96 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
rare bird, writing of one, in 1883,—“Rahui continued his call— 
a loud clear whistle—not much like the ordinary call of the 
bird, being louder and more shrill. In a few seconds, without 
sound or warning of any kind, a huia came bounding along 
almost tumbling, through the close foliage of the pukapuka 
and presented himself to view at such close range that it was 
impossible to fire. This gave me an opportunity of watching 
this beautiful bird and marking his noble bearing, if I may 
so express it, before I shot him.’ 7 A strange instinct; to 
destroy what he admired : evidently his admiration was for the 
specimen; not for the bird. He continues “.My next shot 
was at an adult male huia who came dashing up with reckless 
impetuosity, from the wooded gully. Being anxious to obtain 
a perfect specimen, I risked a long shot and only wounded my 
bird. Down he went to the ground like an arrow, with a 
sharp flute-like note of surprise or pain, and then darted off 
kangaroo fashion, covering the ground with wonderful rapidity, 
and disappeared in the tangle.a pair of huias, without 
uttering a sound, appeared in a tree overhead, and as they 
were caressing each other with their beautiful bills, a charge 
of No. 6 brought them to the ground together. The incident 
was rather touching, and I felt almost glad that the shot was 
not mine, although by no means loth to appropriate the two 
fine specimens. Before we reached our next camping ground, 
at the foot of Poroporo, we had bagged another bird, who. 
came up quite fearlessly to her doom.” More were shot, and 
so the record of barbarity goes on; the man deplores the rarity 
of the birds, and slaughters them mercilessly; one can only 
believe that their rarity is deplored solely because of the con¬ 
sequent leanness of his bag. 
The appearance of the huia will be well known to all stamp 
collectors; for it is represented in the beautiful series of pic¬ 
torial postage stamps issued by the New Zealand Government 
in 1898, and first brought into use on the 5th April of that 
year. On the threepenny stamp, light brown, designed by 
M. R. Bock, of Wellington, a pair of huia appears. The six¬ 
penny stamp, sap-green, designed by E. Howard, of Melbourne, 
