276 The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. [ Jan. 
explain the suddenness of the extinction, of which I repeatedly heard. ' For 
example, Mr. Walter Shrimpton, who took up a run of virgin country at 
the head of Lake Hawea in 1865, told me when I visited him in 1868 that 
a year or two before quail were so numerous that the cats would bring in 
two or three a day, and next year there was not a quail to be seen. When 
I thought of writing this paper I wrote to Mr. Shrimpton, who now lives 
in Hawke’s Bay, and in his reply he writes, “ The fires must have destroyed 
large numbers of them, and also swept away for a time their shelter. 
A few quail were seen after the large fires, but only for a year or two.” And 
he adds, “ Evidently something other than the fires (as they disappeared 
so suddenly and so completely) must have been an element in their 
destruction.” Some doubtless fell victims to dogs as well as to cats. The 
late Mr. James Murison, on whose run on the Maniototo Plain, which he 
took up in 1858, the quail had been plentiful before 1866, when I was there, 
had a dog which, when it flushed a quail, would follow it at a leisurely pace, 
put up the bird a second time and again follow it. When it raised it the 
second time it would follow as fast as it could run, and almost invariably 
caught the quail as it came down ; but I hardly think that many dogs 
discovered the fact that the quail was not strong on the wing and that three 
flights were enough to tire it. Moreover, dogs were plentiful before settlers 
invaded the virgin country, for wild dogs were so numerous in the interior 
of Otago as to cause serious losses to the early runholders. Mr. Watson 
Shennan, who died recently, whose interesting reminiscences were published, 
along with those of others, some years ago in a pamphlet entitled Tapanui 
Station, icith some Early Otago Pioneering Experiences, mentions that “ rats 
and mice swarmed ”; and in speaking of the wild dogs says, “ The dogs 
seemed to frequent the banks of the river (Manuherikia) for the purpose 
of catching their food. They had well-beaten tracks along each, bank of 
the river, and their principal food was rats and mice, but they often managed 
to catch a paradise duck asleep. I have frequently found duck bones and 
feathers on the river-bank.” x4s Mr. Shennan was the first man to take up 
a sheep-run in the Manuherikia Valiev, this shows that both rats and dogs 
were numerous before the advent of anv settlers; and their numbers were 
reduced rather than increased by settlement, for the early runholders waged 
a constant war on the wild dogs. These facts seem to indicate that neither 
dogs nor rats were important factors in causing the disappearance of the 
quail, which were still abundant for several years after the date of which 
Mr. Shennan speaks. As for “ bush-fires,” though they must have destroyed 
hundreds of the birds, there were always large areas which were not burned, 
and a tract once burned would not be fired again for several years, so that 
refuges for the remnant of the quail would always exist. 
All these factors were no doubt contributing agencies, but do not explain 
to my satisfaction the suddenness of the extinction of the quail. Sir Walter 
Buller gives an instance of this in his work already referred to, by recounting 
information supplied to him by Sir Edward Stafford, who, about 1848, with 
two friends in one day’s shooting, shot 29^ brace about thirty miles from 
Nelson. “ In the hope of preserving the game he prohibited any shooting 
over that ground during the following year, but in the ensuing season, when 
he naturally looked for some good sport, there was not a quail to be found.” 
The only theory I can suggest is that, besides the causes already mentioned, 
there may have been some disease, introduced probably by the domestic 
fowl, which were but little affected by it, but which when transferred to the 
quail became virulent and fatal. The fact that the disappearance of the 
