know that a Parrakeet ever existed in their country, so rare is this

bird to-day on the mainland.


The Yellow-fronted Parrakeet (Cyanorhamphus auriceps)


Rare as the Red-fronted Parrakeet is, this bird is far rarer. It is

almost unknown on the mainland of New Zealand, though in the middle

of the last century it was even commoner than the other bird,

appearing in flocks of countless numbers and devouring the corn

and fruit of the settlers.


The first time we met with this rare bird in a state of freedom was

on the Little Barrier Island. It will always stand out as one of the

“ red-letter ” days of my life, for it was on that day we climbed Mount

Archeria, the highest peak in the centre of the island. The island

looked so sinister and foreboding as we approached it that I little



