CROW TRIBE. 
3 2 7 
species is a handsome bird, and attractive in appearance; the upper-parts of the 
adult being clear grey; the wings white, with black at the base and at the tip; 
while the tail is glossy purplish black; the throat whitish; a large black patch 
adorns the fore-neck; and the lower-parts are vinaceous, fading into white. 
pander's chough-thrush (| nat. size). 
The Huia Bird The S enus Heteralocha includes a single species, variously 
referred to the hoopoes and crows; while Garrod considered its 
relations to be most intimate with the starlings, a view also adopted by Sir Walter 
Buller and Dr. Sharpe. The bill of the male is rather short and straight, and 
acutely pointed, with the sides compressed, and the nostrils at its base; while in 
the female it is long, curved, and slender; the difference being so great that 
the two sexes were at first regarded as distinct species. The wings are long and 
rounded. The huia bird (H gouldi), which is peculiar to New Zealand, has an 
extremely restricted habitat, being confined to certain mountain - ranges, with 
their divergent spurs, and the intervening wooded valleys. The natives, who 
prize the bird very highly for its tail-feathers, which are used as a badge of 
mourning, state that, unlike other species which have of late years diminished 
and become more confined in their range, the huia has from time immemorial 
been limited in its distribution to its present haunts. Sir W. Buller, who com¬ 
ments on the readiness with which the huia becomes reconciled to the loss of 
its liberty, so long ago as 1864 received a pair of these birds from a native in 
exchange for a valuable stone. They were fully adult, and had been caught in 
the following simple manner. Attracting the birds by an imitation of their cry 
to the place where he lay concealed, the native, with the aid of a long rod, slipped 
a. running knot over the head of the female and secured her. The male, emboldened 
by the loss of his mate, suffered himself to be easily caught in the same manner. 
When liberated in a large room, writes their owner, “ it was amusing to notice 
