Sept. 22, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
453 
HIM MBUDMf 
! H 
Queer Birds of New Zealand. 
The people of the United States may profit¬ 
ably enough go to the Antipodes to take lessons 
in the protection of natural objects and the 
acclimatization of foreign game. The New 
Zealanders have displayed rare judgment in their 
efforts to supply their islands with wild animals 
and fish from other countries, and these efforts 
have naturally been crowned with rare success. 
New Zealand has been supplied with red deer, 
which have done surprisingly well, and now 
occupy large ranges of country. Moose from 
Canada have been turned out on their hillside 
and grouse from Scotland occupy the treeless 
meadows of their great mountain slopes. In 
their streams trout from other lands attain 
enormous size. On the other hand, the New 
Zealanders have made some grave mistakes, 
which are tending to exterminate some of the 
most extraordinary creatures in the world. The 
European weasel has for some extraordinary 
reason been liberated on the islands; there are 
wild domestic cats by thousands and a few wild 
dogs. These play havoc with some of the extra¬ 
ordinary ground dwelling native birds. 
When New Zealand was discovered, it was ab¬ 
solutely without large mammals. The only ones 
found at the time of the discovery were a small 
rat, and two very small bats. Even the bats 
were confined to a few localities, and are be¬ 
lieved to have been very few in number. Since 
there were no mammals to prey upon them the 
birds of New Zealand developed in many curious 
directions, and a number of them lost the power 
of flight. Among these are the weka, or wood 
hen, a bird about as big as a domestic fowl, but 
belonging to the rail family, the kakapo, a great 
ground parrot, often called the owl parrot, and 
several kinds of wingless ratite birds known as 
apteryx, which means without wings. 
The New Zealand government has fortunately 
seen in time the destruction which would in¬ 
evitably overtake these native birds, and has 
very wisely set apart two islands off the coast 
of New Zealand where there are neither cats nor 
weasels for the propagation and protection of 
these birds. These islands are Resolution and 
Little Barrier islands. Here it is hoped such 
birds may flourish and increase, though the 
effort to protect such belated species, whose 
environment has caused them to fall behind in 
the race for life, is not likely to be successful. 
The weka, which belongs to the 'rail family, 
has small wings, but is unable to fly. It is about 
the size of a domestic hen, and is brown or 
light-gray in color, the plumage varying as with 
the birds surroundings, being darker in narrow, 
gloomy valleys, and paler in the open country. 
It walks about with a brisk step, constantly 
bobbing its short tail precisely after the manner 
of the rails. The bird is one of the most in¬ 
quisitive creatures in the world and seems ab¬ 
solutely devoid of fear, while at the same time 
it possesses extraordinary quickness which often 
saves it from harm. It wishes always to know 
what is going on, and it is said it is common, 
when a coach stops to change horses at some 
roadside stable in the wilds, to see three or 
four of these queer birds emerge from the grass 
or bushes at the side of the road and gravely 
and minutely investigate the proceedings, walk¬ 
ing almost under the horses’ heels, but ready 
at the first hostile sign to disappear as if by 
magic. 
During the breeding season the male and 
female weka keep together, and are devoted to 
their young, but after these are reared the male 
either drives the female away or goes himself 
into some other quarter: Mr. Harper, in his 
capital book on the Southern Alps of New 
Zealand, describes the habits of the weka with 
much humor. He says: “In camp the birds are 
useful as scavengers, but they are incorrigible 
thieves, trying to take away everything that is 
white or glittering; and as they are able to move 
a weight of 2 or 3 pounds, it can well be 
imagined that a careful lookout has to be kept. 
The glance of mingled triumph and contempt 
which a weka gives over his shoulder as he 
walks off with your pipe is inimitable, and his 
whole attitude would make a most laughable 
picture if well drawn. One of these birds will 
take full possession of a camp as soon as he 
discovers it, generally within a few hours of 
its being pitched, and rarely have we been with¬ 
out one or a pair. No other birds or rats are 
allowed to come near, if he can help it, but are 
attacked without hesitation, and if another weka 
dares to intrude, the one in possession will— 
nine times out of ten—manage to make good his 
claim, though sometimes the combatants seem 
very unevenly matched for a fight.” 
He gives the detail of a day or two with a 
family of wekas in camp in the following words: 
“The family of wekas which has taken pos¬ 
session of the camp were very welcome, and I 
was able to watch their mode of procedure when 
dissolving partnership for the time being. As 
already stated, when the male bird thinks he 
has done his share in the education and bring¬ 
ing up of the family, he dissolves partnership. 
If in a good locality for food, he drives his mate 
and young ones away, but if in a- poor locality, 
he departs to happier hunting grounds himself. 
The parent birds, while rearing their young, eat 
hardly anything themselves and grow as poor as 
a church mouse; everything they find is carried 
to the youngsters. When a pair has only one 
chick, it is very ludicrous to see them rushing 
up to it and jostling one another in their eager¬ 
ness to give it a piece of bacon or bread, and 
sometimes asking it to try a piece of a jam tin, 
or tempting it with a choice copper cartridge- 
case. The parent finds some such rubbish and 
rushes off to the over-fed fledgling which is 
sitting and squeaking under a fern, and holds the 
tempting morsel out in its beak. The old one 
looks sideways at it as much as to say, ‘So 
good,’ while the youngster having got it success¬ 
fully down sits with ruffled feathers and loo.ks 
at the world in general as if it would say, ‘That 
old fool will be the death of me one of these 
days.’ 
“The first intimation I had that the pair at 
camp were going to dissolve partnership was 
when I threw out a piece of bread one morning. 
Paterfamilias instead of passing it to one of the 
chickens swallowed it himself, while the rest of 
the family looked on reproachfully and seemed 
to know they must ‘look out for squalls.’ After 
the old boy had got all he could, he suddenly 
turned round and attacked his wife, and then 
the male youngster—the female chick having 
wisely disappeared, pro tcm. When I saw he 
was going to drive the family away and stay at 
the camp to enjoy all the good things himself, I 
decided to put a stop to his little game, and 
gave him a rifle bullet to digest. He made a 
capital stew, and his sorrowing family thorough¬ 
ly enjoyed his remains! 
“The next day Mrs. Weka found the two half- 
grown chickens rather ‘a large order’; in the 
first place they both tried to shelter themselves 
under her from the rain, which upset her 
mentally and physically, and secondly, the task 
of feeding them was too much for her; she 
therefore proceeded to drive away Master Weka. 
That young gentleman, however, was not going 
to leave his family home without a struggle, 
and seeing his sister petted and fed, he used 
to give her a good peck when the old hen was 
not looking, and then run for his life before she 
caught him. I again interferred in the proceed¬ 
ings, and by dint of some coaxing persuaded 
Master Weka to come on to the bedding in the 
shelter, where-he would eat from my hand. By 
degrees he gained confidence and came in with¬ 
out fear, having a good feed, while the old hen 
remained outside waiting for him; on his finish¬ 
ing the meal he used to dodge about inside trying 
to make his escape, and the old bird dodged 
about outside to cut him off. I would then 
throw a piece of bread into the bush, and while 
she went after it, the youngster would slip out 
and run for dear life, rolling his more favored 
sister in the mud on the way.” 
While these birds are nesting they are very 
devoted and faithful and take turns in hatching 
and later in protecting the young. There is 
no time from the laying of the first egg until 
the young are able to look out for themseNes 
when nest or brood is not guarded by one of 
the parent birds. Rats weasels and hawks are 
the chief enemies of the weka, but the parents are 
more or less successful in driving off everything 
but the hawks. These are destructive to the 
young, especially when the parents take their 
broods out on the beaches, where there is no 
cover. 
But the weka, on the other hand, is itself 
destructive, and destroys the egg of the para¬ 
dise duck. That species on leaving its nest 
covers the eggs with a mat of down, but the 
weka are not deceived by this, and, on finding 
a nest, throws aside the down, and speedily eat 
the eggs. This knowledge of this habit of the 
paradise duck seems to be instinctive with the 
weka, for a young one which has never seen a 
duck s nest proceeds to remove the down to get 
at the eggs, as soon as it finds the nest. Even 
if they find the nest of a domestic hen, with un¬ 
covered eggs, the birds always go through the 
motion of throwing aside the down. 
The weka has its own run to which it usually 
confines itself. It will drive off another weka 
that traspasses on its range, or will kill its 
young. No other birds are allowed to intrude 
on territory that the weka thinks belongs to him. 
The weka is regarded as most useful as an 
insect destroyer, and it is hoped that it may be 
preserved. 
The kakapo, or owl parrot, is a large bird 
which formerly possessed the power of flight. 
It has fully developed wings, and may sometime 
fly a little, but on the whole, it is a ground 
dweller and a swift runner, passing most of its 
time in caves or holes in the rocks. It feeds at 
night, living chiefly on berries and other fruit, 
and is an entirely gentle and unsuspicious bird. 
Like the weka, the owl parrot is good eating, 
and many a starving man has been kept alive 
by this food while passing through an unin¬ 
habited country. The kakapo feeds largely on 
grass, and is said to eject from its mouth this 
grass in dry pellets after its juice has all been 
extracted. 
The bird takes its name, owl parrot, from the 
disc of prominent feathers about the eyes and 
near the bill, which is so noticeable in most owls. 
One of the most extraordinary of New Zea¬ 
land’s birds is the kea, another fruit-eating 
parrot, which, however, is much better known 
for the harm that it does to the sheep flocks. 
The kea’s bill is long and strong, and it pos¬ 
sesses inordinate curiosity. If it sees anything 
that it does not understand, it at once endeavors 
to find out what it is. and in this effort is likely 
to tear it to pieces. Keas are not naturally in¬ 
clined to attack sheep, but, according to good 
authority, the taste for sheep fat was first ac¬ 
quired by keas which were investigating badly 
cleaned sheep skins hanging up to dry. Mr. 
Harper says: 
“Keas naturally feed on berries, but they are 
possessed of an intense desire to investigate 
