Sydney Porter—Notes on New Zealand Birds



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were exterminated so long as there were skins in cabinets. In fact,

many so-called ornithologists of the last century seemed secretly

glad when a bird became extinct if they possessed any skins of the

last of the species. And it is due to these people who used to call

themselves ornithologists that many of the world’s rarest birds are

practically extinct to-day.


My stay on Little Barrier was an event in my ornithological career.

For years I had secretly wished to pay this interesting island a visit

and I little dreamt that my wish would one day materialize. For one

thing it is not easy to obtain permission to visit it and I hardly relished

making a prolonged stay on the island alone. Owing to the great

kindness of Mr. Rowland Hutchinson, the Honorary Secretary of the

Avicultural Society of New Zealand, all these difficulties were over¬

come. So one blazing hot summer’s day in January of this year (1933)

I set off from Auckland with my companion, also a member of the

Avicultural Society, and who, besides being a keen aviculturist, had

a very good knowledge of the native birds, so needless to say we had

a great deal in common.


After a day’s journey up the coast we arrived at a tiny port where

we had to charter a launch to take us to the island. Unfortunately

owing to bad weather we were compelled to spend several days at the

hotel whose chief source of income seemed to be derived not from

visitors but from illicit drinking. At last we set sail in a launch

which seemed almost too frail to carry our enormous amount of

baggage.


What a thrill it was as we neared the island ! How immense it

.seemed as it loomed up through the mists, its great sinister-looking

peaks wreathed with floating masses of clouds, its deep green forests

reaching down from above the clouds to the edge of the impregnable

looking cliffs.


Instead of finding ourselves alone on this sub-tropical island, we

found it almost overcrowded ! There was the caretaker, his son and

wife and a friend, three students from a New Zealand college, and a

noted bird artist, a Miss Daff, whose pictures I hope will one day grace

the pages of this Magazine.


The island consists mainly of very precipitous razor-backed mountain



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