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Second Edition
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It has been remarked by a celebrated naturalist that “New Zealand is the most interesting ornithological province in the world;” and in a qualified sense this is no doubt true. The last remnant of a former continent, and, geologically considered, probably the oldest country on the face of our globe, it contains at the present day the only living representatives of an extinct race of wonderful Struthious birds.
Within recent historic times this circumscribed area, scarcely equal in extent to that of Great Britain, was tenanted, to the entire exclusion of Mammalia, by countless numbers of gigantic brevipennate or wingless birds, of various genera and species, the largest attaining to a stature nearly twice that of a full-grown Ostrich. These colossal ornithic types have disappeared; but their diminutive representatives (the different species of Apteryx) still exist, in diminished numbers, in various parts of the country; and these are objects of the highest interest to the natural-historian. But apart from this view of the subject the avifauna of New Zealand presents many special features of considerable interest. A large proportion of the genera are peculiar to the country; while some of the forms are perfectly anomalous, being entirely without a parallel in any other part of the world.
Under the changed physical conditions of the country, brought about by the operations of colonization, some of these remarkable forms have already become almost, if not quite, extinct, and others are fast expiring. It has been the author’s desire to collect and place on record a complete life-history of these birds before their final extirpation shall have rendered such a task impossible; and it will be his aim to produce a book at once acceptable to scientific men in general and useful to his fellow-colonists.
It may be mentioned that the author’s official position in New Zealand, during a period of more than twelve years, has enabled him to visit nearly every part of the country, while his frequent intercourse with the various native tribes has been highly favourable to such an object as the present undertaking.
The work will comprise an introductory treatise on the ornithology of New Zealand, a concise diagnosis of each bird in Latin and English, synoptical lists of the nomenclature, and a popular history and description of all the known species—and will contain coloured illustrations, by Keulemans, of all the more interesting or characteristic forms. It will be published in five Parts, each containing not less than seven coloured lithographs, comprising altogether about seventy figures of New-Zealand birds.
London, January 1872.
The study of Ornithology has always been a source of intense enjoyment to me; and to write a history of the Birds of my native country was one of the day-dreams of my early boyhood. In maturer years my intervals of leisure, during an active official life in the colony, have been chiefly devoted to the collection of materials for such an undertaking; and the result is now presented to the public in a form which will, I trust, be acceptable to both the scientific and the general reader.
With what amount of success I have executed my self-imposed task it is not for me to decide. I am conscious, however, of having bestowed much honest labour upon it; and the highly favourable manner in which it has been reviewed, as well as the numerous letters of commendation and approval which I have received from persons in every way competent to form a judgment, give me reason to believe that my efforts have not been misdirected.
As a proof that I have spared myself no trouble to make the work complete I may mention that, without a single exception, the descriptions of the species have been taken from specimens actually before me, and that every measurement given throughout the book has been made or verified by myself. The life-histories are, for the most part, records of my own observations during a number of years; and I have endeavoured to make them as truthful as possible. It will be seen, however, that I have not failed to avail myself of the notes of other local naturalists, whose contributions are, in every instance, duly acknowledged.
I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the Colonial Government for having granted me a prolonged leave of absence, on the most liberal terms, for the purpose of visiting England to superintend the publication of my work. To the authorities of the British Museum my thanks are due for the facilities which have been afforded me of studying the contents of perhaps the finest collection of Birds in the world, and to the gentlemen having charge of that department for their unvarying courtesy and attention—even my application to be allowed to remove the rare Notornis from its hermetically closed case, for the purpose of examination, having been readily complied with.
In working out the historical synonymy of the species I have found the Library of the
To my brethren of the British Ornithologists’ Union I hereby tender my acknowledgments for the readiness with which they have at all times given me the benefit of their opinions and judgment on doubtful points, or lent me specimens for comparison.
In conclusion I have only to state that, in consideration of the generous assistance accorded to me by the New-Zealand Government, I have presented the whole of my collection of Birds, on which the descriptive letterpress is chiefly founded, to the Colonial Museum at Wellington, where it will in future be accessible for purposes of reference.
The success which attended the Author’s first edition of ‘The Birds of New Zealand’ (published in 1873, and containing comparatively few illustrations) has induced him to enter upon a more ambitious undertaking. Limited as that was to an impression of 500 copies, the whole edition was privately subscribed for; and the drawings on the stones, from which Mr. Keulemans had produced the inimitable Plates, were then erased. Published at Five Guineas, the price rapidly rose till, in a few years, a copy fetched £20 at public auction in New Zealand; then £21 in London (at the sale of s. Even within the last few months, with the new edition well in progress, a second-hand copy reached £26 at Mr. Sotheby’s sale-rooms.
The interval of thirteen years since elapsed has been spent by the Author in New Zealand, where he has enjoyed exceptional opportunities for obtaining fresh specimens and extending his knowledge of this remarkable avifauna.
This work will be issued in Thirteen Parts (to Subscribers only) at the price of One Guinea each, or Twelve Guineas for the whole if paid in advance.
Each part (except the last) will contain facsimiles of four beautiful coloured drawings by Mr. Keulemans, the birds being represented as they appear in life, with accessories drawn from the native flora of the country. These will be highly finished pictures in the best style of modern art, all the colour-stones being drawn either by or under the immediate direction of Mr. Keulemans himself. Specimens of these Plates, exhibited at the last Soirée of the Royal Society, were pronounced by ‘The Times’ reviewer “absolutely perfect.”
A figure will be given of every form peculiar to New Zealand; and the enlarged size (Imperial
The final Part will contain a General Introduction, profusely illustrated with woodcuts, the List of Subscribers, and a complete Index to the whole work.
London, September 30, 1887.
“When on a former occasion (at Glasgow in 1876) I had the honour of addressing a Department of this Section, I pointed out the enormous changes that were swiftly and inevitably coming upon the fauna of many of our colonies. The fears I then expressed have been fully realized. I am told by Sir
As stated in the Prospectus, this new and enlarged edition of ‘The History of the Birds of New Zealand’ is the outcome of a very general and rapidly increasing demand for a second issue. Its publication was commenced in June 1887, and the Author hopes to have the second volume completed by the end of February 1889.
Owing to the favourable reception accorded to this new ‘History’ in the Australasian Colonies, and the consequently increased number of Subscribers, the Author found himself in the gratifying position of being able to reduce the price of each Part from One Guinea and a half (as announced in the original prospectus) to One Guinea; but, as already notified, the edition will be strictly limited to 1000 copies, of which only about 250 will be available for Europe and America.
Although the Author has adhered to the general method and style of the former edition, he ventures to hope that the alterations and additions in the body of the work fairly represent, so far as New Zealand is concerned, the great advance which has been made in Ornithological Science during the present decade. The book itself is on a larger scale, being Imperial instead of Royal Quarto, and the Plates, instead of being hand-coloured lithographs, have been produced by the more costly but more exact and satisfactory process of printing in colours. It is generally admitted that nothing so perfect in colour-printing has hitherto been attempted; and the Author feels that special thanks are due to the talented artist; Mr.
To the Subscribers in England and the Colonies, and particularly in New Zealand, who have responded so liberally to the announcement of a New Edition, the Author tenders his grateful acknowledgments; for without such support he would never have undertaken so costly an enterprise. He would fain hope that the honest and patient labour which he has devoted to the work will be deemed a fitting return for their generous confidence.
Trans. N.-Z. Instit. 1868, vol. i.The first published list of the birds of New Zealand was drawn up by the late Mr. Ibid. pp. 105–112.
My first edition of the present work, published in 1873, contained descriptions of 147 species; and in my ‘Manual of the Birds of New Zealand,’ prepared at the request of the Colonial Government in 1882, twenty-nine more species were added to the list. The present edition does not profess to add many more to the number; but the classification and nomenclature have been revised, and a far more complete history has been given of each species than was possible before, seeing that I have, for a further period of fourteen years, enjoyed favourable opportunities for becoming better acquainted with the subject.
In the Introduction to the former edition it was stated that I had considered it necessary to omit the following species, there being no satisfactory evidence of their having occurred in New Zealand, viz.:— Halcyon cinnamomina, Anthochœra carunculata, Gerygone igata, Rhipidura motacilloides, Aplonis zealandicus, A. caledonicus, Ortygometra fluminea, O. crex, Nesonetta aucklandica, Anous stolidus, Procellaria incerta, P. mollis, Dysporus piscator, Phalacrocorax sulcirostris, and
I ought perhaps here to refer to a species mentioned in the former Introduction as a newly-discovered addition to the New-Zealand Avifauna, but now omitted from our list. It was introduced by me in the following terms:—“In a country possessing such forms as NotornisPorphyrioTribonyx. Both of the latter are known to have a wide geographic range, while Notornis, which is a strictly local form, appears to combine in some measure the characters of each, being allied to Porphyrio in the form of its bill and in its general colouring, and to Tribonyx in the structure of its feet; while in the feebleness of its wings and the structure of its tail it differs from both. The recent discovery, therefore, in the South Island, of an example of Tribonyx mortieri
“The former acquisition by the Society of a similar bird, in July 1867, led to the discovery by Dr. Sclater that the species figured and described by Mr. Gould in his ‘Birds of Australia’ under that name was not the true Tribonyx mortieri of Du Bus (Bull. Acad. Sc. Brux. vii. p. 214), but a distinct bird, characterized by its smaller size and by the absence of white stripes on the wing-coverts. Dr. Sclater accordingly proposed the name of Tribonyx gouldi for the latter species (Ann. N. H. 1867, xx. p. 122), and gave the following distinguishing characters for T. mortieri:—‘Major; alis albo striatis; plaga magna hypochondriali alba.’
“The bird now in the ‘Gardens’ was brought home (with other birds from New Zealand) by Mr. “Descr. ♀. Crown and sides of the head, nape, hind neck, back, and rump brownish olive, washed more or less with chestnut; wing-coverts greyish olive, shading into brown, each feather with a white streak down the centre; throat, fore neck, breast, and sides of the body dark ashy grey, passing into slaty black on the abdomen and under tail-coverts, where the plumage is slightly tipped or freckled with grey; the overlapping feathers on the flanks pure white in their apical portion, forming a conspicuous mark on each side of the body; under wing-coverts dull blackish brown, and all largely tipped with white; quills blackish brown, the secondaries brownish olive on their outer webs; tail-feathers black, the middle ones tinged with brown on their outer margins. Irides bright crimson, with a paler rim surrounding the pupil; bill greenish yellow, lighter towards the tip; legs and feet pale plumbeous tinged with yellow, the claws black. Total length 16·5 inches; extent of wing 25; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 4·5; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible 1·4; tarsus 2·75; middle toe and claw 3·25; hind toe and claw 1·1.”
Professor Hutton, having made the necessary inquiries on the spot, satisfied himself that the story was a pure invention, and that the dealer had purchased the bird in Dunedin, where it had doubtless been brought from Australia.
After the appearance of my first edition Dr.
In 1875 there appeared a new edition of the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror,’ with an Appendix from the pen of Mr.
The most recent work containing notices of New-Zealand birds is Mr. Seebohm’s on ‘The Geographical Distribution of the Charadriidae’ Doubtless it is easy enough to discover “blunders and omissions” in any book that professes to treat exhaustively of the birds of a particular country, or the members of any special group or division; but Mr. Seebohm seems to have been exceptionally unfortunate in his references to New-Zealand species. He says of Anarhynchus frontalis as an “inland species;” and he confounds
With regard to the changes I found it necessary, in my first edition, to make in the generally accepted nomenclature, my explanation was a simple one. While fully admitting the advantages of the rule “quieta non movers” in the case of names which had obtained universal currency, I considered it better, in undertaking a general revision of the whole subject, to apply the strict principle of modern nomenclature, and, in all cases where the subject was free from doubt, to adopt the oldest admissible title. I knew that we could not look for any finality in the generic appellations so long as the science was a progressive one; but I was desirous of giving something like fixity and permanence to the specific names; and with this view I endeavoured, so far as I could, to rectify all existing errors–altering the names entirely in cases where it appeared to me that wrong ones had hitherto been employed, and correcting obvious classical defects in others–substituting, for example, Hymenolaimus for Hymenolaimus, and antipodum for antipodes. In no instance did I introduce any change without very careful consideration and research; and the fact that the authorities in the British Museum, adopted, with scarcely a single exception, my corrections and identifications in the classification of the New-Zealand birds in the national collection, may, I think, be accepted as a proof that I exercised proper judgment in this respect.
In the present edition some other corrections of a trivial kind have been made in the nomenclature, and in every instance I have given what I venture to think are sufficient reasons for the proposed changes. For example, no ornithological student will object to the rectification of albicilla into albicapilla, or the substitution of Limosa novae zealandiae for the museum name of Limosa baueri, originally published without any description.
In my classification I have departed considerably from the system followed in my first edition. This was inevitable in order to keep pace with the progress of Ornithological science. I may state that I have in general, and as far as practicable, adhered to the scheme of arrangement adopted in 1883 by a Committee of the British Ornithologists’ Union for the classification of the birds of Great Britain. But wherever I have thought it necessary to make any alteration in the arrangement of the Ordinal groups, I have not hesitated to do so. For example, I have made the Orders “Prof. Parker long ago observed (Trans. Z.S.v.p.150) that characters exhibited by Gulls when young, but lost by them when adult, are found in certain Plovers at all ages, and hence it would appear that the Professor Newton, in his able article “Ornithology” in the ‘Encyelopaedia Britannica,” in treating of the recent and existing forms of toothless Ratitae, says:—“Some systematists think there can be little question of the Gallinæ and Columbæ follow Accipitres instead of being placed after Steganopodes, as I consider this an equally natural arrangement and better suited to the proposed division of my work into two volumes, the first closing with the last-mentioned Order, and the second opening with the Limicolæ. I shall treat the Order
Gaviæ as naturally coming next, instead of being divorced by the interposition of Pygopodes, as proposed by the B.O.U. CommitteeGavioe; are but more advanced Limicoloe. The Limicolino genera Dromas and Chionis have many points of resemblance to the Laridoe; and on the whole the proper inforence would seem to be that the Limicoloe, or something very like them, form the parent-stock whence have descended the Gavioe, from which, or from their ancestral forms, the Alcidoe have proceeded as a degenerate branch.”—Enc. Brit. vol. xviii. p. 45.Grallæ, Herodiones, Steganopodes, and Tubinares will then follow in the order named; and I shall place Pygopodes after Anseres, closing the great Carinate division with the specialized group of Impennes or Penguins. After that, and concluding the work, will come a history of the Ratite forms in New Zealand (the various species of Apteryx), interesting not only on account of their low development but, as already explained, in respect of their relation to the extinct Struthiones.Struthiones being the most specialized and therefore probably the highest type of these Orders, and the present writer is rather inclined to agree with them. Nevertheless the formation of the bill in the Apteryges is quite unique in the whole Class, and indicates therefore an extraordinary amount of specialization. Their functionless wings, however, point to their being a degraded form, though in this matter they are not much worse than the Megistanes, and far above the Immanes—some of which at least appear to have been absolutely wingless, and were thus the only members of the Class possessing but a single pair of limbs.”
In my arrangement of the genera composing the great Order of Passeres I have for the most part followed the now well-beaten track of modern systematists; but in some instances I have ventured to depart from it, giving my reasons in every case. For example, I have followed Professors Parker and Newton in placing the Corvidae at the head of the Order instead of the Turdidae, and I have accordingly commenced my history of our Avifauna with an account of the New-Zealand Crow. It must be acknowledged, however, that Glaucopis, instead of being a typical Crow, betrays certain strongly aberrant characters, and it is possible that we may hereafter have to alter its exact location. In the present unsettled state of Ornithological nomenclature I am anxious to avoid, as far as possible, the multiplication of names; but Glaucopis may prove to be one of those abnormal Antipodean forms of a very ancient fauna—generalized types though existing in a specialized form—which have no analogues or representatives in the Northern Hemisphere. In this event it must ultimately become the type of a new Family, to which the name of Glaucopididœ might be appropriately applied. At page 30 I have given my reasons for removing our two species of Thrush from the typical Turdidae and placing them in a new Family under the name of Turnagridae. So far, however, as the New-Zealand Ornis is concerned, alterations of this kind will not affect the generic arrangement of the groups in their mutual relation to one another.
But, as remarked in my former Introduction, any system of classification, however excellent in itself, or ably conceived and elaborated, must of necessity be a provisional or tentative one, so long as our knowledge of the structural character and natural affinities of the vast majority of species continues so imperfect as it confessedly is at present. When the anatomy of every known bird on the face of the globe has been as fully investigated as that of the Rock-Dove ( Columba livia) was by the late Professor Macgillivray, and its life-history becomes as thoroughly known, then, but not till then, will it be possible to devise a system of arrangement absolutely true to nature. The aim and purpose of all classification being to aid the memory in its effort to comprehend and master the complex and ever varied productions of nature, or, in other words, to assist the mind by a ready association of ideas
In portraying the manners and habits of the various species I have been careful to omit nothing that seemed calculated to elucidate their natural history. It has been said that a zoologist cannot be too exact in recording dates and other apparently trivial circumstances in the course of his observations, and that it is better to err on the side of minuteness than of vagueness, because an observer is scarcely competent to determine how far an attendant circumstance, trivial in itself, may afterwards be found to enhance the value of a recorded fact in science when viewed in relation to other facts or observations. It must be borne in mind, however, that we are as yet only imperfectly acquainted with many of the native species, and that probably, in the history of all that are here treated of, new facts or new features of character will hereafter come to light. It is extremely difficult to cultivate an intimate acquaintance with birds that are naturally shy and recluse, and especially so in a thinly peopled country, where they rarely cross the path of man and must be assiduously sought for in bush, swamp, and jungle. While relying generally on my own opportunities for observation, I have not failed to avail myself of the kind assistance of others; and in the body of the work numerous acknowledgments will be found of information furnished by correspondents in various parts of the country, who, amid the multifarious duties and engagements of a colonial life, have found time to take notice of the natural objects around them.
Before passing on to a consideration of the existing Avifauna it may be useful to take a rapid survey of the Families and Genera known to us by their fossil remains as having formerly inhabited New Zealand, or roamed over the continent of which these islands are the only remnants at the present day. These ornithic relics of a bygone time have been interpreted, restored, and classified with marvellous felicity by Professor Sir Quarto, 1878, 2 vols.Apteryx australis). which, as the Professor states, is the nearest ally of the
Dinornis, and is followed by notices of the food, footprints, nests, and eggs of the Moas, the Maori traditions relating to these gigantic birds, the causes and probable period of their extirpation, and a speculation on the conditions influencing the atrophy of the wings in flightless birds—to all of which the learned author has appended Supplementary Memoirs on the Dodo, Solitaire, and Great Auk, with evidences of other extinct birds in Australia and Great Britain.
The first Moa-bone of which we have any record was a mere fragment of a femur six inches in length, with both extremities broken off, which was brought to England in 1839, and offered for sale at the Royal College of Surgeons by an individual
After the publication of Professor Owen’s paper the bone was purchased by Mr. Bright, M.P. for Bristol, and many years subsequently came into the possession of the British Museum, where this historic relic is now carefully preserved.
More than three years elapsed before any confirmatory evidence was received from New Zealand; and then came a letter from the Rev. Dinornis, as afforded by the bones of the hind extremity. An examination of a second and richer collection sent home by Mr. Williams, together with three additional specimens lent by Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Richardson of Haslar Hospital, enabled him to discriminate six distinct species of the genus, ascending respectively from the size of the Great Bustard to that of the Dodo, of the Emu, of the Ostrich, and finally attaining a stature far surpassing that of the last-named biped.
The first of these was a Cursorial bird which, on account of the agreement of its tibia in its general characters with the same bone in the larger species, he referred at that time to the genus Dinornis, but which subsequent investigations proved to belong to another genus, characterized by
Palapteryx was proposed. As this bird had something of the appearance of the Great Bustard, he called it Dinornis otidiformis.
It may be here mentioned that in the Ostrich, Rhea, and Cassowary there is no vestige of a hind toe or hallux.
The next was a three-toed Struthious bird differing from the other species of Dinornis in its relatively shorter and broader metatarsus, in which characters it appeared closely to resemble the extinct Dodo (Didus ineptus) of the Isles of France and Rodriguez; and as it could not have been greatly superior in size to that bird, he named it Dinornis didiformis. Judging by its skeleton, this bird stood a little under four feet in height, or of intermediate size between the Cassowary and the Dodo. In the metatarsal of this bird, as with the larger species of Dinornis to be presently mentioned, there was not the slightest trace of the articulation of a fourth posterior toe, the generic distinction from Didus and Apteryx being thus distinctly indicated.
The next species described, which appears to have attained the average height of the Ostrich (about seven feet), with a more robust and stronger build, he named Dinornis struthioides, and pointed out characters which placed the fact of its being a good and true species beyond all cavil or doubt.
Another species, which attained the height of nine feet, he provisionally named Copies of this interesting plate have appeared in Kennedy’s ‘New Zealanders,’ Sir Dinornis ingens; but, as will appear further on, this bird was also subsequently referred to the genus Palapteryx. Then came the discovery of a still larger form, standing ten feet in height if not more, which he distinguished as Dinornis giganteus. A fair idea of the size of this gigantic bird, in comparison with the stature of an ordinary-sized man, may be obtained from the accompanying woodcut, which is a reduction from the lithograph forming the frontispiece to my first edition
Yet another form, with a stature of about five feet, had to be discriminated, and this Owen named Dinornis dromioides, on account of its similarity in size to the Emu.
Not content with this large addition to the hitherto known Struthious birds of the world from one small area of land, the learned Professor made a happy forecast of further discoveries yet in store, for he then wrote:—
“Already the heretofore recorded number of the Struthionidae is doubled by the six species of Dinornis determined or indicated in the foregoing pages; and both the Maori tradition of the destruction of the Moa by their ancestors and the history of the extirpation of the Dodo by the Dutch navigators in the Isles of Maurice and Rodriguez, teach the inevitable lot of bulky birds unable to fly or swim, when exposed, by the dispersion of the human race, to the attacks of man. We may therefore reasonably articipate that other evidences await the researches of the naturalist, which will demonstrate a further extent of the Struthious order of Birds anterior to the commencement of the present active cause of their extinction.”
Among the most important contributors to the history of Dinornis at this early period were the
“Early in 1843 I removed from the Bay of Islands to Wanganui, and my first journey was along the coast of Waimate. As we were resting on the shore near the Waingongoro stream, I noticed the fragment of a bone which reminded me of the one I found at Waiapu. I took it up and asked my natives what it was. They replied ‘a Moa’s bone; what else? Look around and you will see plenty of them.’ I jumped up, and to my amazement I found the sandy plain covered with a number of little mounds entirely composed of Moa-bones; it appeared to me to be a regular necropolis of the race. I was struck with wonder at the sight, but lost no time in selecting some of the most perfect of the bones. I had a box in which my supplies for the journey were carried; this I emptied, and filled with the bones instead, to the amazement of my followers, who exclaimed ‘What is he doing? What can he possibly want with these old Moa-bones? One suggested’ hei rongoa pea’ (to make medicine perhaps); to this the others consented, saying ‘koia pea’ (most likely).”
Other stray collections continued to arrive from time to time, till at length Mr. Dinornis casuarinus, nearly agreeing in size with D. dromioides, and combining the stature of the Cassowary with more robust proportions and especially more gallinaceous characters in the feet. A mutilated femur of this bird he had previously regarded as belonging to a young individual of the last-named species, and when he afterwards corrected the error he pointed out that it was a mistake on the safe side, “the caution which refrains from multiplying specific names on incomplete evidence being less likely to impede the true progress of zoological science than the opposite extreme.” The most abundant of the remains collected by Mr. Earl belonged to this species (D. casuarinus); but there were also in the collection bones of another very remarkable species, which was named Dinornis crassus, in allusion to the strength of its osseous frame. It was intermediate in size between Dinornis ingens and D. struthioides, and, with a stature equal to that of the Ostrich, the
Dinornis didiformis, and strictly confined in its range to the North Island, was named Dinornis curtus.
These more complete materials contained indubitable proof that Dinornis dromioides possessed, in common with D. ingens, the character of a distinct hind toe. Among the true forms of Dinornis this member was reduced (as in the Apteryx) to a high-placed hallux of diminutive size and functionless character, the attachment of this rudimentary toe being merely ligamentous. In most of the skeletons of Dinornis hitherto found there was no trace whatever of a hallux; but Professor Owen has, with every show of probability, ascribed this absence to the extremely small size of these bones and the ease with which they could be overlooked or lost rather than to their non-development, although at an earlier date he was inclined to make it a character of generic importance.
In 1850, Sir
Most of these remains were found to belong to Palapteryx ingens, of which the annexed imaginary sketch is given in Prof. Hochstetter’s ‘Neu-Seeland’ (1863, p. 438).
Up to this period of our narrative the remains discovered appear to have belonged exclusively to birds of the Struthious Order; and, as Professor Owen had on more than one occasion explained, the existing As to the affinities of the Apteryx, notwithstanding the inferiority of size, modified structure of the palate, and
Apteryx, deducible from its anatomy, Prof. Owen says:—“Commencing with the skeleton, all the leading modifications of that basis of its structure connect it closely with the Struthious group. In the diminutive and keelless sternum it agrees with all the known Struthious species, and with these alone. The two posterior emarginations which we observe in the sternum of the Ostrich are present in a still greater degree in the Apteryx; but the feeble development of the anterior extremities, to the muscles of which the sternum is mainly subservient, as a basis of attachment, is the condition of a peculiarly incomplete state of the ossification of that bone of the Apteryx; and the two sub-circular perforations which intervene between the origins of the pectoral muscle on the one side, and those of a large inferior dermocervical muscle on the other, form one of several unique structures in the anatomy of this bird.”
But new discoveries of a most interesting kind were yet in store for the great comparative anatomist, by which he was afterwards able to demonstrate further links of connection between the extinct types and still existing forms.
In 1852–55 it fell to the lot of Mr. “The “By the side of the metatarsus of kainya (at the stream now known as Awamoa) which we found in 1852 afforded further unmistakable proof of the coexistence of man with the Moa—the bones and egg-shells of Dinornis and its kindred, mixed with remains of every available variety of bird, beast, and fish used as food by the aborigines, being all in and around the umus (or native ovens) in which they had been cooked. Although my collection from this place reached England in 1853, it remained unopened until after my arrival there in 1856, when I caused it to be conveyed to the crypts of the British Museum, and there unpacked it in the presence of the great authority on our gigantic birds, Professor Owen. With the exception of two small collections which were selected for me by Professor Owen, and which I gave, one to the Museum of Yale College, U.S., and the other to that of the Jardin des Plantes, the whole of this collection is now in the British Museum. The fragments of egg-shells from these umus varied in size from less than a quarter of an inch of greatest diameter to three or four inches. These, after careful washing, I had sorted; and having, with some patience, found the fragments which had originally been broken from each other, and fitted them together, I succeeded in restoring at least a dozen eggs to an extent sufficient to show their size and outline. Six or seven of the best of these I gave to the British Museum after their purchase of the collection; one is in the Museum of the College of Surgeons; the rest, including one very beautiful egg with a polished ivory-like surface, are still in my ownership somewhere in England. Some idea of the labour entailed by this attempt to rehabilitate eggs may be gathered from the fact that several of those restored consisted of between 200 and 300 fragments. I may add that in the markings, size, and so forth (making allowance for the ulteration of the former towards the ends of the eggs) I made out about twenty-four varieties, of which I have specimens.”—Mantell.Dinornis elephantopus, “a species which, for massive strength of the limbs, and the general proportion of breadth or bulk to height of body, must have been the most extraordinary of all the previously restored wingless birds of New Zealand, and unmatched, probably, by any known recent or extinct member of the class of Birds”Dinornis elephantopus, that of D. crassus shrinks to moderate if not slender dimensions. But the peculiarities of the elephant–footed Dinornis stand out still more conspicuously when the bones of its lower limbs are contrasted with those of D. giganteus.”—Owen.
The excellent woodcut on the next page, showing this skeleton as articulated in the British Museum, is copied by permission from Dr. Thomson’s ‘Story of New Zealand,’ p. 32.
But, in addition to this splendid Moa, the collection contained other very interesting novelties. Among these were Dr. Meyer, from a careful comparison of the bones, concludes that the South-Island bird is a distinct species, for which (in his ‘Abbildungen von Vögel-Skeletten’) he has proposed the name of Aptornis, the giant prototype of the existing Woodhen (Ocydromus), and notably the fossil remains of Notornis mantelli, a huge Coot, of which three recent or living examples were
Notornis hochstetteri.
The abundant remains of Aptornis enabled the Professor to discriminate two species, namely Aptornis otidiformis (originally, from the examination of a single bone, referred to Dinornis) and the still larger Aptornis defossor, of such size and strength that, to quote his own words, “the civil engineer might study perhaps with advantage the disposition of the several buttresses, beams, and arched plates which support the iliac roof of the pelvis, and strengthen the acetabular walls, receiving the pressure of the thigh-bones in this huge and powerful Woodhen.”
I may here mention that an In relation to measurements Prof. Owen says:—“These may perhaps be deemed by some ornithologists to be slight or trivial differences; yet, taken in connection with the greater breadth and thickness of the bone, in proportion to its length, they unquestionably support the conclusions of specific distinction deducible from those proportions.”Aptornis skull, dug up by Mr. A. Otidiformis, and that Sir Aptornis bulleri.”
Then followed the discovery, in succession, of Dinornis geranoides, D. gravis, D. rheides, and D. robustus. Of the last-named species there is now an almost perfect skeleton in the museum at York, in a remarkable state of preservation, with portions of the integuments and quill-part of the feathers still attaching to the sacrum, and the legs still preserving some of the ligaments and interarticular cartilages. With this valuable series, which will be found fully described by Mr. Allis in the ‘Proc. Linn. Society’ (vol. viii. p. 50), were found the rudimentary wing-bones which had so long been an object of diligent search. The skeleton is probably that of a male bird, because lying immediately beneath it, buried in the heap of sand with which the remains were covered, were the bones of four young ones, presumably the whole of a clutch. This deduction as to the sex seems a fair one from analogy, inasmuch as the male Apteryx, and indeed that sex in the majority of Struthious birds, alone performs the duty of incubation.
Subsequently another species, coming from the extreme North, was determined by Prof. Owen, and named Dinornis gracilis, on account of the remarkable length and slenderness of its legs.
But there seemed to be practically no limit to the ornithic wonders revealed by the Post-pliocene deposits of New Zealand. Professor Owen had already well nigh exhausted the vocabulary of terms expressive of largeness by naming his successive discoveries ingens, giganteus, crassus, robustus, and elephantopus, when he had to employ the superlative in Dinornis maximus to distinguish a species far exceeding in stature even the stately Dinornis giganteus. In this colossal bird, as the Professor has well remarked, some of the cervical vertebræ almost equal in size the neck-bones of a horse. The skeleton in the British Museum, even in an easy standing posture, measures eleven feet in height, and there is evidence that some of these feathered giants attained to a still greater stature.
A fair idea may be gained of its proportionate size from the accompanying woodcut, which appeared some years ago in ‘The Illustrated London News,’ representing the entire left leg of a Moa (now in the Madras Government Museum) obtained by Major Michael, of the Madras Staff Corps, from the Glenmark swamp, about 40 miles from Christchurch, where it was found in situ, at a depth of four feet, by a party of workmen who were cutting a drain. The measurements are:— Femur 1 ft. 6 in.; tibia 3 ft. 3 in.; tarsus 1 ft. 8 in.; outer toe 9 ¾ in.
The corresponding right leg was exhumed a considerable time afterwards, when Mr. Fuller was conducting a search on behalf of the Canterbury Museum, and this specimen, with the phalanges complete, is now in my private collection.
In November 1878, Mr.
It was this specimen that enabled Sir Dinornis didinus, and we may imagine the delight with which the veteran scientist embraced this opportunity of examining, for the first time, a specimen in which the characters could be studied as in a living or recent bird, and the value of his deductions from the study of single bones thereby tested, as well as the satisfaction with which he found his general conclusions so amply verified. This bird was scarcely larger than Dinornis didiformis, but presented characters of sufficient importance to separate it specifically from that form. The result of a close comparison of this dried head with that of existing Struthious birds was that “the Moa is found to repeat most closely, in the form and proportions of the beak, and. in the shape, relative positions, and dimensions of the narial, orbital, and auditory apertures, the Emus
The other newly-discovered species (D. parvus) was founded on a nearly complete skeleton procured during the construction of a new road, about forty miles to the north-west of Nelson. The opportunity thus afforded of examining the entire osteology of a single bird was of extreme importance in the final determination of the generic characters. In size Dinornis parvus was scarcely superior to the Bustard (Otis tarda); and, although the smallest known member of this race of Struthious birds, it had proportionately the largest skull of all the Dinornithidœ. On this curious fact Owen thoughtfully remarks that if the peculiarly nutritious roots of the common fern contributed, together with buds or foliage of trees, to the food of the various species of Moa, the concomitant gain of power in the locomotive and fossorial limbs does not appear to have called for a proportionate growth or development of brain or of bill.
But the turbary deposits of New Zealand had not yet yielded up the whole of their wonderful story of the past. In the year 1868, it was discovered that the Glenmark swamp was a veritable necropolis of extinct birds. It is said that portions of no less than eighteen skeletons were dug up from the spot whence Major Michael obtained his leg of Dinornis maximus and within an area of about ten square feet. Under the able direction of the late Sir Julius von Haast, and with indefatigable zeal, these fossil remains were exhumed literally by thousands, sent to the Canterbury Museum in waggon-loads, sorted and classified there, and then distributed among the museums of the world, producing in return, by a judicious system of interchange, some £20,000 worth of specimens of various kinds, and helping materially to place the Canterbury Museum in the proud position which it now occupies in the Colony.
Sir Julius von Haast worked out the collections which he had formed in a very painstaking manner, and published the results in an Address to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. His minute observations and measurements over a wide field of specimens had the effect of confirming in a very remarkable manner the conclusions arrived at previously by Sir
But perhaps the most important discovery was that of the existence, contemporaneously with the Moa, of a gigantic bird of prey, far exceeding the Golden Eagle in size, to which Haast gave the name of Vol. iv. pp. 192–196.Harpagornis moorei. The evidence of this furnished by the fossil remains was fully discussed by the discoverer in a paper published in the Transactions of the New-Zealand InstituteDinornis, or the chicks or young broods of the more gigantic forms.
A second and smaller species was afterwards described, under the name of Harpagornis assimilis; but it is not unlikely that this was the male of H. moorei, the disparity in size, which is the only difference, being thus easily explained.
In addition to this wondrous store of bones, so intermixed and packed together that in some instances there were twenty-five or thirty specimens from different birds imbedded in one solid mass, Sir Julius Haast had afterwards the opportunity of examining another interesting collection of Moabones
Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. xii. p. 171.Dinornis curtus in 1844–45. In this collection there was an almost perfect skeleton of a species appreciably smaller than the last-named one; and, under the name of Dinornis oweni, Haast dedicated this to “the illustrious biologist to whom science in New Zealand is so much indebted”
In a paper published in 1874, Sir Julius Haast proposed a new classification of the extinct Struthiones, which, so far, does not appear to have met with general acceptance. He divided them into two Families, which he named respectively the Dinornithidœ and the Palapterygidœ, each with two genera, the former comprising Dinornis and Meionornis, and the latter Palapteryx and Euryapteryx. He made the total absence of hind toe or hallux the distinguishing character of the first-named Family, thus following the broad line by which Owen had already differentiated his genera Dinornis and Palapteryx. He ventured, moreover, to characterize his Family Palapterygidœ as one in which the anterior limbs are entirely absent; but his conclusions on this head are far from being decisive. It would appear more likely, from the analogy of the case, that in those species in which the wings are supposed to have been wholly absent they existed only in a very rudimentary form, and that the small bones have perished, leaving no trace behind for the modern student of palæontology. It seems to be placed beyond doubt that in all the so-called Wingless Birds, by long-continued disuse of the anterior limbs through many successive generations, these organs had become enfeebled and ultimately atrophied and dwarfed to the condition of mere rudiments, as is now conspicuously apparent in the existing species of Apteryx. Professor Owen has suggested that in the case of Dinornis “the degree of atrophy, which seems to have been carried to a total loss of the limb-appendages of the scapulo-coracoid arch, implies the operation of the influence of disuse through a period of pre-Mäori æons greatly exceeding the time during which the Lamarckian law has operated on the Cassowary, the Rhea, and the Ostrich.”
Following this came the discovery by Sir Trans. N.-Z. Instit, vol. iv. pp. 341–346.Cnemiornis calcitrans. The first tolerably complete skeleton of this Anserine form, which was certainly contemporaneous with the colossal Moas, was obtained by the Hon. Captain Fraser in the Earnsclough caves, and was afterwards presented by him to the British Museum. Another coeval species determined by Professor Huxley, was the giant Penguin (Palœeudyptes antarcticus), of which the bones were discovered by Mantell in the Oamaru limestone in 1849. To the same species are doubtless referable the fossil remains more recently found by Mr.
Even now, although the Post-pliocene bone-deposits of New Zealand, both North and South, have been pretty thoroughly explored, new species of Wingless Birds are being from time to time added to the list. During the last seven years Professor Owen has characterized two new species from the
Dinornis didinus and D. parvus; and he has suggested that another, which may ultimately turn out to be new, might be appropriately named Dinornis huttoni, in compliment to the discoverer.
As already mentioned Sir Julius Haast added Dinornis oweni to the list of species; and he likewise discovered an extinct form of Apteryx, far exceeding in size those existing at the present day, to which he gave the name of Megalapteryx hectori.
Doubtless other forms, perhaps as interesting and remarkable as any yet brought to light, remain entombed to reward the zeal and enterprise of the future explorer.
Bearing on the question of the geographical relations of the New-Zealand Avifauna, one very important fact presents itself to us. In the same way that, as at the present day, certain well-marked species in the North Island are represented in the South Island by closely allied but yet specifically distinct forms, so it was also with the extinct Avifauna. The strong-limbed Moas with bulky frames were Dinornis gravis, D. crassus, D. elephantopus, D. robustus, and D. maximus, and these appear to have been strictly confined to the South Island. Six species having proportionately thin leg-bones and a slighter frame, namely, Dinornis didiformis, D. dromioides, D. gracilis, D. struthioides, D. ingens, and D. giganteus, appear to have been restricted in their range to the North Island. Dinornis rheides, which appears to have inhabited both Islands, is intermediate in the strength and thickness of its limbs; and two species remarkable for their small size—Dinornis geranoides and D. curtus—have hitherto been found only in isolated localities.
As remarked by Sir Dinornis maximus is specially remarkable for its great size and strength even in a race of giants. One specimen exhibits such extreme measurements that Owen has suggested the existence of a yet taller species, for which he selects the provisional name of Dinornis altus.
Having had opportunities of examining very large series of bones, exhibiting an almost continuous gradation of size from the largest to the smallest, my own belief is that some at least of the birds differentiated above are mere varieties or conditional states of one and the same species; but their discrimination is not the less interesting and important from a scientific point of view. Even Professor Hutton, whose paper “On the Dimensions of Dinornis Bones” (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. pp. 274–278) goes far to establish this view, especially as to the impossibility of defining any strict line of demarcation between Dinornis elephantopus and D. crassus, is constrained to add:—“Still, notwithstanding all that I have said, I am convinced that it will be necessary to retain the names both of crassus and elephantopus to mark both ends of the series as characterized by the proportions of the metatarsus, the length of which in D. crassus is more than four times the breadth of the middle of the shaft, while the length is less than four times the breadth in D. elephantopus and D. gravis.”
It is clear that Owen has not founded his species of different stature on a mixture of old and young birds, as has been alleged by some naturalists, because in the Canterbury Museum are exhibited not only young bones of each species, from the chick to the full-grown bird where (to take only one bone as a guide) the tarsal epiphysis of the metatarsus is not yet quite anchylosed “We possess, amongst others, the leg-bone of a specimen of Dinornis maximus which is in size only second to the largest bones we have, but in which this immature character in the metatarsus is not yet quite effaced.”—Von Haast.
Not the least interesting fact connected with these giant Wingless Birds is that they have passed away within the historic period. The remains of all the species mentioned above have been discovered intermingled with human bones; they have been found, calcined and chopped, amid the rejectamenta of old Maori feasts in the ancient kitchen-middens of both Islands—facts which, quite apart from Maori tradition, prove incontestably that they were coeval with the early native inhabitants, and that their final extirpation was accelerated, if indeed it was not occasioned, by human agency.
The only question remains—At what period of history did they cease to exist? The late Sir Julius von Haast, who had devoted years of study to the subject, came to the conclusion that the extinction of the various species of Even this champion for the great antiquity of the Moa would appear to have latterly somewhat changed his views on this subject. I have a letter in my possession from him stating that having read the report of my speech in the Native Land Court, as Counsel for the Ngatiapa in the Rangatira case, with the Appendix containing an account of Apa-hapai-taketake and the pet Moa of the Ngatituwharetoa tribe—a story accepted by both the contending parties as true—he felt almost constrained to abandon the ground he had so persistently taken up. The following is an extract from the evidence given on that occasion by the leading witness, Hue Te Huri:—“I have heard the name of Apa-hapai-taketake an ancestor of the Ngatiapa tribe. He was the original source of the quarrel. Apa-hapai-take-take stole a Moa, which was a pet bird of the Ngatituwharetoa. While doing so he fell over a cliff and broke his thigh and was thenceforward nicknamed ‘Hapakoki’ (‘Hop and go one’). He got off with the Moa in spite of this. Then Ngatituwharetoa heard of it, and they went down upon his place and carried off his wife Hinemoatu in payment (Dinornis dates back perhaps a thousand years, and that the association with man, as proved by the numerous kitchen-middens and cave-habitations which he himself explored, had relation to a prehistoric or autochthonous race which, in the remote past, inhabited New Zealandutu) for the Moa which he had stolen. Then Hapakoki in great wrath went and seized the kumaras of Kawerau; and Ngatituwharetoa, in equal wrath, made an attack on the Ngatiapa. Then the Ngatiapa left and came to Maunganui, on the Upper Rangitikei; for all this happened at Putauaki, near the Awa-o-te-Atua, in the Bay of Plenty. The Ngatituwharetoa pursued them and attacked them at Maunganui. Ngatiapa moved on south and settled on the north-east side of the Taupo Lake; but they were followed up and again attacked, and they again moved on to Tawhare-Papauma and Moturoa, south of Taupo, and close to Rotoaira, on the edge of the lake of that name.”Dinornis are overwhelming. The circumstance already mentioned of the discovery of a skeleton with a portion of the skin and feathers attached, in such a climate as that of New Zealand, is entirely opposed to the theory of remote antiquity.
Then, again, the comparatively recent date of the bones of even the larger species is attested by their chemical condition and the large amount of animal matter they contain. As compared with a recent tibia of the Ostrich, containing 26·51 of animal matter, the fossil femur of Dinornis didiformis has been found to contain 25·99. According to another comparative analysis, a recent femur of the Ostrich contained 34·86 of animal matter, and a fossil femur of Dinornis struthioides 37·86. As Professor Owen has already remarked, this superabundance of animal matter in the bone of the extinct bird is due chiefly to the fact of its being a marrow bone, whilst that of the Ostrich contains air.
With many of these buried skeletons are found little heaps of crop-stones, of a kind that are now met with only at a distance of forty or fifty miles from the place of interment. I have in my possession a very interesting collection of these “gizzard-stones,” consisting of quartz-pebbles, carnelians, and
Mr.
The Hon. Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. i. pp. 18,19.
Many of these bones have been found under a considerable depth of fluviatile deposits which may be of Quaternary or even of Pliocene age.
There can be doubt, however, from the evidences already mentioned, that some of the species, even of the largest stature, existed contemporaneously with the ancestors of the present race; and Mr. Mantell himself, during his early explorations in the South Island, discovered, drawn upon the walls of a cave in the Waitaki valley, a rude likeness of the Moa by some aboriginal artist of a bygone generation, painted with red ochre on the face of the rock, probably soon after the arrival of the first Maori immigrants.
Mr. Dallas, who, in 1865, described (Proc. Zool. Soc.) the feathers of Dinornis robustus, was the first to establish the fact that the feathers in some of the species of Moa possessed a large accessory plume or double shaft, as in the Emus and Cassowaries of Australia and the Indian Archipelago. In these feathers “the barbs consist of slender flattened fibres, bearing long silky and very delicate barbules, without any trace of barbicels.”
In 1870 some feathers were found by Mr. S. Thomson, at the junction of Manuherekia with the Molyneux river, in association with Moa-bones under fifty feet of sand. Captain Hutton, in a letter to Professor Owen, described the feathers as being “quite fresh in appearance,” and as having “lost none of their colouring.” The largest of these is 7 inches in length, and gradually widens from ·25 of an inch at the base to rather more than ·75 at the tip, where it is broadly rounded off. “The lower half is downy, the barbs having unconnected barbules, and is of a brownish-grey colour. In the upper half the barbs are rather distant, unconnected, and without barbules. The brownish grey of the lower part passes gradually into black, which colour it keeps as far as the rounded tip, which is pure white, forming a narrow segment of a circle.” It would seem from this description that these
l. c. vol. ii.) from the same correspondent seems to be more accurate.
At a somewhat later date other Moa-feathers, in an equally fresh condition, were found in a locality between Alexandra and Roxburgh; and these, according to Hutton, are distinguished by the presence of barbules to the tips, from which it may be inferred that they belonged to a less typical Struthious form.
In 1871 Dr. (now Sir James) Hector described a remarkable specimen from the same district, being the neck of a Moa, apparently of the largest size, upon the posterior aspect of which the skin, partly covered with denuded feathers, was still attached by the shrivelled muscles and ligaments Sir Dinornis, Aptornis, Apteryx, large Rails, Stringops, and other birds are exceedingly abundant in the alluvium of a particular stream, so much so that they are turned up by the plough with facility…… A desire to account for the great profusion of Moa-bones on a lower terrace shelf nearer the margin of the stream, led the Messrs. Murison to explore the ground carefully, and by excavating in likely spots they found a series of circular pits partly lined with stones, and containing, intermixed with charcoal, abundance of Moa-bones and egg-shells, together with bones of the dog, the egg-shells being in such quantities that they consider that hundreds of eggs must have been cooked in each hole. Along with these were stone implements of various kinds, and of several other varieties of rock, besides the chert which lies on the surface. The form and contents of these cooking-ovens correspond exactly with those described by Mantell in 1847, as occurring on the sea-coast; and among the stone implements which Mantell found in them, he remembers some to have been of the same chert which occurs in situ at this locality, fifty miles in the interior. The greater number of these chert specimens found on the coast are with the rest of the collection in the British Museum…… The above facts and arguments in support of the view that the Moa survived to very recent times are similar to those advanced, at a very early period after the settlement of the colony, by
In 1874 Professor Hutton described the right foot of Dinornis ingens “with the whole of the skin and muscles of the posterior side well preserved.” It was found by Mr. Allen in a deep crevice among mica-schist rocks in the Knobby Ranges, in the provincial district of Otago. Of this specimen a figure, one-fourth the natural size, appeared in ‘Nature’ (Feb. 11, 1875). Through some inexplicable mistake the specimen is stated therein to be in the Natural History Museum at Paris; whereas,
Two years later Mr. A representation of this feather appeared in the Trans. N.-Z. Institute (vol. xviii. pl. ii.); but the figure is a misleading one, as it represents the barbs thickly furnished with barbules, whereas in the feather itself they do not exist at all.Dinornis casuarinus, bones of which species were found in association with them in the Wakatipu cave, together with fragments of egg-shell of a pale green colour. The feathers from the Queenstown cave are of an entirely different type, and these may perhaps have belonged to Dinornis didinus. They measure from four to five inches in length; from the base for more than two thirds of their extent they have thick downy webs, of a uniform width of half an inch and of a greyish-brown colour, darker towards the shaft, the barbs having minute, thick-set barbules; then follow long, unconnected filaments, of a still darker brown, which run into a compact apical web of dark purple-brown, tipped with yellowish brown. Many of these feathers have an accessory plume, but this is always downy in its whole extent, which scarcely exceeds half the length of the main shaft. On placing a number of these feathers together they present a soft, glossy appearance and look as fresh as if plucked yesterday from the body of a living bird.
But a still more recent instance is afforded by the very interesting specimen of the Moa’s foot in the University Museum at Cambridge, obtained in the Hector. Ranges, Otago, in 1884. It was brought to England by Mr.
Professor Newton having kindly lent me this unique specimen for the purpose of having it photographed, I submitted it to Sir Richard Owen, who unhesitatingly pronounced it the metatarsal of In the foregoing pages I have made free use of Sir Richard Owen’s name in connection with the successive discoveries of the Dinornithidæ; I have stated his views as they were developed from time to time, and I have given publicity to one of his letters to myself. Under these circumstances, I thought it right to submit the proof-sheets to him before going to press. The learned Professor returned them to me without a single alteration, but accompanied by a letter which I am glad (with his permission) to place on permanent record, the more so as he assures me that the active work of his life is ended and his last contribution made to the Royal Society, of which body he has been so distinguished an ornament for upwards of half a century. “Seldom have I enjoyed a morning more, in the quiet period of my existence, than during the perusal of the sheets of your ‘Introduction,’ so kindly submitted to me. “Conclusions and inferences which bad escaped my memory have been brought back, and I seem to be repeating or living again an active period of my zoological life. “The Moa-bone from Hector Ranges, Otago, is a metatarsal of “I do not recall anything that I could add which would heighten the pleasure your friendly visit has given me.Dinornis elephantopusMy dear Buller,—Dinornis elephantopus…… Richard Owen.”
The bone is in a perfectly fresh condition, with about four square inches of dark brown integument, having a tuberous surface and with underlying dried tendons of a maximum thickness of 1·5 inch, adhering to the proximal extremity and representing the true heel; the astragalus (or a bone that performs the same function in the Apteryx, though not hitherto recorded in Dinornis) is in position, two of the phalanges are still articulated to the metatarsal by means of dried ligament, and a portion of the tough covering of the sole, nearly half an inch in thickness and of a yellowish-brown colour, is still attached to the lower surface.
Another piece of concurrent testimony was afforded by the discovery, about the year 1860, of a perfect Moa’s egg, from which the contents had been extracted through an artificially bored hole on one side. It was found in an ancient Maori sepulchre at Kaikoura, and in such a position, in relation to the skeleton, as to suggest the idea that it had been placed in the hands of a corpse buried in a
This egg was submitted to me for examination soon after its exhumation, and I made the following notes:—It is perfectly oval and measures 9·3 inches in length by 7 inches in breadth; of a pale cream-colour, stained on one side with yellowish brown as if it had been smeared with the yoke, an appearance which may have been due to contact with decomposed animal matter. The egg has a solid appearance, the surface looking more like half-polished Moa-bone than egg-shell, and its thickness is about that of a new shilling. The entire surface is covered with short linear air-pores, or minute puncta, as if made with the point of a pen-knife, and disposed longitudinally; being filled with darker matter than the shell they present the character of pencilled markings, varying in extent from mere points to lines one tenth of an inch in length; there are some irregular dark markings on one portion of the egg having the appearance of obscure marbling, but these do not seem to be inherent in the shell.D. ingens) in his ‘Ornithological Miscellany’
In 1866 two more eggs were discovered in the alluvial sandy loam of the Upper Clutha plains, Otago. One of these was two feet from the surface, the other only about a foot apart from it and three inches deeper. Of the first and more perfect one pieces were fitted together, making nearly one complete side of the egg, which was estimated to measure 8·9 inches in length by 6·1 in breadth. It contained the bones of an embryo chick, which are now preserved in the Colonial Museum. The shell had been eroded by the solvents of the soil, but on the granular surface so produced the characteristic linear air-pores were distinctly visible. The shell yielded 0·9 per cent. of organic matter, showing that it had not been long enough in the soil to part with all its soluble constituents Hector in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, p. 996.
No one who takes the trouble to examine the skeleton of Dinornis parvus which now stands in the Palæontological gallery of the British Museum, exhibiting bleached but not fossilized bones, some of them still retaining their inherent “grease,” will be able to resist the conclusion that the bird to which they belonged was living at a comparatively recent date.
The well-marked footprints of the Moa in the sandstones of Poverty Bay—models of which are now to be seen in most of our public museums—are interesting historically, but their presence in such a formation is quite consistent with the alleged antiquity of the bird. The case is different, however, with the round cakes of excrement collected by Mr. Trans N.-Z. Instit. vol. viii. p. 99.
Further evidence of the comparatively recent existence of Dinornis is afforded by the fact that mixed with its remains are the bones of many species of birds still inhabiting New Zealand. Among these I may mention the following genera:—Nestor, Stringops, Platycercus, Himantopus, Hæmatopus, Limosa, Larus, Diomedea, Rallus, Porphyrio, Anas, Phalacrocorax, and Eudyptula.
With respect to the much reiterated assertion that the present race of Maoris have no traditions relating to the Moa, I would state that their ancient folk-lore, their historical waiatas (or songs), and their proverbial sayings are full of allusions, more or less direct, to this bird. The late Judge Maning, probably the best modern authority on the traditions of the Maoris, has left on record Tom, cit. pp. 102–103; cf. tom. cit. p. 79.
From what we know of the range and habits of the Struthiones in other parts of the world, it cannot be supposed that the extinct race of Moas, comprising twenty, if not more, species or varieties, some of them attaining to colossal dimensions, were always confined within the geographic limits of modern New Zealand. The Ostrich inhabits the arid deserts of Africa, the Rhea (of which there are two, if not three, species, each occupying a separate district) is spread over a great portion of America, extending from Patagonia to Peru, two species of Emu and a Cassowary occupy the Australian continent, the range of each being well defined, and eight other species of Cassowary are limited to New Britain, New Guinea, and the islands of the Indian Archipelago, each inhabiting a separate area. It may be safely assumed that the Moas of the remote past roamed over a wide continent now submerged, and that when, by the gradual subsidence of their domain beneath the waters of the Great Pacific, they were driven as it were into a corner and overcrowded, the struggle for existence became a severe one and the extinction of the race commenced; that the more unwieldy giants, thus “cabined and confined,” were the first to succumb; and that the smaller species, perhaps in course of time differentiated from their ancestors by the altered physical conditions of their environment, continued to live on till their final extirpation by man within recent historic times.
Professor Owen compares New Zealand to one end of a mighty wave of the unstable and ever-shifting crust of the earth, of which the opposite end, after having been long submerged, has again risen with its accumulated deposits in North America, showing us in the Connecticut sandstones of the Permian period the footprints of the gigantic birds which trod its surface before it sank; and he surmises that the intermediate body of the land-wave, along which the Dinornis may have travelled to New Zealand, has progressively subsided, and now lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. But Professor Hutton, in his treatise ‘On the Geographical Relations of the New Zealand Fauna,’ considers it necessary to account for the phenomenal number of Struthious species inhabiting New Zealand, as compared with the other much larger areas of the earth’s surface. He supposes the existence of an ancient continent, with one or two species of Dinornis; then, by some convulsion of nature, this continent sinks beneath the ocean, leaving its mountain-ranges exposed, in the form of islands, and the only refuge for the surviving Moas; after a sufficiently long period to allow of specific changes, there is an elevation of the land and the differentiated birds are mingled together; then follows the final subsidence, when New Zealand as the central mountain-chain becomes a “harbour of refuge” for them all. In support of this bold hypothesis he refers to the remarkable fact of five or six distinct species of Cassowary inhabiting isolated localities extending from New Britain and New Guinea to the Molucca Islands. His general conclusion is thus expressed:—“The distribution, therefore, of the Struthious birds in the Southern Hemisphere points to a large Antarctic continent stretching from Australia through New Zealand to South America, and perhaps on to South Africa. This continent must have sunk, and Australia, New Zealand, South America, and South Africa must have remained isolated from one another long enough to allow of the great differences observable between the birds of each country being brought about. Subsequently New Zealand must have formed part of a smaller continent, not connected either with Australia or South America, over which the Moa roamed. This must have been
Mr. Apteryx formerly lived there, but was exterminated about 1835. It is to be hoped that some search will be made here and also in Norfolk Island, in both of which it is not improbable remains either of Apteryx or Dinornis might be discovered. So far we find nothing to object to in the speculations of Captain Hutton, with which, on the contrary, we almost wholly agree; but we cannot follow him when he goes on to suggest an Antarctic continent uniting New Zealand and Australia with South America, and probably also with South Africa, in order to explain the existing distribution of Struthious birds.… The suggestion that all the Struthious birds of the world sprang from a common ancestor at no very remote period, and that their existing distribution is due to direct land communication between the countries they now inhabit, is one utterly opposed to all sound principles of reasoning in questions of geographical distribution…… We have direct proof that the Struthious birds had a wider range in past times than now. Remains of extinct Rheas have been found in Central Brazil, and those of Ostriches in North India; while remains, believed to be of Struthious birds, are found in the Eocene deposits of England. As the intervening sea appears to be not more than about 1500 fathoms deep it is quite possible that such an amount of subsidence may have occurred. It is possible, too, that there may have been an extension northward to the Kermadec Islands, and even further to the Tonga and Fiji Islands, though this is hardly probable, or we should find more community between their productions and those of New Zealand. A southern extension towards the Antarctic continent at a somewhat later period seems more probable, as affording an easy passage for the numerous species of South-American and Antarctic plants, and also for the identical and closely allied freshwater fishes of these countries.”
Professor von Haast, in his ‘Anniversary Address to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury’ (1874), objected to the above theory on the ground that the geological record of these islands, so far as we are acquainted with it, does not warrant our assuming such repeated changes in the level of the land. He thus states the case:—“An unfortunate country, such as New Zealand, of which a good number of the species of its fauna and flora show great resemblance to other species from distant countries, has to be dipped down and brought up again a great many times in order to establish connexions in various directions, so that a bird or fish, a shell, insect, or centipede might cross from the one to the other, moreover, without allowing any other species from the same country to pass.” But Professor Hutton, with a much broader grasp of the subject, returns to the discussion in an able article ‘On the Origin of the Fauna and Flora of New Zealand’ (‘Journal of Science,’ 1884, vol. ii. parts 1 and 6), in which, after qualifying his former theory by abandoning the idea of an extensive Antarctic continent, and substituting a South-Pacific continent connecting New Zealand with South America, he defends his views with considerable force of argument Contending all through that in Miocene times New Zealand was represented by a cluster of twenty or more islands, on which the various species of Moa were probably developed, Professor Hutton thus sums up his conclusions:—“Our general results then are that in early Mesozoic times New Zealand, Eastern Australia, and India formed one biological region, land probably extending continuously from New Zealand to New South Wales and Tasmania. At the close of the Jurassic period the New-Zealand Alps were upheaved and the geosynclinal trough between New Zealand and Australia was formed. During the Lower Cretaceous period a large Pacific continent extended from New Guinea to Chili, sending south from the neighbourhood of Fiji a peninsula that included New Zealand. Nearly all the southern part of America was submerged. Western Australia and Eastern Australia formed two large islands lying at some distance from the continent. This continent supported dicotyledonous and other plants, insects, land-shells, frogs, a few lizards, and perhaps snakes and a few birds, but no mammals. In the Upper Cretaceous period New Zealand became separated and reduced to two small islands; the South Pacific continent divided in the middle between Samoa and the Society Islands and—the eastern portion being elevated while the centre sank—it ultimately became what we know now as Chili, La Plata, and Patagonia. In the Eocene period elevation commenced in our district; Eastern Australia was joined to New Guinea, which stretched through New Britain to the Solomon Islands. New Zealand was also upheaved and extended towards New Caledonia, but the two lands were divided by an arm of the sea. The mainland of New Guinea had by this time been invaded from the north by a large number of plants, birds, lizards, snakes, &c., which migrated south into Eastern Australia and a few passed over the New-Caledonia channel and reached New Zealand. But still no mammals. In the Oligocene period New Zealand again gradually sank, carrying with it the sparse flora and fauna it had received, and in Miocene times was reduced to a cluster of islands; Eastern Australia all this time receiving constant additions to its fauna and flora through New Guinea. In the Pliocene period elevation once more took place; New Zealand extended towards the Kermadeo Islands, and the continent of Australia was formed; after which subsidence again occurred in New Zealand.”
Having given the reader a rapid glance at the extinct genera and species, it may be useful now to take a general view of the existing Avifauna, for the purpose of indicating the points in which it differs from that of every other zoological region on the earth’s surface, and of showing the close relation of some of our present forms to the types that have passed away.
The leading feature in the Ornithology of New Zealand is thus expressed by a very accomplished zoological writer:—“Recent birds being divided into two great and trenchantly marked groups, of very unequal extent, the smaller of these groups (the ‘Nature,’ July 18, 1872.Ratitæ) is found to contain six most natural sections, comprising, to take the most exaggerated estimate, less than two score of species, while the larger group (the Carinatæ), though perhaps not containing more natural sections, comprehends some ten thousand species. Now, two out of the six sections of this small group are absolutely restricted to New Zealand; and these two sections contain considerably more than half of the species known to belong to it. Thus, setting aside the Carinate birds of our distant dependency (and some of them are sufficiently wonderful), its recent Ratite forms alone (some twenty species, let us say) may be regarded as the proportional equivalent of one tenth of the birds of the globe—or numerically, we may say, of an avifauna of about one thousand species”
A perusal of the following ‘History’ will show that the Avifauna of New Zealand possesses other distinguishing features of a very striking character, a full review and discussion of which would occupy many pages; but some of the more prominent of these may be here mentioned, more, however, in the way of general indication than with the intention of exhaustive treatment.
The feature that first strikes the general ornithologist is the comparatively large number of apterous birds, or species in which the anterior limbs are so feebly developed as to be absolutely useless for purposes of flight. Conspicuous among these are the four species of Apteryx, in which the wings are reduced to mere rudiments; next in order of development come the various species of Ocydromus, of which I shall have something to say further on, and the remarkable Ocydromine form,
Cabalus, from the Chatham Islands; then Notornis, the huge brevipennate Rail already mentioned; a small flightless Duck (Nesonetta aucklandica), strictly confined to the Auckland Islands; and, finally, the well-known Ground-Parrot (Stringops habroptilus), in which the sternum is almost devoid of a keel. The explanation in all these cases is sufficiently obvious. In a country like New Zealand where there have been no indigenous Mammalia, and consequently few birds of prey, species that habitually seek their food on the ground have no inducement to take wing, and from long disuse, continued perhaps through countless generations, lose the Carinate character of the sternum, and with it the faculty of flight, for without the keel on the breast-bone to give attachment to the great pectoral muscles the wings, however ample they may be in their outward development, are practically useless for purposes of flight.
Taking the Carinate division of our Avifauna, another very prominent characteristic is the number of endemic genera and species. The families, with a few exceptions to be hereafter mentioned, are the same that occur in other parts of the world; but when we come to examine the subordinate groups, the specialization is at once apparent. Out of a total of 88 genera, 47 belong to the Limicolœ, Herodiones, and the five web-footed Orders, and these, being in a sense cosmopolitan, may for the present be put out of sight. Of the remaining 41 genera, 21 are strictly peculiar to New Zealand. But even in the other more widely-spread genera there are many species that are not known elsewhere. Thus, out of a total of 181 species, composing the present list of our Carinatæ, no less than 93 are strictly endemic. Even among the most diffuse Orders there are genera restricted in their range to the New-Zealand rivers or coasts, or to the outlying islands. Thus among the Limicolæ we have two strictly peculiar genera, Thinornis and Anarhynchus, and among the Anseres two more, namely, Hymenolœmus and Nesonetta.
Of the former, Thinornis belongs really to the Chatham Islands, for although T. novæ zealandiæ is comparatively common there, only straggling flocks are met with, at uncertain intervals, on the New-Zealand coast; and of the latter, Nesonetta is confined exclusively to the Auckland Islands, the only known species, N. aucklandica, never having been met with elsewhere. The other two genera I have instanced, Anarhynchus and Hymenolœmus, are restricted to New Zealand, never having been met with on the outlying islands.
Undoubtedly the most remarkable bird we have among the Waders is the Wry-billed Plover ( Anarhynchus frontalis), in which, as the name implies, the bill is asymmetrical, being always turned to the right, a modification of structure admirably fitted to the bird’s peculiar habits of feeding. The curvature in the bill is congenital, being equally present in the embryo chick, although not so fully developed; and this fact furnishes a beautiful illustration of the law of adaptation and design that prevails throughout the whole animal kingdom. A bird endowed with a straight bill, or with an upcurved or decurved one, would be less fitted for the peculiar mode of hunting by which the
Mr. Seebohm states that in the two specimens which his collection contains this unsymmetrical character of the pectoral band is not observable, but he does not give the sex; and it is a curious fact, for which I do not pretend to offer any explanation, that in the female bird, in which the pectoral zone is quite inconspicuous, the peculiarity I have mentioned is hardly noticeable, if it is not entirely absent. As to the feature itself in relation to the male bird, I can only say that I have never met with a single example in which it was not more or less manifest; indeed the first to call my attention to it was Sir
Commenting upon the above remarks, in my first edition, the accomplished Editor of ‘The Ibis’ (Mr. Salvin) indulged in the following reflections:—
“It would appear that the peculiarly shaped bill would only be an efficient weapon for obtaining food in this way so long as the bird walked one way round the stone, Ibis, 1873, p. 93.i. e. bearing to the off side or from west to east! The wider portion of the pectoral band would thus be always next the stone, and more hidden than the narrower or left portion. Has running round stones always the same way been the cause which enabled those birds which practised it to survive and transmit this habit to their offspring? and has their success been further promoted by the tendency to reduce the exposed side of their pectoral band, a secondary sexual character? Or has the process been reversed and the protection given to those birds which ran one way round stones, keeping the prominent portions of their pectoral bands from sight, tended to produce the curvature of the bill? The development of both characters seems to hang upon the birds acquiring the habit of running only one way round stones”
It seems to me that the more correct way of putting it is that the bird must, under any circumstances, keep the stone around which it is feeding to the right; for, in whatever way the habit may have been acquired, it is obvious that inasmuch as the curvature of the bill is always to the right it can only serve as an efficient scoop when the bird is in the left position in relation to the stone.
I do not propose to enter here into a discussion of the theory which a consideration of these facts seems necessarily to involve; but such cases as this can be rationally accounted for only on Darwinian principles, and I see myself no difficulty whatever in reconciling this view of the evolution of species by means of natural selection with a belief in the unity of design in Creation, and with the acceptance of the great truths of revelation. It is not a question of the Creation itself, as divinely revealed to man, but as to the plan and method of the Creation; and when, instead of the old literal interpretation of Sacred Scripture, we understand by the “six days” of the Mosaic record so many vastly extended geologic epochs, every difficulty in the way of orthodox belief disappears “Allowing that Almighty Power has worked by constant laws, we have to consider the lapse of time during which our globe may have revolved in its orbit, in a condition approximating to the present, “From a consideration of the possible sources of the heat of the sun, as well as from calculations of the period during which the earth can have been cooling to bring about the present rate of increase of temperature as we descend beneath the surface, Sir i. e. capable of sustaining vegetable and animal life upon it. We have to allow time for those forgotten migrations of our race, for the previous rise of their religious and other cultured ideas in the East, and for the possible transmutation of animals from the saurians &c., revealed by geological investigations, to the present species. The several thousand years which have elapsed since some of the existing species were preserved as mummies in Egypt appear to have effected no change. But when we contemplate even 10,000 years as relatively a long period, are we not somewhat in the natural state of error in which the mind of an ephemeral summer-day’s insect might fall if able to reflect and form estimates of time from the duration of its own existence? Living for one day after its rise from the chrysalis, it might conceive sixty days a long period for the life of the man who can crush it, just as we, able to live towards a century, have allowed about sixty centuries only for the duration of humanity upon the earth. The insect might fancy the statement wickedly preposterous if informed that our existences might extend to some 20,000 times the duration of its day. As a simile, it does not seem an irrational proportionate comparison by ‘rule of three’ to say that, as the insect’s one day is to the 25,550 days of man, so may the human 70 years be to 1,788,500 years for the life of the world, past and future, after the completion of its primary formations. If we allow about a fourth of these for the past changes of species’ (viz. 400,000 years), and about the thirtieth part (viz. 50,000 years) for man’s growth from infancy, from crude civilization to our present state of scientific culture, the computation seems reasonable in the light of scientific facts. It is at all events more consonant with them than our old dogmatic chronology.”—Cradle-land of Arts and Creeds.Island Life.
To quote the language of one of the ablest and most liberal-minded of our theologians:—“Science discloses the method of the World, Religion its cause, and there is no conflict between them, except when either forgets its ignorance of what the other alone can know.”
The next point to be noticed is the comparative abundance, in comparison with the rest of our Avifauna, of Rails, Ducks, and Cormorants. The first-named group contains in addition to Notornis and its allied form, Porphyrio, four, if not five, species of Ocydromus, three of Rallus, two of Ortygometra, and the diminutive Ocydromine representative in the Chatham Islands. Of Ducks, New Zealand possesses 11 species, belonging to ten genera, this number being far in excess of the proportion of Anseres to the general number of birds in other countries of similar extent. Of these Ducks, seven species are endemic, two of them (Nesonetta and Mergus) being confined to the small area of the Auckland Islands. Of Shags or Cormorants, including two at present doubtful forms, there are no less than fourteen species, of which eight, if not nine, are endemic, so that New Zealand in this respect takes the palm against all competitors. Some of the species, too, are of singular beauty, whereas in all other parts of the world the members of this family are noted for their plain faces and sombre plumage.
Seeing that New Zealand is so rich in Cormorants, it is indeed remarkable that there is no indigenous species of Plotus, a form so characteristic of Australia on the one hand and South America on the other. I have already recorded the occurrence of Plotus novœ hollandiœ as a straggler, which serves only to accentuate the inexplicable fact of its not being a native.
The entire absence of Woodpeckers might have been expected, as these birds do not extend beyond Celebes, never having been met with in the Moluccas or in Polynesia, New Guinea, or Australia. But it is difficult to account for the non-appearance of Swifts and Swallows, except as occasional visitants from Australia.
On the other hand, the Parrots are well represented. Besides the very typical Stringops habroptilus,
Platycercus and Nestor, all of which are peculiar to New Zealand and her satellites.
As compared with the Avifauna of Australia, the paucity of species is particularly noticeable in the following well-distributed families, namely, Sylviidœ, Campephagidas, Muscicapidœ, Alcedinidœ, Columbidœ, and Tetraonidœ.
The families belonging exclusively to New Zealand are five in number—the Turnagridœ, Xenicidœ, Nestoridœ, Stringopidœ, and Apterygidœ—and, as already indicated, possibly a sixth represented by the remarkable genus Glaucopis. The great development of the Procellariidœ, or Family of Petrels, is a feature which New Zealand shares in common with Australia and Southern Polynesia. The South Pacific is the great nursery, so to speak, of this extensive Family, and no less than 33 species have, from time to time, been recorded on the New-Zealand coasts or from the surrounding seas. These include nearly all the known species of Albatros, and a number of oceanic birds of considerable interest, although as a rule not conspicuous for their beauty. Some of these have a range extending over both hemispheres; others are confined to apparently small tracts of ocean; while others again are migratory within certain degrees of latitude and longitude. Altogether they comprise a well-defined group of Birds (raised now to the dignity of an Order, under the name of Tubinares), whose economic and domestic history, owing to their pelagic and semi-nocturnal habits, has not yet been fully investigated or recorded.
Phaethon rubricauda and Tachypetes aquila, although interesting occurrences per se, cannot be regarded, in any strict sense, as a feature in the Avifauna.
Of Meliphagine birds New Zealand possesses a fair number in the genera Prosthemadera, Anthornis, Pogonornis, and, in a lesser degree, in Zosterops and the brush-tongued Nestor, all of which are endemic; but the honey-eating genera of Australia, such as Ptilotis, Meliphaga, and Tropidorhynchus, are entirely absent. Acanthochœra carunculata has occurred in a wild state, but only as an extremely rare straggler from the Eucalyptus-brushes of its native country.
Among the Limicolœ there are several species which touch at New Zealand in their seasonal migrations to and from the higher latitudes of the Eastern Hemisphere, or make this country their winter residence. Dr. Strepsilas interpres, Totanus incanus, and Tringa canutus had not been recorded among these seasonal migrants. Since that time all of these, as well as Phalaropus fulicarius, Numenius cyanopus, and Tringa acuminata, have been added to the list. The two most remarkable instances, however, of this class are, on the one hand, the occasional occurrence of the Eastern Golden Plover (Charadrius fulvus), whose range extends over Australia, New Guinea, the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and Polynesia, and northwards to its breeding-grounds in Siberia and Kamtschatka, and, on the other, the regular autumnal migration of the Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa novæ zealandiæ), which goes northwards to breed in the high latitudes of Eastern Asia. To my mind, in the whole romance of natural history there is nothing to be compared with this seasonal migration of the Godwit. This bird is the Eastern representative of the European Limosa lapponica, to which it bears a close resemblance; and, like that species, it has a very extensive geographical range. Both of them are migratory in their respective hemispheres; and while the other species breeds in, the high Northern
This subject of the seasonal migration of certain birds is a very wide one and full of interest. There is probably nothing in the whole field of ornithological research more remarkable than this traditional habit, acquired no doubt by experience accumulated through countless generations. The same unerring instinct which guides the Ground-Lark to her nest under some particular tussock in the midst of a wilderness, miles in extent, of exactly similar tussock, or which enables the sea-bird to single out her own eggs from among the thousands clustered together on the bare rock or sandy beach, likewise guides the movements of the migrant when the time comes round for its annual pilgrimage.
We have in New Zealand two species of Cuckoo belonging to different genera—both migratory and both parasitic. One of these (the Long-tailed Cuckoo), which is a native of the Society Islands, visits this country in the summer and breeds with us, entrusting the task of rearing its young to a little Warbler not larger than an English Wren. It arrives, year after year, during the second week of October, and leaves us again before the end of February—this migratory habit, persevered in through long generations, having become a necessary part of its natural existence. In the whole range of ornithological biography, there is perhaps nothing more marvellous than this punctual annual migration across some fifteen hundred miles of ocean. The other species, known as the Shining Cuckoo, visits us from Australia, performing its journey of a thousand miles with the same wonderful precision as to dates of arrival and departure, my register showing only a maximum variation of five days during a continuous period of ten years. Curiously enough, this mild little caterpillar-hunter entrusts the rearing of its young to the same bird that performs that friendly office for its predatory congener four times its size. But apart from these regular summer visitants, with which most colonists are familiar, we have numerous instances of eccentric and casual migration which are indeed very curious. The history of the little Zosterops, or Blight-bird, is a case in point. This migrant crossed Cook’s Strait, for the first time within the memory of man, in the winter of 1856, coming over in numerous flocks, as if to explore the country; then retired for two years, and reappeared in greater numbers than before in the winter of 1858, since which time it has been a permanent resident in the North Island, breeding in every district, and becoming more plentiful every year. This migration was no doubt induced, in the first instance, by a scarcity of some particular food-supply in the South Island, which must have occurred again two years later. The exceptional feature, however, in this case is, that after the second migration the natural impulse to return home had lost its influence.
In Australia we have several records of non-migratory birds performing a kind of exodus from their own part of the country, swarming into some distant region, where they have remained for five or even ten years, and then disappearing as suddenly as they had come. Take, for example, the
Melopsittacus undulatus), which, prior to 1838, was so rare in the southern parts of Australia that only a single example had been sent to Europe, but arrived in that year in countless multitudes. Or take the case of the Australian Moorhen (
Another remarkable feature in the New-Zealand Avifauna is the inherent tendency to albinism In the body of the present work will be found carefully recorded instances of albinism, more or less pronounced, in the following species, viz.:—Glaucopis wilsoni, G. cinerea, Heteralocha acutirostris, Creadion carunculatus, Myiomoira macrocephala, Anthus novæ zealandiæ, Anthornis melanura, Prosthemadera novæ zealandiæ, Platycercus novæ zealandiæ, P. auriceps, Nestor meridionalis, Spiloglauæ novæ zealandiæ, Sceloglaux albifacies, Circus gouldi, Carpophaga novæ zealandiæ, Hæmatopus longirostris, H. unicolor, Himantopus novæ zealandiæ, Limosa novæ zealandiæ, Larus dominicanus, Ocydromus earli, O. australis, Porphyrio melanonotus, Ardea sacra, Phalacrocoraæ novæ hollandiæ, Ossifraga gigantea, Anas superciliosa, A. chlorotis, A. gibberifrons, Podiceps rufipectus, Apteryx australis, A. mantelli, and A. oweni.
To the above list Mr. Kirk has recently added Myiomoira toitoi, having described (‘Ibis,’ 1888, p. 42) a specimen in the possession of Mr.
In my account of Anthus novæ zealandiæ I have stated (at p. 64) that albinos, more or less pure, are of common occurrence. In the above-cited communication Mr. Kirk says of this species:—” While travelling through the bush on the east coast of the Wellington province, I came on a Maori plantation, and was shown by one of the natives a Ground-Lark exhibiting a tendency both to albinism and melanism. The following is a description, jotted down in my pocket-book:—Top of head, and down as far as a line through the eye, dull black; the whole of the body and wings, with the exception of the two outer primaries, were a delicate creamy white; the outer primaries retained the normal greyish-brown colour. The outside tail-feathers, which in an ordinary specimen would be white, were in this case jet-black. This bird, which was one of the most curious freaks of nature I ever saw, had been tamed, would come when called and allow itself to be picked up and examined, as though conscious of deserving attention on account of its extraordinary and fantastic dress. I endeavoured to effect a purchase, but without success, the Maoris appearing to set great store by their pet.”
Strange to say, there is the same tendency to albinism in the imported birds. Albino Sparrows
Alauda arvensis) not unfrequently exchanges its sober dress for a yellowish-white one. In illustration of this I brought to England two specimens of the latter, one of which I presented to the British Museum, the other to the Natural-History Museum at Cambridge.
Among the Parrots I have recorded some beautiful crimson and yellow varieties, and in the case of Platyoercus novæ zealandiæ a single instance of cyanism. But the only New-Zealand birds in which I have ever detected any tendency whatever towards melanism, and then only in a slight degree, were Anthornis melanura and Miro albifrons.
Many travellers in New Zealand have remarked on the notable absence of bird-life, especially in the woods; and at certain seasons of the year this is indeed very noticeable. But, as fully explained in my history of the Wood-Pigeon at page 232, the relative abundance or scarcity of birds is entirely regulated by the food-supply, which, in turn, is governed by the seasons. At all times, however, in winter and summer alike, the New-Zealand woods, whether alive with birds or not, possess an indescribable charm owing to their evergreen character. In my several accounts of their feathered inhabitants I have, as the reader will perceive, never lost an opportunity of paying my tribute to the luxuriant beauty of these woods; but I have always felt that it was quite impossible to do full justice to the subject Mr. “This bush scenery is indeed very wonderful. The enormous cabbage-trees, the gorgeous creepers clinging in a green network to the tall pines, the dense undergrowth of shrubs, the tree-ferns, the great kauris, and the exquisite tints of the whole mass of riotous vegetation are beautiful beyond description. Then the strange silence, unbroken even by the whir of a bird’s wing, the unchanging sameness of the bush, that confuses you until you cannot tell how far you have travelled, the charred tree-trunks on either side of the road that have been burnt down to clear a passage, and the oppressive loneliness of it all, tell that you are far away from the beaten track of travel, and far into the heart of Maoriland.”
In the strictest sense of the term, New Zealand is without “song-birds”; but such species as the Tui, the Korimako, and the Piopio possess vocal powers of a very respectable kind, the compass and variety of their notes adding greatly to the charm of the New-Zealand woods. For example, the North-Island Thrush (Turnagra hectori) has many notes exactly resembling those of its English namesake. As fully explained at pp. 28, 29 this handsome species is rapidly dying out and will soon be but a memory of the past. But with the disappearance of this native Thrush, the English songster is fast becoming established in the country, frequenting the outskirts of the bush in the neighbourhood of European settlements and supplying to the loyal colonist yet another link of attachment to “dear old England.”
Setting aside, however, their claim to the highest order of song, the birds of New Zealand do not fail, especially in the early morning, to make their native woods echo with delightful music, “each one giving out his own notes without any regard for the others, the score having evidently been written for the whole, since the innumerable strains make one divine harmony.” In the midst of this melody of song, the harsh cry of the Kaka calling to its fellows will sometimes for a moment break the spell, but the performers, heedless of the discordant note and with bursting throats, continue their morning concert, till, as if by common consent, they cease altogether and disperse in quest of their daily food.
Another feature not to be lost sight of in considering the present condition of the New-Zealand Avifauna is the rapid way in which it is being affected, and in some instances effaced, by the introduction
As with all questions of this kind, there is much to be said for and against the Sparrow, and numerous experiments have been made by friends and foes for the purpose of demonstrating the actual truth of the case. The following newspaper record contains the result of one of these experiments, and, so far as my observation goes, the weight of evidence is invariably in favour of the bird:—“A hundred and eighteen Sparrows have been offered upon the altars of science. As was the case with the Pagan sacrifices, their entrails have been carefully inspected, in order to furnish guidance to the inquirers. But it has not been in search of the cabalistic information to be derived from quaint contortion, or the credited, though impossible, absence of the heart, or some other vital organ, that the sacrificial knife has been bared. The contents of the stomachs of the victims have been examined, tabulated, recorded. Three culprits alone, out of this hecatomb of the favourites of Cytherea, were proved, by the unsparing search, guilty of having lived for the past four-and-twenty hours upon grain. In fact, there were To give the other side of the argument, and to show that the prejudice against the Sparrow and its consequent punishment is not confined to New Zealand, I may quote the following newspaper account of its status in Australia:—“Rome once owed its salvation to a Goose, but it has been reserved for the Sparrow in these degenerate modern days to threaten a flourishing young State with serious loss, if not, as the farmers assert, absolute ruin. Rabbits have for some years played an important part in directing legislation in some of the Australasian Colonies, and now in South Australia the Sparrow is becoming a power in the land, and calls for all the machinery of special Acts of Parliament to keep it within bounds. The bird, which only a few years ago such efforts were made to acclimatize in Australia, and whose first arrival was hailed with greater enthusiasm than would now be displayed on the landing of a Bend Or, a Duchess, or a prize merino, is now doomed to extermination—if that can possibly be achieved. So rapidly have the few pairs which were introduced a few years ago multiplied under the congenial skies and amid the luxuriant vegetation of the Australian Colonies, where there are few or none of the checks on their increase which exist in the Old Country, that the agriculturists complain of the serious injury done by them to their wheat and fruit crops, and have called upon the Government to devise some means of ensuring their destruction…… Its work is done on a scale disheartening to the cultivator, and under conditions he cannot control, for the seed is taken out of the ground, the fruit-bud off the tree, the sprouting vegetable as fast as it grows, and the fruit ere it is ripe, and therefore before it can be housed and saved. Neither apricots, cherries, figs, apples, grapes, peaches, plums, pears, nectarines, loquats, olives, wheat, barley, peas, cabbages, cauliflowers, or seeds or fruits of any kind, are spared by its omnivorous bill; and all means of defence tried against its depredations, whether scarecrows, traps, netting, shooting, or poisoning, are declared to be insufficient to cope with the enemy. It remains to be seen whether the reward offered by the Government for the heads and eggs of these destructive little birds will result in any diminution in their numbers.”Passer domesticusthree thieves out of the 118; all the other victims had worked, more or less, for their living. Beetles, and grubs, and flies, and larvæ of all obnoxious kinds had been their diet. In 75 of the birds, infants of all ages, from the callow fledgling to the little Pecksy and Flapsy that could just twitter along the ground, hardly any but insect remains were detected. What would the starved and industrious pioncers who have reared their wonderful temple and city by the Great Salt Lake have given for the aid of an army of English Sparrows against that greater and more formidable host of grasshoppers which thrice all but annihilated the settlement?”
To my mind the popular outcry against the Sparrow is scarcely warranted by the actual state of the case. It is only at one particular period of the year, when the farmer’s grain is “dead ripe” that this bird makes any inroad upon it. In large fields the loss is barely noticeable; but in the case of a small patch of grain, say an acre or two at the edge of the forest or in a bush-clearing, it naturally becomes a serious matter, because the Sparrows appear to concentrate their forces on such inviting spots, and to leave practically nothing but straw for the reaper. Hence, of course, the outcry and clamour on the part of the small farmer. But if people really knew how much the country is indebted to this much-abused bird, I venture to think that there would be a still louder outcry against the sinful practice, now so general, of poisoning Sparrows. It is a fact that on some farms they are poisoned in such numbers that the ground is literally strewed with their dead bodies, and labourers may be seen filling large baskets with them, and carrying them off in the confident belief that a great service is thus rendered to the farming industry of the country. But what are the facts? Is the Sparrow insectivorous, or not, in the strict sense of the term? Let us study it in the breeding-season, which extends in New Zealand from September to December or January. Each pair produces a brood of five young ones. These young birds are fed entirely and exclusively on animal food. Every five minutes or so during the long summer day one or other of the parent birds visits the nest carrying in its bill a caterpillar or a grub, a beetle, fly or worm, but never a grain of corn or fruit of any kind. Now let us consider what this means. Hundreds of thousands of Sparrows, all intent on the same business, having young ones at home that must have insect food of some sort! Every bush, every furrow, every inch of ground is hunted over and ransacked to supply that imperative demand. Millions of insects in all stages of development are daily passed into the insatiable throats of these young Sparrows. I would ask, what does this imply? How much direct benefit does not this bring to the husbandman? The answer is obvious. But look for a moment at the result. In former years the North Island, and especially the Auckland province, was periodically visited by a veritable plague of caterpillars. About once in three or four years the caterpillars came in legions and swept all before them. They would pass over a smiling field of young corn at night and leave scarcely a blade for the dews of morning. Whole districts were devastated in this manner, and the hopes of the farmer for the coming season hopelessly ruined. There was no means of openly meeting an insidious enemy of this kind. It was a moving army of atoms, and to attempt to meet and destroy it would have been a mere mockery Under the sensational heading of “Trains stopped by Caterpillars,” the following telegram once appeared in the colonial papers:— “(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Wanganui, February 13. “The trains this morning and evening between Waverley and Nukumaru, on the way to Wanganui, were brought to a stand-still through countless thousands of caterpillars on the rails. The officials had to sweep and sand the metals before the trains could proceed.” Another similar case is thus recorded in the ‘Rangitikei Advocate’:—“In the neighbourhood of Turakina an army of caterpillars, hundreds of thousands strong, was marching across the line, bound for a new field of oats, when the train came along. Thousands of the creeping vermin were crushed by the wheels of the engine, and suddenly the train came to a dead stop. On examination it was found that the wheels of the engine had become so greasy that they kept on revolving without advancing, as they could not grip the rails. The guard and the engine-driver procured sand and strewed it on the rails and the train made a fresh start, but it was found that during the stoppage caterpillars in thousands had crawled all over the engine and over all the carriages inside and out.” Even Mr.
Then, again, to pursue the argument in another direction, if the Sparrow is fond of ripe grain it is still fonder of the ripe seeds of the variegated Scotch thistle. This formidable weed threatened at one time to overrun the whole colony. Where it had once fairly established itself it seemed well-nigh impossible to eradicate it, and it was spreading with alarming rapidity, forming a dense growth which nothing could face. In this state of affairs the Sparrows took to eating the ripe seed. In tens of thousands they lived on the thistle, always giving it the preference to wheat or barley. They have succeeded in conquering the weed. In all directions it is dying out, and simply because it has no chance of propagating itself in the only way possible, that is to say, by a dissemination of its seed. I would ask, is not this a benefit to the agriculturist of a kind to entitle the bird to the care and protection of the whole community?
It should be remembered, also, that the services of the Sparrow as a scavenger in our colonial streets are not to be despised. The droppings of the horses are turned over by these industrious little birds and scattered to the winds, and in a variety of other ways they contribute to the cleanliness and purity of our thoroughfares.
The resultant fact is that for all these inestimable benefits we must be prepared to pay something; and it seems to me that the small tithe of grain which the Sparrows levy at a time of the year when everything else fails them is a very moderate consideration indeed. But it is the old story over again of ignorant prejudice and popular clamour. In Hungary, as we are informed, the same indiscriminate crusade was carried on some years ago, and was persevered in till not a Sparrow remained; then, after sufficient time had elapsed to show what an error had been committed, the Government had to offer a bonus of so much per head for the birds in order to reestablish them in that country Thus writes the accomplished historian Miohelet:—“The ‘ The Sparrow in New Zealand has an able and ever-ready champion in Mr. miserly agriculturist’ is the accurate and forcible expression of Virgil. Miserly, and blind, in truth, for he proscribes the birds which destroy insects and protect his crops. Not a grain will he spare to the bird which, during the winter rains, hunted up the future insect, sought out the nests of the larvæ, examined them, turned over every leaf, and daily destroyed myriads of future caterpillars; but sacks of corn to the adult insects, and whole fields to the grasshoppers which the bird would have combated! With his eye fixed on the furrow, on the present moment, without sight or foresight; deaf to the grand harmony which no one ever interrupts with impunity, he has everywhere solicited or approved the laws which suppressed the much-needed assistant of his labour, the insect-destroying bird. And the insects have avenged the bird. It has become necessary to recall in all haste the banished. In the island of Bourbon, for example, a price was set on each Martin’s head; they disappeared, and then the grasshoppers took possession of the island, devouring, extinguishing, burning up with harsh acridity all that they did not devour. The same thing has occurred in North America with the Staring, the protector of the maize. The Sparrow even, which attacks the grain, but also defends it—the thieving, pilfering Sparrow, loaded with so many insults, and stricken with so many maledictions—it has been seen that without him Hungary would perish; that he alone could wage the mighty war against the cockchafers and the myriad winged foes which reign in the low-lying lands; his banishment has been revoked, and the courageous militia hastily recalled, which, if not strietly disciplined, are not the less the salvation of the country.”
But the same popular prejudice was for a long time directed against the Common Pheasant. Gradually the country settlers were won over to a due appreciation of this valuable bird A practical farmer thus writes to one of the newspapers:—“As much has been written and said for and against this beautiful bird, I will add my experience on the subject. On the one hand the Pheasants completely cleared a patch of maize for me; but on the other hand, when, some time after, I shot one of the depredators, its crop was found to contain about half-apint of fragments of black crickets. I have therefore resolved for the future to endeavour to scare them away from my crops, but on no account to exterminate them,”
In addition to those already mentioned, the following English birds may now be considered permanently established in the country:—the Common Thrush, Blackbird, Sky-Lark, Greenfinch, Linnet, Chaffinch, Redpoll, Goldfinch, and Starling. Some years ago a number of Rooks were imported by the Auckland Acclimatization Society, but they do not appear to have spread far beyond the district in which they were first liberated.
In addition to two species of Quail, we have imported very successfully from Australia the Indian Minah and the Native Magpie, both of which are useful and ornamental birds.
Many other species have been introduced, and have appeared to thrive in their new home, although they cannot yet be looked upon as fairly established.
I am not aware that any serious effort has been made to introduce Owls of any kind, but this is a matter well worth the attention of the local Acclimatization Societies. In 1873 I sent out from England a pair of Wood-Owls (Syrnium aluco). They arrived safely at Napier, and after recruiting their strength were turned loose in a distant part of the Province. The Hon. Mr. Ormond, as superintendent of the Province, gave orders for their protection under the Act; but notwithstanding all these precautions, the unfortunate immigrants fell victims to popular prejudice.
In some of the principal lakes in both islands the Australian Black Swan ( It is popularly supposed that the Black Swan and the White Swan will not live together on the same waters; but the fact is that no systematic attempts, so far as I am aware, have yet been made to acclimatize the White Swan, either in Australia or New Zealand. Years ago, Baron von Mueller showed me a small flock of White Swans commingling with their dark cousins on a fine sheet of water in the Melbourne Acclimatization Gardens. A few tame pairs have been placed on ponds and ornamental waters in the South Island, and these have bred freely enough notwithstanding the constant presence of the Black Swan. In the North Island the experiment has not yet been tried. Sir George Grey was unfortunate enough to lose one of the beautiful pair presented to him by Her Majesty, or the North Island might have been ultimately stocked from Kawau. I am now arranging to send out some of these noble birds as a present to the Ngatiraukawa tribe, in order that they may be placed on the Horowhenua Lake, where the other species is already established, and it will be interesting to note their future history.Chenopis atrata), the first of which were introduced into the North Island by myself, about the year 1864, is now to be seen in considerable flocks, often numbering many hundreds. They appear to associate freely with the Grey Duck (Anas superciliosa), but it is an undeniable fact that on waters where this Swan
Another bird that bids fair to be well acclimatized is the Cape or Egyptian Goose (Chenalopex œgyptiaca). Just before I left the colony one of these Geese was shot on Te Aute Lake, and submitted to me as a supposed addition to the New-Zealand Avifauna. Recognizing the species, and being satisfied that the individual bird was a wild one, I wrote to Sir George Grey for the purpose of ascertaining whether he had brought any of these Geese from the Cape. The information in reply was exactly what I had expected. Sir George Grey brought eight or ten of these birds with him to the Colony in 1860. They bred freely at the Kawau, and many of them crossed over to the mainland. Judge Rogan informed Sir George that he had seen as many as four shot at the Kaipara during his residence there. The fact that it has already found its way to the Hawke’s Bay district shows how this species is establishing itself in a country where certainly all the conditions are favourable to its existence.
I have already said enough about the ancient and existing forms of bird-life in New Zealand to convince the most casual reader that we have within this comparatively small area a very remarkable ornithological province. In some respects it is quite unique, and, taken altogether, it is perhaps, to the student of biological history, the most interesting insular district on the face of our globe. In his admirable work on ‘The Geographical Distribution of Animals,’ Mr. Wallace has given, in a large woodcut, an ideal scene in New Zealand, representing some of its more singular forms. Referring to this, he says, “no country on the globe can offer such an extraordinary set of birds as are here depicted”; and in his elaboration of the subject, he has thrown more light than any previous writer on the origin and development of these peculiar ornithic types.
Looking to the fragmentary character of the New-Zealand fauna generally—the almost total absence of Mammalia and Amphibia, the phenomenal development of wingless birds that existed till quite recent times and are now represented by the various species of Apteryx, the highly specialized forms of non-volant Rails, besides the many other endemic genera of land-birds, and the great paucity of reptiles and insects—we must conclude that it is but the remnant of an ancient fauna, perhaps the most ancient in the world, which formerly occupied a very much wider area of the earth’s surface.
Professor Newton, in his Address to the British Association last year, called the attention of naturalists generally to the extreme interest which attaches to every portion of this unique fauna. Remarking on its origin and development he says:—“One thing to guard against is the presumption
The biological problems which the peculiar fauna and quasi-tropical flora of New Zealand suggest can only be met and reasonably explained on the hypothesis of a former land-connection between these islands and the northern or tropical portion of Australia; the severance, by submersion of the intervening land, having taken place at a period anterior to the spread of Mammalia over this portion of the earth’s surface. Mr. Wallace has, I think, made it perfectly clear that this ancient land-connection was with North Australia, New Guinea, and the Western Pacific Islands, rather than with the temperate regions of Australia. At p. 443 of his ‘Island Life’ he gives a reduced map showing the depth of the sea around Australia and New Zealand, as established by the most recent soundings. From this it is manifest, as he points out, that there is a comparatively shallow sea, or, in other words, a submarine bank, at a depth of less than 1000 fathoms, indicating the additional land-area that would be produced if the sea-bottom were elevated 6000 feet. This submerged plateau, if we may so term it, presents a remarkable conformation, extending in a broad mass westward and then sending out two great arms, one reaching to beyond Lord Howe’s Island, while the other stretches over Norfolk Island to the great barrier reef, thus forming the required connection with tropical Australia and New Guinea. It is argued that the ancient land-connection thus indicated, with perhaps, at a still more remote epoch, a connection with the great Southern continent by means of intervening lands and islands, will explain many of the difficult zoological problems that New Zealand presents.
This theory, while it accounts for the introduction into New Zealand by a north-western route, in very ancient times, of the Struthious type of birds, from which all the known species of “If we examine the geological map of Australia, we shall see good reason to conclude that the eastern and the western divisions of the country first existed as separate islands, and only became united at a comparatively recent epoch. This is indicated by an enormous stretch of Cretaccous and Tertiary formations extending from the Gulf of Carpentaria completely across the continent to the mouth of the Murray River. During the Cretaceous period, therefore, and probably throughout a considerable portion of the Tertiary epoch, there must have been a wide arm of the sea occupying this area, dividing the great mass of land on the west—the true seat and origin of the typical Australian flora—from a long but narrow belt of land on the east, indicated by the continuous mass of Secondary and Palæozoic formations already referred to, which extend uninterruptedly from Tasmania to Cape York. Whether this formed one continuous land, or was broken up into islands, cannot be positively determined; but the fact that no marine Tertiary beds occur in the whole of this area renders it probable that it was almost, if not quite, continuous, and that it not improbably extended across to what is now New Guinea. At this epoch, then, Australia would consist of a very large and fertile western island, almost or quite extra-tropical, and extending from the Silurian rocks of the Flinders range in South Australia to about 150 miles west of the present west coast, and southward to about 350 miles south of the Great Australian Bight. To the east of this, at a distance of about 250 or 400 miles, extended, in a north and south direction, a long but comparatively narrow island, stretching from far south of Tasmania to New Guinea; while the crystalline and Secondary formations of Central North Australia probably indicate the existence of one or more large islands in that direction.”—Dinornis and Apteryx may have descended, explains too the tropical character of much of the New-Zealand flora, which is somewhat anomalous considering the temperate climate of New Zealand as we know it. Mr. Wallace states, as the result of careful research, that there are in New Zealand thirty-eight thoroughly tropical genera of plants, thirty-three of which are found in Australia, and, with a very few exceptions, in the northern or tropical portions only. To these may be added thirty-two more genera of plants which, though chiefly developed in temperate Australia, extend also into the tropical or subtropical portion of it, and which, it may reasonably be inferred, reached New Zealand by the same route. But to make this line of reasoning perfectly intelligible, it ought to be mentioned that the geological history of Australia shows it to have been for an immense period of time divided into an Eastern and a Western island, in the latter of which only the largely peculiar flora of temperate Australia—distinguished by its Eucalypti, Proteas, and Acacias—was developed, and where alone the marsupial Mammalia had their home. At this period, according to the above theory, New Zealand was in connection with the tropical portion of the Eastern island alone. This important geological fact will therefore account for the non-introduction into New Zealand, along with the
Island Life.
Sir
“Under whatever aspect I regard the flora of Australia and New Zealand, I find all attempts to theorize on the possible causes of their community of feature frustrated by anomalies in distribution, such as I believe no two other similarly situated countries on the globe present. Everywhere else I recognize a parallelism or harmony in the main common features of contiguous floras, which conveys the impression of their generic affinity, at least, being affected by migration from centres of dispersion in one of them, or in some adjacent country. In this case it is widely different. Regarding the question from the Australian point of view, it is impossible in the present state of science to reconcile the fact of Acacia, Eucalyptus, Casuarina, Callitris, &c. being absent in New Zealand, with any theory of trans-oceanic migration that may be adopted to explain the presence of other Australian plants in New Zealand; and it is very difficult to conceive of a time or of conditions that could explain these anomalies, except by going back to epochs when the prevalent botanical as well as geographical features of each were widely different from what they are now. On the other hand, if I regard the question from the New-Zealand point of view, I find such broad features of resemblance and so many connecting links that afford irrefragable evidence of a close botanical connection, that I cannot abandon the conviction that these great differences will present the least difficulties to whatever theory may explain the whole case.”
It will be seen that the theory of which an outline has been given, while accounting in a rational manner for the marked peculiarities of the New-Zealand fauna, offers at the same time a probable solution of some of the strange anomalies of its flora in relation to that of Australia.
Mr. Wallace has explained that, in zoology, discontinuity in the areas of distribution must be accepted as an indication of antiquity, and that the more widely the fragments are scattered the more ancient we may, as a rule, take the parent group to be. “Thus the marsupials of South America and Australia are connected by forms which lived in North America and Europe; the camels of Asia and the llamas of the Andes had many extinct common ancestors in North America; the lemurs of Africa and Asia had their ancestors in Europe, as did the Trogons of South America, Africa, and
Reinhardt is of opinion that “the ancient and the modern “See Buller’s illustration in Trans. N.-Z. Instit. vol. iii. plate 12 “Professor Marsh has shewn that there is good reason for believing that the power of flight was gradually acquired by Birds, and with that power would be associated the development of a keel to the sternum, on which the volant faculty so much depends, and with which it is so intimately correlated that, in certain forms which have to a greater or less extent given up the use of their fore-limbs, the keel, though present, has become proportionally aborted. Thus the Carinate type would, from all we can see at present, appear to have been evolved from the Ratite. This view receives further support from a consideration of the results of such embryological research as has already been made—the unquestionable ossification of the Ratito sternum from a smaller number of paired centres than the Carinate sternum, in which (with the doubtful exception of the Anatidæ) an additional, unpaired centre makes its appearance. Again, the geographical distribution of existing, or comparatively recent, Ratite forms points to the same conclusion. That these forms—Moa, Kiwi, Emeu and Cassowary, Rhea, and finally Ostrich—must have had a common ancestor nearer to them than is the ancestor of any Carinate form seems to need no proof. If we add to these the ‘Island Life,’ by Rhea are of one and the same species.”—Ibis, 1882, p. 332.Hesperornis, which Professor O. Marsh declares to have been a ‘carnivorous swimming Ostrich.’ As to the second point, we have the remarkable fact that all known birds of this group have not only the rudiments of wing-bones, but also the rudiments of wings, that is, an external limb bearing rigid quills or largely developed plumes. In the Cassowary these wing-feathers are reduced to long spines like porcupine-quills, while even in the Apteryx the minute external wing bears a series of nearly twenty stiff quill-like feathersb. fig. 2.”Archœopteryx of the Jurassic period we have a bird with well-developed wings, and therefore probably with a keeled sternum. We are evidently, therefore, very far from a knowledge of the earlier stages of bird-life, and our acquaintance with the various forms that have existed is scanty in the extreme; but we may be sure that birds acquired wings, and feathers, and some power of flight before they developed a keeled sternum, since we see that bats (with no such keel) fly very well. Since, therefore, the Struthious birds all have perfect feathers, and all have rudimentary wings, which are anatomically those of true birds, not the rudimentary fore legs of reptiles, and since we know that in many higher groups of birds—as the Pigeons and the Rails—the wings have become more or less aborted, and the keel and the sternum greatly reduced in size by disuse, it seems probable that the very remote ancestors of the Rhea, the Cassowary, and the Apteryx were true flying birds, although not perhaps provided with a keeled sternum or possessing very great powers of flightÆpyornis of Madagascar, the fossil Ratitæ of the Siwalik rocks, and the as yet but partially recognized Struthiolithus of Southern Russia, to say nothing of Gastornis, the evidence is stronger still. Seattered as these Birds have been or are throughout the world, it seems justifiable to consider them the survivals of a very ancient type, which has hardly undergone any essential modification since the appearance of Bird-life upon the earth—even though one at least of them has become very highly specialized.”—Prof. Newton in Enc. Brit. vol. xviii. pp. 43, 44.now happen to exist altogether superfluous and misleading”
In his last-named work, Mr. Wallace divides all known islands into two classes, “Continental” and “Oceanic.” The former are always more varied in their geological formation—containing both ancient and recent stratified rucks—are rarely remote from a continent, and always contain some land Mammalia, also Amphibia and representatives of the other classes of animals in considerable variety. The “Oceanic” islands are usually far removed from continents and are always separated from them by very deep seas, are entirely without land Mammalia or Amphibia, but are generally well stocked with birds and insects and with some reptiles. Now New Zealand, which is undoubtedly “Continental” in its geological formation, also in the existence of the submerged bank already described connecting it in ancient times with North Australia and New Guinea, is as decidedly “Oceanic” in its zoological character, except as regards its wingless birds and the remarkable tuatara lizard (Sphenodon punctatum), which is said to constitute per se a distinct order of Reptilia of extreme antiquity. Mr. Wallace therefore terms New Zealand and the Celebes, where the conditions are somewhat similar, “Anomalous islands;” but Ancient continental may be perhaps a more convenient term.
As already explained, at the time of the supposed land-connection to the North-west, the Marsupial fauna could not have reached the eastern land now forming part of Australia; but it seems very probable that, at this early period, tropical Australia was tenanted by some Struthious kind of bird, perhaps volant in its character, which had reached this land, by way of New Guinea, through some ancient continental extension. If this theory, so well propounded by Mr. Wallace, is the true one, then the Cassowaries of New Guinea, the Emus of Australia, the extinct ‘Island Life,’ p. 454.Dromornis of Queensland, and the Moas and Kiwis of New Zealand are doubtless the moditied descendants of this ancestral type. “The total absence (or extreme scarcity) of mammals in New Zealand obliges us to place its union with North Australia and New Guinea at a very remote epoch. We must either go back to a time when Australia itself had not yet received the ancestral forms of its present marsupials and monotremes, or we must suppose that the portion of Australia with which New Zealand was connected was then itself isolated from the mainland, and was thus without a mammalian population… But we must on any supposition place the union very far back, to account for the total want of identity between the winged birds of New Zealand and those peculiar to Australia, and a similar want of accordance in the lizards, the freshwater fishes, and the more important insect groups of the two countries. From what we know of the long geological duration of the generic types of these groups we must certainly go back to the earlier portion of the Tertiary period at least in order that there should be such a complete disseverance as exists between the characteristic animals of the two countries, and we must further suppose that, since their separation, there has been no subsequent union or sufficiently near approach to allow of any important inter-migration, even of winged birds, between them. It seems probable, therefore, that the Bampton shoal west of New Caledonia, and Lord Howe’s Island further south, formed the western limits of that extensive land in which the great wingless birds and other isolated members of the New-Zealand fauna were developed. Whether this early land extended eastward to the Chatham Islands and southward to the Macquaries we have no means of ascertaining; but as the intervening sea appears to be not more than 1500 fathoms deep,
In a preceding section I have already mentioned that, as a rule, the species of Trans. N.-Z. Instit. vol. viii. pp. 193–194.Dinornis which, in former times, inhabited the North Island were different in character from their contemporaries in the South Island, although the two areas of land are only separated by a strait scarcely eighteen miles across in its narrowest part. The same feature is maintained to the present day in the existing Avifauna, clearly showing that each island has a biological history of its own. Thus the Saddle-back (Creadion carunculatus) of the North is represented in the South by C. cinereus, a closely-allied species, but differing in the colour of its plumage; ththrushTurnagra hectori (now almost extinct) is represented by T. crassirostris, a species that will soon follow suit, although still plentiful in certain localities; the Weka (Ocydromus earli) is represented by several other closely-related species (O. australis, O. fuscus, and O. brachypterus) so closely resembling the northern bird both in appearance and habits that they are called “Woodhens” by the settlers of both islands and by them, as well as by the natives, are generally regarded as identical; the Popokatea (Clitonyx albicapilla) is represented by another species (C. ochrocephala) differing in colour, but so closely allied to it that the Maoris apply the same name to both; the Toutouwai (Miro australis), to which precisely the same remark applies, is represented by M. albifrons, and Glaucopis wilsoni by G. cinerea, distinguishable only by the colour of its ornamental wattles. Another case in point is furnished by the two representative species of Apteryx, the North Island bird being characterized by a different structure of plumage to that of the well-known Apteryx australis inhabiting the South Island. Till of late years it was believed that Apteryx oweni, which differs entirely from both of these species in the grey colour and mottled appearance of its plumage, was confined to the colder districts of the South Island; but in 1876 I communicated to the Wellington Philosophical Society the discovery of this bird near the summit of the Tararua mountains on the north side of Cook’s Strait, where it was found frequenting the stunted vegetation immediately below the snow-line
Analogous cases of representative species in more or less widely separated areas are of frequent occurrence in other parts of the world. “The cause of this” (writes Mr. Wallace) “is very easy to understand. We have already shown that there is a large amount of local variation in a considerable number of species, and we may be sure that were it not for the constant intermingling and intercrossing of the individuals inhabiting adjacent localities this tendency to local variation would soon form distinct races. But as soon as the area is divided into two portions, the intercrossing is stopped,
In his ‘Geographical Distribution of Animals’ Mr. Wallace treats New Zealand and her satellites as forming a subregion of Australia. The Australian, or “great insular region of the earth,” is divided by him into four subregions, distinguished as the Austro-Malayan, Australian, Polynesian, and New Zealand. The last-named subregion is made to include Norfolk Island, Phillip and the Nepean Isles, Lord Howe’s Island and the Kermadec Isles on the north, the Chatham Islands on the east, the Auckland, Macquarie, Emerald, Campbell, Antipodes, and Bounty Islands on the south and south-east.
Other prominent writers on the subject have claimed for New Zealand full recognition as a separate biological province, quite distinct from Australia and every other region of the earth, My own study of the subject having brought me to the same conclusion, I propose to examine here, very briefly, the grounds upon which Mr. Wallace links New Zealand to Australia as contiguous sections of one biological region. He admits, of course, that there is a “wonderful amount of speciality,” but he contends that “the affinities of the fauna, whenever they can be traced, are with Australia or Polynesia.”
If we take Mr. Wallace’s own table of the geographical distribution we find, on a careful analysis, that out of twenty-eight families stated to be common to Australia and New Zealand, three are included in error, namely Sittidæ, Dicæidæ, and Pandionidæ, thus reducing the number to twenty-five. Of these, fifteen are admitted by him to be cosmopolitan, and may therefore be discharged from the present inquiry. Of the remaining ten, four belong to the Old World, four to the Oriental, Ethiopian, Austro-Malayan, and Polynesian regions respectively, and one highly specialized family, the Spheniscidæ, to the south temperate regions, leaving thus only one family, the Certhiparus, about the true position of which there is considerable doubt, and this genus again is represented by a single species, so that, as regards the mere distribution of families, the argument altogether fails. Let us now examine the far more important question of identical or representative genera and species in the two countries, for this after all is the true test of a common origin. Of the twelve genera of Australian birds which he treats as belonging equally to New Zealand, it may be remarked that two (namely Graucalus and Acanthochœra), each of them represented by a single species, have only occurred in New Zealand as accidental stragglers, at very long intervals; that Tribonyx, as already explained at p. xiv, has never actually occurred in a wild state; and that Orthonyx and Hieracidea have, on further investigation of their characters, been replaced by two endemic genera, Clitonyx and Harpa. Of the remaining seven, two alone (Gerygone and Sphenœacus) are characteristic of Australia, the others ranging over a great part of the southern hemisphere; thus, Platycercus is spread over New Guinea and Polynesia, as well as Australia, Rhipidura extends to India, and Zosterops through Polynesia and the Malay Archipelago to India and Africa. Of the five species mentioned by Mr. Wallace as being identical in Australia and New Zealand, it may be mentioned that three (Acanthochæra carunculata, Graucalus melanops, and Hirundo nigricans) are among our rarest stragglers from abroad, and that the Shining Cuckoo ( Chrysococcyx lucidus) is an
Mr. Wallace’s strongest point is the Family Meliphagidæ, which is a very typical and well-distributed Australian group. But accepting, as I think we must do, his theory of the introduction of the ancestral types into New Zealand by way of tropical Australia and New Guinea, it is easy to account for the presence of this peculiar form in both countries, inasmuch as the Meliphagidae have representatives as far north as the Sandwich Islands, whilst other members of the group are spread through the Austro-Malayan subregion, finding their extreme western limit in the Celebes. Supposing that the ancient type reached New Zealand by the north-western route, it then resolves itself into a mere question of time and “descent with modification.”
Dr.
It is a point of some significance that the Meliphagine genera in New Zealand are not very closely related to those of Australia, except in the case of Pogonornis, which approximates somewhat to Ptilotis, a decidedly subtropical genus. Apart from the true Honey-eaters, the only genera that Mr. Wallace specially refers to as related to peculiar Australian ones are Miro and Myiomoira (allied to Petrœca), Ocydromus (allied to Eulabeornis), and Hymenolœmus (allied to Malacorhynchus). It seems to me, therefore, that he has not succeeded in establishing a co-ordinate relation between the avifaunae of these so-called subregions of Australia.
It is worthy of remark also that, with the exception of the highly developed Meliphagidae, comprising four very distinct genera (and numbering altogether only five species), none of the New-Zealand families contain more than two genera, presenting a marked difference in this respect to the numerous subordinate groups among the birds of Australia.
Seeing that the Shining Cuckoo ( Chrysococcyx lucidus) is met with in New Guinea, and probably further west, that it is likewise found in tropical Australia, and that it comes to us from the north, or north-west–for it always makes its appearance first at the extreme north–it is easy to understand that the migratory impulse has been inherited from time immemorial, and the more so as the closely-allied species (
Mr. Wallace says, in his account of the Chatham Islands (‘Island Life,’ p. 454):—“It is stated that the Zosterops differs from that of New Zealand, and is also a migrant; and it is therefore believed to come every year from Australia, passing over New Zealand, a distance of nearly 1700 miles!” But this is evidently a lapsus calami, the bird intended being the Chrysococcyx. Prof. Hutton stated (Trans. N.-Z. Instit. vol. v. p. 225) that this happened in the case of C. plagosus; but I have shown elsewhere that he was wrong in his identification of the species, the Shining Cuckoo (C. lucidus) which annually visits the Chatham Islands being identical with the New-Zealand bird. Chrysococcyx plagosus, distinguished by its narrower bill, has never been met with in New Zealand, and it would be strange indeed if this Australian species had occurred in the Chatham Islands to the eastward.
The Waders are, for the most part, cosmopolitan, and are therefore of little account when estimating the geographical relations of the avifauna.
One of the most widely distributed species is the Eastern Golden Plover (Charadrius fulvus), which, at all times rare in New Zealand, is plentiful in Australia, and spreads itself over the Polynesian Islands and the Indian Archipelago, westward to Ceylon, and northward to Siberia and Kamtschatka, where it rears its young.
Several of our Ducks are common to Australia, but it is well known that this Order is a very diffuse one in all parts of the world. Our common Grey Duck (Anas superciliosa), for example, extends its range into Tasmania and Australia, over a large portion of Polynesia, and as far north as the Sandwich Islands; whilst the White-winged Duck (Anas gibberifrons) is met with, not only in Australia, but in New Caledonia and the Indian Archipelago. The genus Hymenoloemus, represented by our peculiar Mountain Duck, is closely related to an Australian one, and our Shoveller (Rhynchaspis variegata) is a representative species to that inhabiting Australia and Tasmania, the two forms being very closely allied. Two other Ducks, however (Dendrocygna eytoni and Nyroca australis) are so rare with us that they may fairly be regarded as Australian stragglers. Even where the species is peculiar to New Zealand, the genus to which it belongs may be a widely spread one: for example, Fuligula novæ zealandiæ belongs to a genus which has representatives in the northern parts of America, in Europe and in Asia, and our splendid Casarca variegata represents a genus which is almost cosmopolitan.
One of the most puzzling of these occurrences is the Little Bittern (Ardetta pusilla), which, although decidedly rare, has been met with on the west coast and in the southernmost part of the South Island. Both this and our common species (Botaurus pœciloptilus) are birds of feeble wing; yet they are identical with, the species inhabiting temperate Australia, showing that they must have preserved their individuality as species for a very long period of time. The same remark applies to our Porphyrio melanonotus, and, in a lesser degree, to Rallus philippensis and Ortygometra affinis, which are very closely related to R. pectoralis and O. palustris respectively.
When we come to compare our avifauna with that of the Polynesian “subregion” there is still less resemblance, for the only genera common to both are the two referred to above, whilst the only species mentioned by Mr. Wallace as identical is our other migratory Cuckoo (Eudynamis taitensis). It is true that he questions the fact of these Cuckoos being migratory at all, and endeavours to account for their disappearance in winter by suggesting that “in a country which has still such wide tracts of unsettled land, they may only move from one part of the islands to another.” But quite apart from the lengthened form of the wing in both of these Cuckoos, which at once proclaims them “birds of passage,” the fact of their seasonal arrival in and departure from our country, as fully recorded in my account of each species, is well attested, and forms an essential part of their natural history.
Besides the genera of occasional or accidental occurrence ( It may be worth noting that I have remarked the following similarity between the names employed in the Fijian and Maori languages for the same or corresponding birds:—Acanthochœra and Hirundo) and the migratory Cuckoo already mentioned, the only groups of land-birds common to New Zealand and Polynesia are Platycercus, Carpophaga, and Zosterops, and the widely spread genera Rhipidura, Halcyon, and CircusFijian.Maori.Eudynamis taitensis).Nestor meridionalis).Dinornis).
The Cormorants are evidently adapted by nature to a cold or temperate climate, for as we advance towards the Tropics they disappear, and it is said that not a single species is to be found in the whole of Polynesia.
In New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, which form a sort of transition ground into Australia proper and the Papuan group, we have the same genera, and in addition thereto, inhabiting New Caledonia, a flightless Rail, allied to the New-Zealand Woodhen.
The Chatham Islands to the east of New Zealand, the Auckland Islands, and the other scattered islets to the south and south-east are so obviously related to New Zealand geographically, besides coming within the political limits of the Colony, that I have included their birds in the present work. It is interesting to notice, however, that these islands nearly all contain one or more peculiar species, showing that the isolation has been of sufficiently long duration to allow of this development. Thus in the Chatham Islands and the adjacent islets there are seven peculiar species, namely, Anthornis melanocephala, Gerygone albofrontata, Miro traversi, Sphenœacus rufescens, Rallus diffenbachii, Cabalus modestus, and
In the Auckland Islands, lying about 300 miles to the south of New Zealand, the three species mentioned by Mr. Wallace as peculiar (Anthus aucklandicus, Platycercus aucklandicus, and P. malherbii) have been proved to have no existence as valid species; but, as already mentioned, this small area contains two species of Duck (Nesonetta aucklandica and Mergus australis) hitherto not met with elsewhere; also a Snipe (
From Macquarie Island, still further south, we have the handsome Phalacrocorax nycthemerus and possibly a new species of Rail; from Campbell Island, so far as our present knowledge extends, another fine Cormorant (P. magellanicus) and a peculiar Penguin; from the Snares the unique Eudyptes atrata, described by Prof. Hutton; and from Antipodes Island the interesting Ground-Parrakeet (Platycercus unicolor) lately discovered by Captain Fairchild. A small Hawk. received by me from Macquarie Island is undoubtedly the same as our Harpa ferox, and the Rail which Prof. Hutton has distinguished as Rallus macquariensis seems to me to be merely a local race of P. philippensis, if at all separable from that species. There can be no doubt, therefore, of the propriety of including even this remote island in the New-Zealand region.
The case is different, however, with the islands to the north of New Zealand. The instances mentioned by me at p. 24 of the present volume make it abundantly clear that at some period there was a land-connection with Lord Howe’s Island, Norfolk Island, and the Nepean group, and possibly with the Kermadec Islands Mr. J. F. Cheeseman, who accompanied the Annexation expedition to the Kermadec Islands last year, has lately communicated to the Linnean Society (through Sir Nestor productus and Notornis alba, all the species of land-birds inhabiting Norfolk Island and the Nepean group belong to Australian genera; and of the sixteen recorded species, all but three occur also in various parts of Australia.
The same remarks apply to Lord Howe’s Island lying midway between Norfolk Island and Australia. With the exception of Ocydromus sylvestris, all the birds belong to well known Australian
Zosterops strenuus and Z. tephropleurus, both of which, strange to say, are peculiar to this small island.
To summarize the results, it may be mentioned that out of sixty-nine species of “land-birds” (excluding the Herons and Bitterns) only eleven have a wider range than New Zealand. Of these exceptions five are only accidental stragglers from Australia; two are annual migrants; and the remaining four are Zosterops cœrulesoens, Rallus philippensis, Ortygometra tabuensis, and Porphyrio melanonotus. But, what is even more remarkable still, out of thirty-four genera, after making a similar elimination to the above, not less than twenty-two are strictly endemic, showing at a glance how restricted is the character of the New-Zealand Avifauna.
That the Ornis of New Zealand may have been, from time to time, affected by casual immigration from Australia is probable enough, for, as we have seen, even during recent years, many individual cases of the kind have been recorded at irregular intervals; and it is rather matter for surprise, on this ground, that there is not a stronger family likeness, so to speak, between the indigenous birds of the two countries at the present day.
Before concluding this Introduction it may be well to offer one or two general observations on the Families and Genera treated of in the present volume, which closes with the New-Zealand Wood-Pigeon (Carpophaga novæ zealandi æ).
The number of species described is fifty-five, and these have been referred to twenty-three Families and thirty-five Genera. Of the former four, and of the latter seventeen, are strictly endemic or peculiar to the New-Zealand Avifauna.
Of the fifty-five species all but eight are endemic, being found only in New Zealand and the adjacent islands. Of the exceptions one is Zosterops coerulescens, whose erratic history has already been noticed, two are migratory birds (Eudynamis taitensis and Chrysococcyx lucidus), which only spend the summer with us, and five are occasional stragglers from the continent of Australia, not one of which has ever been known to breed with us. Indeed, in estimating the character of the Avifauna it is hardly fair to take count of these accidental visitants—such birds, for example, as the Australian Swift, which has been recorded only once in the history of the Colony and may never reappear, or the Australian Honey-eater, which has been recorded twice; so that, adopting this view, the number is reduced to one. It will thus be seen at a glance that the so-called “land-birds” are, almost without exception, characteristic of the country. Even in the case of
New-Zealand Magazine,’ January 1876, p. 96.
Coloured Illustrations are given of the following species:—
The Blue-wattled Crow (Glaucopis wilsoni).
The Orange-wattled Crow (Glaucopis cinerea).
The Huia ( Heteralocha acutirostris), male and female.
The Saddle-back (Creadion carunculatus).
The Jack-bird (Creadion cinereus).
The North-Island Thrush (Turnagra hectori).
The South-Island Thrush (Turnagra crassirostris).
The North-Island Tomtit (Myiomoira toiloi).
The South-Island Tomtit (Myiomoira macrocephala).
The North-Island Robin (Miro australis).
The South-Island Robin (Miro albifrons).
The Grey Warbler (Gerygone flaviventris). Figured on same Plate as the Long-tailed Cuckoo.
The White-head (Clitonyx albicapilla).
The Yellow-head (Clitonyx ochrocephala).
The New-Zealand Creeper (Certhiparus novæ zealandiæ).
The Fern-bird (Sphenœacus punctatus).
The New-Zealand Pipit (Anthus novæ zealandiæ).
The Pied Fantail (Rhipidura flabellifera).
The Black Fantail (Rhipidura fuliginosa).
The Silver-eye (Zosterops cœrulescens).
The Bell-bird (Anthornis melanura), male and female.
The Tui or Parson bird (Prosthemadera novæ zealandiæ), adult and young.
The Stitch-bird (Pogonornis cincta), male and female.
The Bush-Wren (Xenicus longipes).
The Rock-Wren (Xenicus gilventris).
The Rifleman (Acanthidositta chloris), male and female.
The New-Zealand Kingfisher (Halcyon vagans), adult and young.
The Long-tailed Cuckoo (Eudynamis taitensis), adult and young.
The Shining Cuckoo ( Chrysococcyx lucidus), with young in Warbler’s nest.
The Yellow-fronted Parrakeet (Platycercus auriceps).
The Red-fronted Parrakeet (Platycercus novas zealandiae).
The Orange-fronted Parrakeet (Platycercus alpinus).
The Kaka Parrot (Nestor meridionalis), with variety “Kaka-Kura.”
The Kea Parrot ( Nestor notabilis).
The Kakapo or Owl Parrot (Stringops habroptilus), with Alpine variety.
The Morepork (Spiloglaux novæ zealandiæ).
The Laughing-Owl (Sceloglaux albifacies).
The New-Zealand Harrier (Circus gouldi), adult and young.
The Quail-Hawk (Harpa novæ zealandiæ), adult and young.
The New-Zealand Quail (Coturnix novæ zealandiæ).
The New-Zealand Pigeon (Carpophaga novæ zealandiæ).
I have endeavoured to make the technical part of the work as exhaustive and exact as possible. After the diagnostic characters of each species (rendered, according to the usual custom, in Latin), I have given full descriptions of both sexes, with their seasonal changes of plumage (if any), followed by an account of the young, commencing with the nestling, or fledgling, and noting the various adolescent states of plumage in the progress of the bird towards maturity. Under the head of ‘Varieties,’ I have been careful to record every appreciable departure from the normal character that has come under my notice during an acquaintance with this peculiar Ornis extending over the best part of my life.
The measurements of each bird described are given in inches and decimals. In taking the extreme length my rule has always been to measure from the tip of the bill, following its curvature (if any) to the end of the tail. The advantage of this plan is that by deducting the measurements of the culmen and the tail, which are given separately, the exact length of the body may be ascertained. The same rule has been followed in regard to the claws wherever measurements are given.
In order to make the descriptions intelligible to the ordinary reader, some knowledge is essential of the names usually applied to the various parts of a bird and to the feathers which cover them. To supply an index to the descriptive terms commonly employed throughout the present work, it may be useful to reproduce here, on a slightly reduced scale, the diagram given in my ‘Manual of the Birds of New Zealand,’ the outline selected for the purpose being that of one of our commonest species.
References.—1, forehead; 2, crown or vertex; 3, hind head; 4, nape; 5, lore or loral space; 6, eye (shaded margin iris); 7, ear-coverts; 8, hind neck; 9, side of neck; 10, back or dorsal region; 11, rump or uropygium; 12, upper tail-coverts; 13, tail-feathers or rectrices; 14, primaries or quills; 15, secondaries; 16, larger wing-coverts; 17, lesser wing-coverta (including “median”); 18, carpal flexure, or bend of wing; 19, scapulars; 20, chin; 21, throat; 22, fore neck; 23, breast; 24, abdomen; 25, vent; 26, under tail-coverts; 27, tibial plumes; 28, cere; 29, ridge of upper mandible or culmen; 30, lower mandible; 31, tarsus; 32, middle toe and claw; 33, hind too and claw, or hallux.
In order to show at a glance the scheme I have adopted for the systematic arrangement of the existing Avifauna of New Zealand, I shall give here a Synopsis of the classification, with the superficial characters of each genus as at present defined.
As the characters of the genera are given in their entirety, I have thought it unnecessary to overload this section by adding the characters of the Orders and Families, which may be obtained from any text-book For the generic characters I have, for the most part, relied on Mr.
I do not underrate the importance of the internal organs for determining generic distinctions. “But” (as Dr. Günther says, in his Preface to vol. vii. of the British Museum Catalogue of Birds) “it seems to me that investigations in the latter direction must lead to more numerous subdivisions than Ornithologists are inclined to admit at present.”
Of every endemic group, except the Owls (which do not differ widely from the genus Carine), I have given a woodeut in illustration of one or more of the characters.
Generic Characters.—Bill short, strong, with the culmen elevated at the base, and suddenly curved from the base to the tip, which is entire; the sides compressed, and the gonys lengthened and slightly arched; the nostrils basal, lateral, pierced in a membranous channel, and the opening partly concealed by the frontal plumes. Wings short and rounded, with the sixth and seventh quills equal and longest. Tail moderately long and rounded, with the shaft of each feather ending in a bristly point. Tarsi long, longer than the middle toe, and strongly scutellated in front, with one lengthened scale. Toes moderate, the lateral ones unequal and free at their base, the outer toe the longest; the hind toe very long and strong, and all armed with strong curved claws.
Gen. Char.—Bill long, arched, and acutely pointed, with the culmen, lateral margins, and gonys curved to the tips; much produced in the female, forming a sexual character; the sides compressed; the nostrils basal, lateral, and placed in a short, broad, membranous groove, which is mostly covered by the projecting plumes, leaving the opening small and exposed. Wings long and rounded, with the fifth, sixth, and seventh quills nearly equal and longest. Tail rather long, broad, and somewhat rounded. Tarsi much longer than the middle toe robust, and curved in front, with slightly divided broad scales. Toes long and robust, with the inner toe shorter than the outer and free at the base; the outer united at its base; the hind toe two thirds the length of the tarsus, and armed with a very long, strong, curved, acute claw; those of the fore toes long, curved, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head and rather straight, with the culmen flattened and sloping and the sides compressed to the tip, which is depressed and obtuse; the lateral margins straight, and angulated near the base; the gonys long and ascending; the nostrils lateral, and placed in a membranous groove, which is mostly clothed with short feathers, with the opening suboval. Wings short and rounded, with the first quill short, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth equal and longest. Tail long and rounded. Tarsi nearly as long as the middle toe, and covered in front with almost entire scales. Toes long; the lateral toe unequal, with the outer united at the base; the hind toe long and strong; the claws long, curved, and very acute.
Gen. char.—Bill short, broad, and elevated at the base, with the culmen curved and the sides compressed to the tip, which is emarginated; the lateral margins much curved, and the gonys long and ascending; the nostrils basal, with the opening anterior, rather rounded, and slightly covered with a few bristles and plumes. Wings moderate and rounded, with the fifth and sixth quills equal and longest. Tail long, broad and rounded. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, strong, and covered in front with broad scales. Toes long and strong, with the outer toe longer than the inner, and united at its base; the hind toe long, strong, and armed with a strong curved claw.
Gen. char.—Bill two thirds the length of the head, slender, straight, higher than broad, sides compressed, the culmen slightly curved, the gonys long and ascending; nostrils basal, the opening rather large and suboval. Wings moderate, extending to half the length of the tail, rounded and concave, with the first quill very short, the third nearly as long as the fourth, which is the longest, the fifth and sixth scarcely shorter. Tail moderate, rather broad and even, the feathers cut sharply off at their tips. Tarsi very long and slender.
Gen. char.—The same as in Miro, except that the bill is shorter, being only one third the length of the head, narrow and sharp-pointed; the wings longer, extending for two thirds the length of the tail; and the claw of hind toe weaker.
Genus GERYGONE, Gould. New Zealand, Australia, New Guinea, and Indo-Malayan Islands.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, slender and straight, with the culmen slightly curved, and the sides compressed to the tip, which projects beyond the lower mandible; the gonys long and ascending; the nostrils basal and in a membranous groove, with the opening linear. Wings rather short and rounded, with the first quill very short, and the third nearly as long as the fourth, which is the longest; fifth and sixth scarcely shorter. Tail long and rather rounded. Tarsi twice the length of the middle toe, slender, and covered in front with an entire scale. Toes moderate, with the inner toe shorter than the outer, which is united at its base; the hind toe long, and armed with a moderately strong, curved claw.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, with the culmen curved and the sides compressed to the tip, which is entire, and the gonys long and slightly ascending; the nostrils lateral, placed in a groove, with the opening lunate, and partly concealed by the projecting frontal plumes. Wings moderate and rounded, with the fifth quill the longest. Tail long and rounded. Tarsi much longer than the middle toe, and broadly scutellated in front. Toes long, with the lateral ones equal; the hind toe long and strong, the claws moderate, slightly curved and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill half as long as the head, robust, with the culmen curved and the gonys ascending; the tip
Wings rather long, reaching to the middle of the tail, much rounded, with the fifth and sixth quills equal and longest. Tail rather long, broad, and rounded, the feathers slightly incurved, and the shafts more or less denuded at their tips. Tarsi much longer than the middle toe, and protected anteriorly by broad scales. Toes strong, and armed with well-curved, acute claws, that of the hind toe specially so.
Gen. char.—Bill short, and more or less strong, with the culmen more or less curved, and the sides compressed to the tip, which is entire or slightly emarginated; the gonys long and ascending; the gape furnished with very short weak bristles; the nostrils basal, placed in a membranous groove, with the opening lunate, exposed and partly closed by a scale. Wings short and rounded, with the fourth and fifth quills equal and longest. Tail long, graduated on the sides, with more or less filamentous webs. Tarsi rather longer than the middle toe, strong, and covered in front with broad scutellations. Toes lengthened and slender, with the lateral toes nearly equal, the outer united at its base; the hind toe long, and armed with a long claw.
Gen. char.—Bill more or less straight and slender, with the culmen almost straight or slightly curved, and the sides compressed to the tip, which is emarginated; the lateral margins straight and inflected; the gonys long and ascending; the nostrils lateral, placed in a short broad groove, with the opening rounded and partly closed by a membrane. Wings moderate, with the first three quills equal and longest. Tail moderate and emarginated. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, rather slender, and covered in front with broad transverse scales. Toes long and rather slender; with the lateral toes equal, and the outer one slightly united at its base; the hind toe long; the claws of the anterior toes rather short and curved, and that of the hind toe very long and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill short, and broad at the base, with the culmen rather depressed, slightly curved, and the sides gradually compressed to the tip, which is emarginated; the gonys long and slightly ascending; the gape furnished with a few short bristles; the nostrils basal, lateral, rounded, and concealed by the frontal plumes. Wings moderate, with the first quill short, the second shorter than the third, and the third more or less shorter than the fourth, which is the longest. Tail long, broad, and rounded on the sides. Tarsi short, the length of the middle toe, and covered in front with broad scales. Toes moderate, the inner toe shorter than the outer, which is united at its base; the hind toe moderate and broad, padded beneath; the claws moderate, compressed, and curved.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, broad at the base, and narrowing towards the end, with the culmen rather depressed and curved to the tip, which is emarginated; the lateral margin straight; the gonys long and slightly ascending, and the gape furnished with numerous lengthened bristles; the nostrils basal, lateral, and partly covered by the plumes and bristles. Wings long and rather pointed, with the first quill short and the fourth and fifth the longest. Tail lengthened, broad, and graduated. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, and covered in front with broad scales. Toes short, with the outer one longer than the inner, the hind toe long, and the claws moderate, curved, compressed, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill short, strong, broad at the gape, gradually compressed on the sides; the culmen elevated at the base, and slightly curved to the tip; the nostrils basal, rounded, and exposed, without a superior membrane, the aperture longitudinal or oval. Wings long, with the first quill the longest. Tail square or only slightly emarginate. Tarsi longer than the middle toe and clothed with plumes. Toes long, not feathered, the lateral ones unequal; the claws moderate and curved.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, and slightly curved, with the culmen curved, and the sides compressed to the tip, which is acute and emarginated; the gonys long and slightly ascending; the gape furnished with very short weak bristles; the nostrils basal, and placed in a broad groove, with the opening closed by a lunate scale. Wings moderate, with the first quill very small, and the fourth and fifth equal and longest. Tail moderate, broad and slightly emarginated in the middle. Tarsi rather longer than the middle toe, and covered in front with broad scales. Toes rather long; with the outer toe rather longer than the inner and united at its base; the hind toe long, strong, and armed with a long curved claw.
Gen. char.—Bill long, rather slender, broad and elevated at the base, with the culmen and lateral margins curved and the sides compressed to the tip, which is slightly emarginated and acute; the gonys long and curved; the nostrils basal, large, in a broad membranous groove, and the opening covered by a prominent membranous scale. Wings moderate, with the fifth and sixth quills equal and longest, and the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth more or less emarginated in the middle of the inner webs. Tail long, broad, and rounded on the sides. Tarsi as long as or longer than the middle toe, and covered in front with transverse scales. Toes moderate, with the inner toe shorter than the outer, which is united at its base; the claws long, slender, curved, and very acute.
Gen. char.—This genus differs from the preceding one in the form of the wings, which are moderate, with the
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, very slender, and much compressed on the sides, with the culmen and lateral margins gradually curved to the tip, which is strongly emarginated; the gonys long and curved; and the gape furnished with lengthened slender bristles; the nostrils basal, large, and placed in a large groove, with the opening linear, oblique, and covered by a membranous scale. Wings moderate, with the fourth quill the longest. Tail moderate and emarginated. Tarsi long and robust, and covered in front with transverse scales. Toes long, with the outer longer than the inner, and united at its base; the hind toe long and strong; the claws long, compressed, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill long, rather slender, broad, and elevated at the base, with the culmen and lateral margins curved, and the sides compressed to the tip, which is slightly emarginated and acute; the gonys long and curved; the nostrils basal, large, in a broad membranous groove, and the opening covered by a prominent membranous scale. Wings moderate and rounded, with the first four quills graduated, and the fifth and sixth equal and longest. Tail long, broad, and graduated on the sides. Tarsi as long as, or longer than, the middle toe, and covered in front with transverse scales. Toes moderate, with the inner toe shorter than the outer, which is united at its base; claws long, slender, curved, and very acute.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, more or less straight, moderately narrow at the base, and compressed to tip; culmen slightly curved at the apex; margin straight; gonys angulated one third of its length, and advancing towards the tip, and straight to the base; nostrils sunk in a short broad groove, with the opening large, oval, and partly closed by a membrane. Wings short, rounded, with the third, fourth, and fifth quills nearly equal and longest. Tarsi lengthened, slender, longer than the middle toe, covered by an entire scale. Toes rather long, slender; inner toe free at the base, the outer one connected nearly to the first joint of the middle toe; claws long, curved, and very acute.
Gen, char.—Bill long, straight, and very slender, with the culmen straight and slightly curved at the tip, the sides compressed, and the gonys long and gradually advancing upwards; the nostrils basal, lateral, and placed in a deep, broad groove, with the opening linear and near the culmen. Wings moderate, with the third and fourth quills the longest, the first shorter than the second, which is shorter than the third and fourth. Tail short and rounded. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe, and covered in front with an almost entire scale. Toes long and very slender, the lateral toes unequal, the outer longest and united at its base, the hind toe nearly as long as the middle one; the claws long, compressed, and curved.
Gen. char.—Bill short and depressed, with the gape very wide, and the sides gradually compressed to the tip, which is curved; the nostrils basal, lateral, and large, with the opening longitudinal, on each side of the culmen, and the margins beset with small feathers. Wings lengthened, with the second quill longest. Tail moderate, forked or uneven. Tarsi very short, and feathered to the base of the toes. Toes all directed forwards, short, thick, and armed with short, curved, and compressed claws.
Gen. char.—Bill strong, depressed and broad at the base, sides much compressed towards the tip, which is hooked; nostrils basal, oblique, partly covered by a plumed membrane. Wings long and pointed, reaching to end of tail; second quill the longest. Tail moderate and even. Tarsi shorter than middle toe, and covered with transverse scales. Toes long, united at the base; hind toe long; claws moderate, curved, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill long, broad at the base, sometimes depressed, with the sides gradually compressed, and the culmen more or less straight to the tip, which is acute; the lateral margins usually straight, and the gonys more or less straight and ascending; the nostrils basal and lateral, placed in a small membranous space, with the opening small, longitudinal, and partly concealed by the projecting plumes. Wings moderate, with the first quill long, and the third the longest. Tail moderate, and rounded on the sides. Tarsi very short, rather slender, and covered in front with transverse scales. Toes moderate and unequal, with the outer toe long and united to the third joint, and the inner to the second joint, of the middle toe; the claws moderate, compressed and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill long, broad, with the culmen curved, and the sides compressed to the tip, which is slightly emarginated; the gonys short and angulated; the nostrils basal, lateral, and placed in a short membranous groove, with the opening large and exposed. Wings moderate, with the fourth and fifth quills equal and longest. Tail lengthened and rounded. Tarsi rather short, robust, and covered in front with broad scales. Toes unequal, the outer anterior toe the longest.
Gen. char.—Bill broad, and rather depressed at the base, with the culmen curved, and the sides gradually compressed towards the tip, which is entire and acute; the gonys long and arched; the nostrils basal, lateral, and placed in a short, broad, membranous groove, with the opening round and exposed. Wings lengthened and pointed, with the third quill the longest. Tail long and graduated, or even, and the outer feathers on each side shorter than the others. Tarsi very short, feathered below the knee, and the exposed part covered with broad scales. Toes unequal; the outer anterior toe the longest, and united to the inner one at the base.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, with the sides swollen, and the culmen rounded, and arched to the tip, which is sometimes obtuse; the lateral margins curved and slightly dentated, or entire; the gonys broad, rather biangular on the sides, and curved upwards; the nostrils basal, lateral, exposed, and rounded, and placed in a small rounded cere near the culmen. Wings moderate and concave, with the first quill shorter than the second and third, which are nearly equal and longest, and the webs of the first four quills suddenly dilated near the base. Tail lengthened, broad, and nearly even, or much graduated, with the feathers towards the tip more or less narrowed and rounded or pointed. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe, and covered with minute scales. Toes moderate, much padded beneath, the outer anterior one the longest; and the claws long, compressed, curved, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill much lengthened, the sides compressed, especially near the culmen, which is rounded and much arched to the tip, which is long and acute; the base of the lower mandible partly hidden by the projecting feathers and the sides rather compressed, with the gonys nearly flat and ascending towards the tip; the nostrils moderate, rounded, and placed in the cere. Wings long and pointed, with the third and fourth quills the longest. Tail moderate, and nearly even at the end, with the feathers firm and broad, and the shafts proionged beyond the web. Tarsi as long as the inner anterior toe and covered with small scales. Toes moderate, the two outer ones the longest, and all covered with small irregular scales.
Gen. char.—Bill higher than broad, slightly compressed, and grooved on the sides; the culmen much curved to the tip, which is acute; the lateral margins dentated in the middle; the lower mandible with the gonys broad, rounded, and much grooved longitudinally, and the base of both mandibles covered by the basal feathers, with the shaft of each prolonged into hairs; the nostrils basal, lateral, large, and rounded. Wings rather short and rounded, with the fifth and sixth quills equal and longest. Tail moderate, weak, and much rounded, with the end of each feather rather pointed, and the shafts projecting beyond the web. Tarsi short, robust, and covered with rounded scales. Toes unequal, and covered with quadrate scales, except at the end of each toe, where the scales are transverse; the claws long, strong, and slightly curved
Gen. char.—Bill short, partly concealed by the projecting plumes, the sides compressed, the culmen much arched to the tip, which is hooked and acute; the nostrils basal, lateral, and hidden by the frontal plumes. Wings rather long and pointed, with the first quill much shortened, the third and fourth quills equal and longest. Tail rather long and nearly even. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, and covered with plumes. Toes short, and covered with scattered hairs; the claws long, arched, and acute.
Genus SCELOGLAUX, Kaup. Endemic.
Gen. char.—Similar to Spiloglaux, but distinguished by its more developed tarsi, which are twice the length of the middle toe, and thickly feathered in their whole extent.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, elevated at the base of the culmen and arched to the tip, which is hooked, the sides compressed, and the lateral margins festooned; the nostrils large, oval, and partly concealed by the curved hairs of the lores. Wings long, with the third and fourth quills nearly equal and longest. Tail long and rounded on the sides. Tarsi long, slender, and compressed, the outer side covered with transverse scales, and the inner with small scales. Toes moderate, with the outer one longer than the inner; the claws long, slender, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill short, strong, with the culmen much arched from the base to the tip, which is acute; the sides compressed, the lateral margins strongly toothed near the tip; the nostrils placed in a short cere, naked, and rounded, with a central tubercle. Wings moderate, with the second and third quills nearly equal and longest. Tarsi lengthened, rather slender, and covered in front with rounded scales. Toes long, especially the middle toe, which is more than twice the length of the culmen, the lateral ones equal, the hind toe rather long; the claws moderately robust.
Gen. char.—Bill short, more or less elevated at the base and arched to the tip, which is obtuse; the sides compressed; the nostrils basal, lateral, and covered by a hard scale. Wings moderate, with the second, third, and fourth quills the longest. Tail very short, mostly hidden by the coverts, and pendent. Tarsi short, covered in front with divided scales, and unarmed. Toes moderate, united at their base, with the inner toe shorter than the outer; the hind toe short; the claws short, and slightly curved.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, slender, with the base depressed, the tip compressed and moderately arched, and the margin slightly sinuated; the nostrils placed in the soft basal portion of the bill, and forming a longitudinal slit. Wings moderate and pointed; with the second, third, and fourth quills nearly equal and longest. Tail lengthened, and generally rounded. Tarsi very short, and clothed with down below the knee. Toes strong, and broadly padded below; with the outer toe longer than the inner, and the hind toe much developed.
Gen. char.—Bill more or less short, robust, and straight; the culmen, for two thirds its length, usually depressed, and the tip vaulted and curved; the sides compressed, and furnished on both mandibles with a groove,
Wings long and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail moderate, broad, and rounded. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, more or less slender, and covered in front with small reticulated scales. Toes three, moderate; the outer toe longer than the inner, and more or less united at the base by a membrane, the inner toe usually free; the hind toe wanting; the claws small, compressed, and slightly curved.
Gen. char.—Bill long, straight, and slender, with the apex scarcely vaulted and acute, the sides compressed, and both mandibles grooved; the nostrils lateral, placed in a groove that extends for two thirds the length of the bill, and the opening linear. Wings long and pointed, with the first and second quills nearly equal and longest. Tail long and rounded. Tarsi as long as, or shorter than, the middle toe, strong and covered with small scales. Toes three, more or less long and robust; with the outer toe rather longer than the inner, and united at the base by a membrane, and all margined on the sides; the hind toe wanting.
Gen. char.—Same as Thinornis, but with the bill asymmetrical, being always turned to the right.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, and more or less strong, with the culmen depressed at the base and vaulted at the tip, the sides compressed and grooved; the nostrils lateral, basal, and placed in the groove of the upper mandible, which extends for two thirds its length, with the opening linear; the front and sides of the head lobed. Wings long and pointed; with the first, second, and third quills nearly equal and longest; armed at the flexure with a sharp spur. Tail moderate, broad, and even. Tarsi much longer than the middle toe, slender, and covered in front with divided broad scales. Toes four; the three anterior toes long and rather slender; the outer toe longer than the inner, and united at the base; the hind toe short and elevated.
Gen. char.—Bill rather shorter than the head, straight and slightly depressed at the base, with the culmen straight, and the sides much compressed to the tip, which is truncated; the lateral margins of both mandibles curved upwards at the tip; the gonys moderate and ascending; the nostrils lateral, and placed in a membranous groove that extends half the length of the upper mandible, with the opening linear and longitudinal. Wings very long and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail moderate, and slightly rounded. Tarsi as long as the middle toe, robust, and covered in front with broad scales. Toes long, the outer toe rather longer than the inner, and both free at the base, and the sides of all margined by a narrow membrane; the hind toe elevated, with the tip resting on the ground.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, strong, straight, with the culmen slightly depressed at the base, and the apical portion much compressed to the tip, which is obtuse; the nostrils placed in a lateral membranous groove, which reaches nearly to the middle of the bill, with the opening linear. Wings long, with the first quill the longest. Tail moderate and even, or slightly rounded. Tarsi strong, longer than the middle toe, and covered with small reticulated scales. Toes moderate, strong; the lateral toes united to the middle toe by a basal membrane, especially the outer one; the claws strong, broad, and slightly curved.
Gen. char.—Bill very long and slender, with the culmen slightly depressed at the base, the sides grooved to the middle and compressed to the tip, which is gradually pointed; the nostrils lateral, and placed in the groove, with the opening linear and membranous. Wings long and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail short and rounded. Tarsi much longer than the middle toe, rather compressed, and covered in front with reticulated scales. Toes united together by an indented web; the outer toe rather longer than the inner; the hind toe extremely short; the claws short, compressed, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill much longer than the head, very slender and straight, with the sides grooved to the middle and compressed towards the tip, which is acute; the nostrils basal, and placed in the groove, with the opening long, linear, and closed by a membrane. Wings long and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail short and nearly even. Tarsi very long, slender, and covered in front with reticulated scales. Toes moderate, and united at the base by a small membrane, especially the outer toe; the hind toe wanting; the claws small, compressed, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill as long as, or longer than, the head, more or less slender, but sometimes enlarged and depressed towards the tip, which is curved and acute; the sides grooved for nearly its whole length, in which groove the nostrils are placed, with the opening basal, linear, and partly closed by a membrane. Wings long and pointed, with the first and second quills equal and longest. Tail more or less short or rounded. Tarsi as long as, or longer than, the middle toe, rather robust and compressed. Toes long; the lateral toes united to the middle by a membrane that runs along the margin of each toe, which is more or less lobed; the hind toe moderate, elevated, and slightly margined by a membrane; the claws short and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill long, straight, grooved, and compressed on the sides, and the culmen rather depressed near the tip, which is obtuse, and curved over that of the lower mandible; the nostrils basal, placed in the groove, with the opening oblong and exposed. Wings moderate and pointed, with the first and second quills equal and longest. Tail short and rounded. Tarsi moderate, shorter than the middle toe, strong, and covered in front with narrow transverse scales; the tibia bare for a short space above the tarsal joint. Toes long, the inner toe shorter than the outer, and free at their base; the hind toe moderate and elevated, with the claw long and curved.
Gen. char.—Bill as long as, or longer than, the head, straight, slender, with the sides compressed at the base, and rather dilated and depressed at the tip; the nostrils placed in a nasal groove, which extends to near the tip, basal, lateral, and longitudinal. Wings moderate and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail rather short and nearly even. Tarsi strong, rather long, and covered in front with transverse scales. Toes moderate, slightly united at the base of the outer toe, and all margined on the sides by a membrane; the hind toe very small and elevated.
Gen. char.—Bill more or less long and strong, with the culmen straight or slightly curved, and the sides compressed to the tip, which is slightly curved and acute; the gonys long and slightly curved upwards; the nostrils linear, and placed in a membranous groove, which does not extend beyond half the length of the bill. Wings reaching beyond the end of the tail and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail moderate and nearly even. Tarsi as long as, or longer than, the middle toe, more or less slender, and covered in front with numerous very narrow scales. Toes long, slender, the anterior toes united by a membrane, especially the outer; the hind toe slender, elevated, and hardly touching the ground.
Gen. char.—Bill long, rather slender, and more or less inclined upwards towards the tip, with the sides compressed and grooved on both mandibles for nearly their entire length; the nostrils lateral, basal, and placed in the groove, with the opening longitudinal and closed by a membrane. Wings long and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail short and even. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, rather slender, and covered in front with narrow transverse scales. Toes long; the outer toe united to the middle toe by a membrane as far as the first joint; the inner toe slightly united; the hind toe long, slender, and partly resting on the ground; the claws short and obtuse.
Gen. char.—Bill more or less long, slender, and curved from the base, with the sides compressed and grooved for nearly its whole length; the tip of the upper mandible projecting over that of the lower, and rather obtuse; the nostrils basal, lateral, and placed in the lateral groove, with the opening longitudinal, and covered by a membrane. Wings long and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail short and even. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, slender, and covered in front with narrow transverse scales. Toes moderate, the lateral ones unequal and united at their base; the hind toe long, slender, and partly resting on the ground; the claws short and obtuse.
Gen. char.—Bill more or less strong, as long as or shorter than the head, straight, and laterally compressed, with the culmen straight at the base and arched to the tip, the gonys slightly angulated and advancing upwards; the nostrils lateral, with the opening near the middle of the bill, and longitudinal. Wings lengthened and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail moderate and even. Tarsi nearly as long as the middle toe, strong, and covered in front with transverse scales. Toes moderate, the anterior ones united by a full web; the hind toe short and elevated.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, straight, and strong, with the culmen straight, rounded, and covered with a membranous or bony cere; the apex curved, vaulted, and strong; the gonys much angulated and ascending; the nostrils placed in the fore part of the cere, narrow, and enlarging anteriorly. Wings lengthened and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail moderate and rounded, with the two centre feathers sometimes lengthened. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, strong, and covered in front with strong scales. Toes moderate and strong, the anterior one united by a full web; the hind toe very small and hardly elevated.
Gen. char.—Bill more or less long, strong, with the culmen slightly curved to the tip, which is acute; the gonys straight, and half the length of the bill; the nostrils lateral, placed towards the middle of the bill, and longitudinal, with the frontal plumes advancing close to, or near, the opening. Wings very long and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail more or less long and generally forked. Tarsi more or less long and slender. Toes moderate, the two outer ones nearly equal, and the three anterior ones united by an indented web; the hind toe very short; the claws moderate, slightly curved, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill strong, short, with the culmen rather arched to the tip, which is acute; the sides compressed, and the gonys long, straight, and advancing upwards to the tip; the nostrils basal, lateral, and longitudinal, with the frontal plumes projecting to the opening. Wings long, with the first quill the longest. Tail moderate and slightly emarginated. Tarsi rather shorter than the middle toe and slender. Toes long, slender, the two outer toes equal and longest, the three anterior toes united only at the base, the web continuing along the inner margin of each toe; the hind toe moderate and slender; the claws also long and slender.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, slender, and straight, with the culmen slightly curved from the front of the nostrils, and the sides compressed to the tip, which is obtuse and slightly emarginated; the gonys long and slightly curved upwards; the nostrils placed in a membranous groove, which extends for two thirds the length of the bill, with the opening exposed and linear. Wings short, with the second and third quills equal and longest. Tail short and rounded. Tarsi moderate, shorter than the middle toe, and covered with transverse scales. Toes long and rather slender, the inner toe shorter than the outer, both free at their base; the hind toe short and slender; the claws short, compressed, and very acute.
Gen. char.—Bill shorter than the head, and more or less strong, with the culmen keeled, slightly curved, and the sides compressed to the tip, which is slightly emarginated; the gonys short and ascending; the nostrils lateral and placed in a membranous groove, with the opening exposed, linear, and near the middle. Wings moderate, with the second and third quills equal and longest. Tail short and graduated. Tarsi rather robust. Toes more or less long and slender, with the inner toe rather shorter than the outer, the hind toe very slender, and rather short; the claws moderate, compressed, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill rather long, and very strong, with the culmen slightly curved and the sides much compressed to the tip, which is slightly emarginated; the gonys short and ascending; the nostrils lateral, and placed in the
Wings very short and rounded, with the fifth and sixth quills equal and longest; the secondaries and the coverts lengthened and very soft. Tail more or less lengthened, round and soft. Tarsi robust, shorter than the middle toe and covered with transverse scales. Toes long and strong, with the inner toe rather shorter than the outer, the hind toe short and rather slender; the claws moderate and rather acute.
Gen. char.—Bill short, very much elevated at the base, which is flat and broadly dilated on the forehead; the culmen much arched to the tip; the sides much compressed; the nostrils placed in a small nasal groove and rounded. Wings moderate, with the second, third, and fourth quills nearly equal and longest. Tail short and rounded. Tarsi long, shorter than the middle toe, and scutellated with broad transverse scales. Toes very long, slender, and free at their base, with the lateral ones unequal, the outer longest; the claws long, slender, and some what curved.
Gen. char.—Bill somewhat shorter than the head; greatly compressed on the sides, both mandibles being much deeper than broad; tomia sharp, curving downwards, inclining inwards and slightly serrated; culmen elevated, much arched and rising on the forehead to a line with the posterior angle of the eye; nostrils round and placed in a depression near the base of the bill. Wings very short, rounded, and slightly concave; primaries soft and yielding, the first short, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh equal and the longest. Tail-feathers soft, yielding, and loose in texture. Tarsi powerful, longer than the toes, almost cylindrical; very broad anteriorly, defended in front and on either side posteriorly by broad and distinct scutellæ; the spaces between the scutellæ reticulated. Anterior toes large and strong, armed with powerful hooked nails, and strongly scutellated on their upper surface; hind toe short, strong, placed somewhat high on the tarsus, and armed with a blunt hooked nail.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, moderately slender and slightly curved, compressed in the middle and slightly expanding towards the tip; nostrils placed in a membranous groove, which extends beyond the middle of the bill; openings exposed, oval, near the middle of the groove. Wings very short, rounded; quills soft, the outer
Tail very short and soft, hidden by the coverts. Tarsi moderate, shorter than the middle toe, flattened in front, and covered with transverse scales. Toes long and slender, inner nearly as long as the outer; hind toe short, very slender, and placed on the inner side of the tarsus; claws short, compressed, blunt.
Note.—This genus was established by Professor Hutton for the reception of a small form of flightless Rail, which he had previously described under the name of Rallus modestus. In my former edition I treated the bird as the young of Rallus dieffenbachii, an extremely rare form of Rail from the Chatham Islands, which Mr. Ocydromus. It has been clearly shown that Cabalus modestus has Ocydromine characters in its skeleton, and, whether an adult bird or not, it is undoubtedly right to separate it generically from
Mr. Sharpe, in treating of Cabalus dieffenbachii (App. Voy. Ereb. & Terr. p. 29), says:—“In his latest article on the ‘Birds of New Zealand,’ Dr. Finsch believes in Rallus modestus of Hutton being a distinct species from R. dieffenbachii. I examined the type of Captain Hutton’s species, and thoroughly believe it to be the young of the latter Rail. Perhaps Captain Hutton is right in referring this Rail to a genus or subgenus intermediate between Rallus and Ocydromus, and 1 have therefore, for the present, adopted his genus Cabalus.”
Gen. char.—Bill lengthened and more or less slender, with the culmen nearly straight to the tip, which is acute and emarginated, the sides compressed, and the lateral margins straight and sometimes serrated; the gonys moderate and ascending; the nostrils lateral, basal, and placed in a groove, which extends for more than half the length of the bill, with the opening linear, and closed by a membranous scale. Wings long, with the first quill nearly as long as the second and third, which are equal and longest. Tail rather short and even. Tarsi longer than, or as long as, the middle toe, rather slender, and covered in front with transverse scales, those near the toes large and of a hexagonal form. Toes long and rather slender; the outer toe longer than the inner, and united at the base; the hind toe long; the claws moderate, slight, curved, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill rather longer than the head, strong, with the culmen gradually curved, and the sides compressed to the tip, which is emarginated; the gonys long and ascending; the nostrils lateral and placed in a groove, with the opening linear and closed by a membranous scale. Wings long, with the first quill shorter than the second and third, which are equal and longest. Tail short and even. Tarsi as long as the middle toe, rather strong, and covered with large irregular scales. Toes long, rather slender; the outer toe longer than the inner, both united at their base, especially the former; the hind toe long, rather slender, and on the same plane with the others; the claws moderate, curved, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill long and straight, with the culmen straight, flattened at the base, and rounded and curved to the tip, which is strongly emarginated, and the sides compressed; the gonys short and ascending; the nostrils basal, and placed in a deep groove that extends for two thirds of the length of the bill, with the opening linear. Wings long, with the three first quills equal and longest. Tail short and even. Tarsi as long as the middle toe, rather strong, and covered in front with broad transverse scales. Toes very long and rather slender; the claws very long, slightly curved, and very acute.
Gen. char.—Bill lengthened, straight, thin, much depressed, and broadly dilated at the tip, which is spatula-formed, with a lateral groove commencing on the forehead, extending, in a parallel line with the edge, to the tip, which is slightly bent downwards; the nostrils basal and placed in a groove, with the opening oval and partly closed by a membrane. Wings long, and the second quill the longest. Tail short. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, rather slender, and covered with reticulated scales. Toes long, with the anterior toes much united at their base by a membrane, which extends along the sides of the toes to the tip; the hind toe long, rather elevated, and only partly resting on the ground; the claws short, scarcely curved, and obtuse.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, straight, somewhat slender, with the culmen concave and suddenly hooked at the tip; the sides compressed and grooved; the nostrils basal, linear, placed in the lateral groove, and scarcely visible. Wings moderate and pointed, with the second and third quills the longest. Tail moderate, and rounded at its end. Tarsi short, one third shorter than the middle toe, much compressed, and covered with reticulated scales. Toes long, with the outer toe rather longer than the middle one, and all four united by a full web. The base of the lower mandible is furnished with a coriaceous pouch, which is capable of extension.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, straight, and very slender, with the sides much compressed to the tip, which is very acute, the lateral margins finely serrated, and the gonys long and slightly ascending; the nostrils basal, linear, and scarcely visible. Wings long, with the second and third quills equal and longest. Tail long and broad towards the end, which is rounded. Tarsi half the length of the middle toe, strong, and covered with small scales. Toes rather long, all united by a broad web; the outer toe as long as the middle one; the claws short, curved, and acute.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, robust, straight, broad at the base; with the sides compressed, and grooved towards the tip, which is slightly curved, and the lateral margins obliquely and unequally serrated; the nostrils basal, lateral, linear, placed in a lateral groove and almost invisible. Wings long, pointed, and tuberculated, with the first two quills the longest. Tail moderate and graduated. Tarsi short, one third shorter than the outer toe, rounded anteriorly and keeled posteriorly. Toes lengthened, the outer and middle ones nearly equal, and all four connected by a full membrane; the claws moderate and rather flat, that of the middle toe serrated, and the hind claw rudimental. Beneath the base of the lower mandible is a naked space, reaching towards the breast, which is capable of expansion.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, broad at the base, with the culmen depressed, concave, and suddenly hooked and acute; the sides compressed and grooved; the lateral margins dilated on the sides near the base; the nostrils basal, lateral, linear, placed in the lateral groove, and scarcely visible. Wings extremely long and narrow, with the first two quills the longest. Tail very long and strongly forked. Tarsi very short, one third shorter than the outer toe, much compressed, and half covered with feathers. Toes long, all united by a strongly indented web, the lateral ones unequal, the outer one the longest, and the hind toe half the length of the middle one; the claws moderate and curved. The throat naked, and capable of being dilated into an extending pouch from near the tip of the lower mandible downwards to the breast.
Gen. char.—Bill as long as the head, broad, and dilated at the base; with the culmen elevated, curved, and the sides much compressed to the tip, which is entire and acute; the lateral margins more or less serrated; the nostrils basal and lateral, with the opening linear, partly closed by a membrane, and exposed. Wings long and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail moderate and graduated, with the two middle feathers lengthened and linear. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe, strong, and covered with small scales. Toes long; the outer toe longer than the inner; the three anterior ones and the hind toe all united together by a broad membrane; the claws small, compressed, and acute.
Upon a closer study of the subject, I have decided on recognizing a larger number of groups in this Family than were admitted into my first edition, or into my ‘Manual,’ published in 1882. This will add to the total number of genera indicated at p. xxxvii; but as none of these are endemic it will not affect my general argument.
The late Mr. Forbes, in his excellent account of the Petrels, in the ‘Voyage of the Challenger’ (Zool. vol. iv. pp. 1–64), recognized a separate family under the name Oceanitida, embracing the four closely allied genera Garrodia, Oceanites, Pelagodroma, and Fregetta, which form together a very compact section. I prefer, however, to retain the whole of these natural groups under the general denomination of Procellariidæ, leaving the proposed divisions to take rank as subfamilies.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, very robust, straight; the sides compressed and longitudinally grooved, with the tip greatly curved and acute; the lateral margins dilated and curved; the culmen broad, convex, and rounded; the lower mandible weak, compressed, with the tip truncated; the nostrils placed near the base, in the lateral groove, covered by a tube which is short, widening and spreading anteriorly from the side of the bill, with the aperture somewhat rounded and open in front. Wings very long, very narrow, with the second quill the longest. Tail short and rounded. Legs short, strong, with the tarsi one fourth shorter than the middle toe, and the inner toe the shortest. The two lateral toes margined exteriorly by a narrow membrane; the web between the toes full and entire; the hind toe and claw entirely wanting; the claws short and obtuse.
Gen. char.—Bill shorter than the head, broad at the base, and much depressed; the sides swollen, grooved, and gradually compressed towards the tip, which is lengthened, compressed, arched, and acute; the lower mandible broad at the base and suddenly compressed at the tip, which is, with the gonys, arched and acute; the sides longitudinally grooved and deep; beneath is placed a membranous pouch, capable of extension; the nostrils basal, one fourth the length of the bill, flattened above, and forming two lengthened, sublinear, exposed apertures, placed side by side on the surface. Wings very short, with the first two quills nearly equal and longest. Tail short and rounded. Tarsi rather shorter than the middle toe, laterally compressed, and covered with small scales. Toes long; the outer nearly as long as the middle toe; the hind toe and claw wanting.
Gen. char.—Bill the length of the head, broad or very broad at the base, depressed above; culmen nearly straight, laterally swollen, but gradually compressed towards the tip, which is arched, elevated, compressed and acute; the lateral margins dilated near the base, with a series of very fine laminæ running along the whole length internally rather above the margin; the lower mandible broad at the base, gradually compressed towards the tip, which is
Wings moderate, pointed, with the first quill nearly equalling the second, which is the longest. Tail moderate, broad, and rounded at the end. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe, laterally compressed, and covered with small scales. Toes long, the outer nearly as long as the middle, and the hind toe nearly in the form of a broad, short, pointed claw.
Gen. char.—Bill nearly as long as the head, more or less broad at the base; the sides gradually compressed towards the tip, which is much elevated and arched, lengthened and acute; the upper mandible furnished near its edge with laminated serrations, but few and inconspicuous as compared with Prion; the lower mandible shorter than the upper, with the tip and gonys arched and acute; the nostrils basal, tubular, horny, elevated above the culmen, with the aperture double, frontal, and crescent-shaped. Wings long, pointed, with the first quill the longest, and the second scarcely shorter. Tail moderately long and truncated. Legs with the apical part of the thigh hardly naked. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe, laterally compressed, and covered with small scales. Toes long, with the outer as long as the middle toe, the inner shortest, and all united by a full web; the lateral toes margined exteriorly, the hind toe in the form of a large subtriangular claw.
Gen. char.—Bill much dilated, unguis small and weak; inter-ramal space wide and partially naked; oblique sulci on inner face of cutting-edge of mandible; nasal tubes long. Wings long and pointed, with the second primary nearly as long as the first. Tail rather short, moderately rounded. Tarsi and toes as in Œstrelata.
Gen. char.—Bill about as long as the tarsus, stout, compressed, higher than broad throughout, lateral outlines nearly straight, and converging to the unguis, which is much compressed; unguis very large and strong; outline of upper mandible very convex, rising almost immediately from the end of the nasal tubes, leaving but a very short and quite concave culmen proper; outline of lower mandible nearly straight, the gonys a little concave; sulci on both mandibles distinct. Wings rather long, extending beyond the tail when folded, and pointed; the second primary nearly as long as the first. Tail, which is composed of twelve feathers, long and much produced, sometimes almost cuneate, usually much rounded. Tarsi moderately compressed, and about as long as, or a little less than, middle toe; hallux short, sessile, conical, acute, and elevated.
Gen. char.—Bill as long as, or rather exceeding, the tarsus, very robust; the nasal case very long, depressed, carinated, the aperture small. Wings of moderate length, reaching to end of tail. Tail moderately long and rounded. Tarsi short, being much less than the middle toe without its claw, compressed, stout, reticulated.
Gen. char.—Bill slightly shorter than the tarsus, higher than broad at the base, the commissure a little curved. Wings of moderate length, reaching to the end of tail. Tail short, more or less rounded, composed of fourteen feathers. Tarsi slender, compressed, reticulated, shorter than the middle toe; outer toe as long as the middle one; inner toe considerably shorter; hallux very short, being only observable as a stout, obtuse, subconical claw.
Gen. char.—Bill as long as, or shorter than, the head, much compressed, and grooved obliquely on the sides; the tip lengthened, arched, suddenly hooked and acute; the lower mandible somewhat shorter than the upper, with the apical margin and gonys equally curved with the upper, the latter angulated beneath, and the sides longitudinally grooved; the nostrils basal, elevated above the culmen, opening obliquely in two tubes, placed side by side. Wings long, slender, somewhat acute, with the first quill the longest. Tail moderate and rounded, composed of twelve feathers. Legs moderate, with the apical part of the tibia naked. Tarsi compressed and equal in length to the middle toe. Toes long, the outer equal to the middle one, the inner shortest, and the lateral toes margined exteriorly by a narrow membrane.
Gen. char.—Bill about three fourths the length of the tarsus, broad and stout at the base, narrowing regularly to the strong, very convex, compressed unguis; nasal tubes rather long, very broad, depressed, but vertically truncated at their extremity, and with an unusually thin septum. Wings rather short, the primaries broad and stout, the second as long as the first. Tail rather short and slightly cuneate. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe without its claw, outer toe larger than the middle.
Gen. char.—Bill a little shorter than the head, about equal to the tarsus, stout, compressed, higher than broad at the base, the culmen rising immediately from the nostrils; unguis large, very convex, much hooked, commissure unusually curved; outline of lower mandible straight as far as the unguis; nasal tubes long, elevated laterally, obliquely flattened, carinated along the median line, apically truncated, with a considerable emargination; the nostrils circular. Wings comparatively long. Tail very short and subtruncated, the graduation of the lateral feathers being slight. Tarsi greatly abbreviated, being much shorter than the middle toe without its claw; outer toe, without claw, longer than the middle; tip of inner claw reaching to base of middle one.
Gen. char.—Bill shorter than the head, slender, weak, the sides much compressed, and slightly grooved, with the tip suddenly hooked and acute; the lower mandible shorter than, the upper, the tip arched, with the gonys hardly angular beneath; the nostrils elevated above the culmen at its base, tubular, with a single aperture in front. Wings long and pointed, with the first quill much longer than the third, and the second the longest. Tail of moderate length and even. Legs long, slender, with the naked space of the tibia extensive. Tarsi longer than the middle toe, and ocreate in front. Toes rather short, the outer toe nearly equal to middle one, and the inner the shortest, with the claws rather narrow and pointed.
Gen. char.—Differs from Oceanites in having the second quill shorter than the third, the tail furcate, and the tarsi scutellated in front, with the nails broad and flattened, and the hallux in the form of a triangular claw.
Gen. char.—Similar to Pelagodroma, but with somewhat shorter legs, and having the sternum posteriorly entire, instead of being excavated on its margin.
Gen. char.—Differs from Pelagodroma in having the tarsi ocreate, the feet very short, with the uails peculiarly broad and blunt.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, higher than broad at the base, nearly of equal breadth throughout; the culmen nearly straight, and depressed to the tip, which is armed with a strong broad nail; the lamellæ of the upper mandible hardly visible beyond the lateral margin, strong, and widely set, especially near the middle; the nostrils placed near the base of the culmen, lateral and oval. Wings moderate and pointed, with the tertials lengthened and acute, and with the first quill the longest. Tail short and wedge-shaped. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe and compressed. Toes united by a full web; and the hind toe small and somewhat lobed.
Gen. char.—Bill shorter than the head, the width and elevation at the base equal; the culmen gradually sloping to the tip, which is armed with a moderate-sized nail, the sides compressed and of equal breadth throughout; the lamellæ of the interior margins of the upper mandible small and widely set, strongest near the base; the nostrils near the base lateral and oval. Wings very short and pointed, with the second quill the longest. Tail short and wedge-shaped, with the end of the stem of each feather bare and rigid. Tarsi robust, about two thirds the length of the middle toe. Toes strong, with the outer toe shorter than the middle, and all the fore toes united by a full web; the hind toe short, elevated, and somewhat lobed.
Gen. char.—Bill as long as, or longer than, the head, straight, slender; the culmen elevated, and convex towards the tip, which is suddenly hooked and armed with a large broad nail; the lateral margins of both mandibles serrated with short and widely-set teeth, all pointing backwards; the nostrils lateral, placed near the base of the bill, oblong, pierced longitudinally in a membrane and pervious. Wings moderate and pointed, with the first and second quills of nearly equal length and longest. Tail moderate and graduated. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe. Toes moderate; the outer and middle ones of nearly equal length, and the three anterior ones united by a full web; the hind toe moderate and much lobed.
Gen. char.—Bill as long as the head, nearly straight, the width equalling the height at the base, the anterior half depressed, and scarcely curved upwards at the tip, which is armed with a strong, broad nail; the basal part of the lateral margin straight, and the apical part slightly curved upwards; the lamellae of the upper mandible prominent below the lateral margins, slender, and set rather widely apart; the nostrils suboval, near the base of culmen. Wings moderate, with the second quill the longest. Tail short and rounded. Tarsi robust, shorter than the middle toe. Toes long, and united by a full web; and the hind toe long, elevated, and lobed.
Gen. char.—Bill long, higher at the base than broad, with the culmen sloping to the tip, which is armed with a strong, broad nail, and the lateral margins straight; the lamellae of the upper mandible advancing below the lateral margins, slender, and set widely apart; the nostrils large, oval, and placed near the base of culmen. Wings short and rounded, with the second, third, and fourth quills the longest; the first quill with a deep notch in the middle, and the secondaries nearly as long as the quills. Tail moderate, and rounded at the end. Tarsi slightly shorter than the middle toe, robust. Toes long, the lateral ones united to the middle one by an indentated membrane; and the hind toe very long, elevated, and simple.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, narrowed at the base; the culmen straight, depressed, and the side much dilated for nearly half its length from the tip, which is furnished with a small hooked nail; the lamellae of the upper mandible very prominent near the middle, slender and widely set; the nostrils placed near the base and culmen, lateral, and oval. Wings lengthened and pointed, with the first quill nearly as long as the second, which is the longest. Tail rather short and wedge-shaped. Tarsi much shorter than the middle toe. Toes united by a full web, and the hind toe very small and slightly lobed.
Gen. char.—Bill nearly as long as the head, broader at the base than high, the culmen gradually sloping to the tip, which is armed with a broad and strong nail; the sides dilated, especially anteriorly, where it is rounded, the lateral margins straight and curved upwards to the nail; the lamellæ of the upper mandible not prominent, and widely set; and the nostrils small, oblong, and near the middle of the bill. Wings moderate and pointed, with the first quill the longest. Tail short and rounded. Tarsi half the length of the middle toe and compressed. Toes lengthened and united by a full web.
Gen. char.—Bill as long as the head, higher at the base than broad; the culmen gradually sloping towards the tip, which is depressed, slightly dilated, and armed with a strong nail; the lamellæ of the upper mandible not prominent; and the nostrils oval and placed near the base. Wings lengthened and pointed, with the first two quills the longest. Tail short and rounded. Tarsi half the length of the middle toe and compressed. Toes lengthened and united by a full web.
Gen. char.—Bill as long as the head, equally compressed, elevated at the base, with the culmen for three fourths of its length straight and then slightly sloping to the tip; the sides shelving from the culmen to the lateral margins, of which the basal half is firm, and furnished with lengthened slender laminæ; the apical half of the margin composed of a soft flexible skin that hangs over the lower mandible, widening towards the tip, where it is truncate, and the nail not very prominent; the nostrils situated near the middle, and oval. Wings short, slender,
Tail lengthened and composed of broad feathers, with the end rather rounded. Tarsi nearly as long as the middle toe, exclusive of the claw; the fore toes strong and fully webbed, and the hind toe moderate and strongly lobed.
Gen. char.—Bill more or less long, strong, straight, the culmen slightly curved at the tip, which is acute and entire; the sides much compressed, and the gonys short and advancing upwards to an acute point; the nostrils placed in a short groove, with the opening longitudiual and exposed. Wings short and pointed, with the first or sometimes the second quill the longest, and slightly emarginated near the tips. Tail short, not apparent. Tarsi shorter than the middle toe, much compressed, the anterior and posterior edges covered with small scales, which are serrated posteriorly, and the sides with transverse scales. Toes long, the outer the longest, depressed, margined on the sides, especially on the inner side, and united at the base to the middle toe; the hind toe short and strongly lobed; the claws short, very broad, flat, and obtuse.
Gen. char.—Bill more or less long, straight, much compressed, and grooved on the sides, and the culmen rounded and curved at the tip, which is acute; the end of the lower mandible truncated, and the gonys moderate and advancing upwards; the nostrils linear, placed in the lateral groove, which extends for three fourths of the length of the bill; and the frontal plumes advancing to the opening. Wings imperfect. Tail long, and composed of narrow rigid feathers. Tarsi very short, much flattened, and covered with small scales. Toes long and strong, with the anterior ones united to the middle one by a web, the lateral toes unequal, the outer the longest; the hind toe very small, and united to the tarsus at the base of the inner toe; the claws strong, compressed, and slightly curved.
Gen. char.—Bill moderate, much compressed, and strong, with the culmen rounded and curved at the tips which is acute; the tip of the lower mandible suddenly truncated, and the gonys moderate and curved upwards; the nostrils rather rounded, and placed in the lateral groove near the middle of the bill. Wings imperfect, and covered with scale-like plumes. Tail very short. Tarsi very short, thick, flattened, and covered with small scales. Toes long, the lateral ones unequal and united to the middle toe by a web; the hind toe very small, and united to the tarsus at the base of the inner toe; the claws long, compressed, and slightly curved.
Gen. char.—Bill longer than the head, rather slender, compressed on the sides, slightly bent at the end, with the base of the upper mandible covered with short close-set plumes, and the side grooved to near the tip, which is acute; the lower mandible covered with a smooth naked skin; the nostrils linear, and placed in the lateral groove. Wings imperfect, and covered with scale-like plumes. Tail very short, and composed of narrow rigid feathers. Tarsi very short, flattened, and covered with short plumes. Toes rather short and depressed, the anterior ones united by a. web; the lind toe very small, and almost entirely connected to the inner side of the tarsus; the claws large, depressed, and very slightly curved.
Gen. char.—Bill more or less lengthened, very slender, with the base covered by a bony cere, broad, and rather depressed; the culmen rounded, straight to near the tip, which projects over that of the lower mandible, and rather obtuse; the sides gradually compressed, and grooved towards the end; the gonys very long and slightly curved; the nostrils placed on each side at the tip, very small, and sublinear; the base of the bill furnished with lengthened hairs. Wings abbreviated and covered with feathers. Tail not apparent. Tarsi the length of the middle toe, very robust, and covered with variously sized scales, those of the inner and outer sides the smallest. Toes three before, with the lateral ones equal, and all covered above with broad scales; the hind toe very short, united to the tarsus, and armed with a long, strong, and rather acute claw.
Glaucopis wilsoni, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 368 (1850).
Callœas wilsoni, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 227.
Callœas olivascens, Pelz. Verh, zool.-bot. Gesellsch. Wien, 1867, p. 317, note.
Glaucopis olivascens, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 324.
Ad. suprà schistaceo-cinereus, subtùs paullò cyanescens: loris cum vittâ frontali angustâ, regione oculari mentoque nigerrimis: facie laterali et gutture paullò canescentibus: fronte posticâ et supercilio indistincto albidis: carunculâ rictali ovali utrinque cyaneâ: remigibus et rectricibus nigricantibus dorsi colore lavatis: rostro et pedibus nigris: iride saturatè brunneâ.
Juv. dorso toto olivaceo-fusco: abdomine toto cum hypoehondriis et subcaudalibus pallidè cinereo-brunneis: carunculis minoribus, pallidè cyaneis.
Adult male. General plumage dark cinereous or bluish grey, tinged more or less on the upper surface of the wings and tail and on the rump and abdomen with dull brown; a band of velvety black, half an inch broad, surrounds the base of the bill, fills the lores, and encircles the anterior portion of the eyes; immediately above this band and continued over the eyes light ashy grey, shading into the darker plumage; quills and tail-feathers slaty black. Irides blackish brown; bill and legs black. The wattles, which form a distinguishing feature in this bird, are, during life, of a bright ultramarine-blue; but they fade soon after death, and in the dried state become almost black. Total length 17·25 inches; extent of wings 20·5; wing, from flexure, 7·25; tail 7·75; bill, along the ridge 1·25, along the edge of lower mandible 1; tarsus 2·5; middle toe and claw 2·15; hind toe and claw 1·5.
Female. Similar to the male, but somewhat smaller and more deeply tinged with brown on the lower part of the back, rump, and abdomen. Total length 17 inches; extent of wings 19·75; wing, from flexure, 6·6; tail 7·25.
Young. The young of both sexes have the whole of the back and the upper surface of the wings and tail, as well as the sides of the body, dull olivaceous brown; the abdomen and under tail-coverts yellowish brown; the wattles smaller than in the adult and of a pale blue colour.
Nestling (only partially fledged). Frontal band very inconspicuous except in front of the eyes; wattles extremely small and of a pinky colour. The plumage as in the adult but duller, and the wing-feathers washed on their outer vanes with brown.
Note. Professor Hutton is of opinion that the female is “rather larger than the male;” but my observations lead me to an opposite conclusion. I must admit, however, that I have found the size somewhat variable in both sexes. The wattle is always appreciably smaller in the female. In a pair from Wainuiomata, that of the male measured ·75 of an inch in diameter, and that of the female only ·5, besides being less rounded in form.
Varieties. There is a fine albino specimen in the Colonial Museum, obtained in the Rimutaka ranges and presented by a settler, who had it alive for several months. The whole of the plumage is white, with a creamy tinge on the fore neck and underparts; the shafts of the quills and tail-feathers conspicuously
Another abnormal specimen in the same collection (received from the Wairarapa district) has the entire plumage of a washed-out ash-grey colour, paler and tinged with brown on the quills and tail-feathers. There is an approach to the normal bluish-grey colour on the throat and towards the edges of the frontal patch, which is dull brown instead of velvety black; bill and feet brown; caruncles faded to the same colour.
Obs. As will be seen from the above synopsis, I am unable to admit the so-called Glaucopis olivascens to the rank of a distinct species. It was founded on a specimen obtained at Auckland by M. Zelebor, and the diagnostic characters by which it is distinguished from G. cinerea are the brownish-olive colour of the back, wings, and tail, the greyish olive of the underparts, its greater size, and the “dusky colour of the mouth-caruncles.” As I have already shown, this description applies to the young of G. wilsoni. The dusky colour of the wattles is of no value as a specific character, because, as already mentioned, these appendages entirely change colour in dried specimens, leaving no trace of the original blue. Even in the living bird the colour of the wattles varies considerably in its tone, according to age and other physical conditions; and Dr. Hector has observed that when in confinement its wattles undergo remarkable variations, the exterior margin sometimes assuming a decided yellowish tinge, and again changing back into blue. Dr. Hector writes to me that of three specimens caught together, of which the sex was ascertainéd, two with olive-brown backs and very small wattles proved to be males, while the third, which had large wattles, of a deep blue colour, and only a slight tinge of brown on the upper parts, was unmistakably a female; and he expresses his belief that Glaucopis olivascens is the male of G. wilsoni. Accepting the result of Dr. Hector’s dissection as conclusive evidence of the sex in each case, I should be inclined to pronounce his two brown-backed males birds of the first year, and the female an adult in full breeding-plumage. I may add that the bird from which my description of the adult male is taken was shot in company with two others (an adult female and a young male), all of which were carefully sexed by myself.
The Maoris state that it is common at Taupo and at Maungatautari, one of those whom I questioned on the subject observing, “Where the range of the Huia ceases, that of the Kokako begins.” Reischek met with several on the Great Barrier, but never saw it on the Little Barrier, nor on the Hen and Chickens. Lying off Cape Brett, the southernmost head of the Bay of Islands, there is a wooded islet called by the Maoris “Motukokako,” in allusion to its having been at one time inhabited by this bird.This singular representative of the Crow family is sparingly dispersed over the North Island, being very local in its distribution. It is met with more frequently in the wooded hills than in the low timbered bottoms, but its range is too eccentric to be defined with any precision. During many years’ residence at Kaipara, north of Auckland, I never obtained more than five specimens, all of which were shot in the low wooded spurs of the Tangihua ranges. In particular localities, however, even further north, it is comparatively plentiful: for example, between the headwaters of the Wairoa and Whangarei rivers there are several strips of forest in which I never failed to meet with the Kokako; and in the Kaitara ranges in the Whangarei district it was, till within the last few years, rather abundant. I have heard of its occurrence in various parts of the Waikato districtSolanum on either side.
The Kokako is adorned with fleshy wattles of a brilliant blue colour, which spring from the angles of the mouth, and when the bird is in motion they are compressed under the chin. The first specimen obtained from the Tangihua ranges was a fine bird in full plumage; but the Maori who brought it had torn off the beautiful wattles and pasted them, by way of ornament, on his dusky cheeks.
The notes of the male are loud and varied; but the most noticeable one is a long-drawn, organnote of surpassing depth and richness. I have not been able to discover whether the female is
In the pairing-season the male bird loves to display himself before the other sex, arching his neck, spreading his wings, and dancing round the mate of his choice in a very ludicrous manner. They manifest much mutual attachment, and often continue to associate in pairs long after the cares of reproduction have been got rid of and the brood of young ones have grown up and dispersed.
This species subsists chiefly on small fruits and berries, but, like all the members of the family to which it belongs, it will readily partake of insect food of every kind. I have sometimes found its crop distended with the ripe pulpy seed of the tataramoa ( Rubus australis), or with the berries of the
Its wings are small and rounded, and its flight is consequently feeble and generally limited to very short distances. Its progression through the forest is usually performed by a succession of hops, the wings and tail being partially spread—a movement precisely similar to that of the Huia ( Heteralocha acutirostris).
The stomach of this species consists of a very muscular sac, with a tough epithelial lining or integument, which peels off readily on being pulled, as with the fruit-eating Pigeons and some other birds. The plumage is beautifully soft and silky, owing to the peculiar texture of the feathers. The wattles are smooth and somewhat glossy, but their rich cerulean colour gradually fades out after death.
In disposition the Kokako inherits the true characteristics of the Crow family, being inquisitive, shy, and crafty. I purchased a live one from the Otaki natives in the winter of 1862, and as it shared my apartments for nearly a week (much to the discomfiture of my excellent landlady), I had a good opportunity of studying its habits and character. I was often much amused with the tricky manœuvres of this sprightly bird, and I regretted the accident which deprived me of so intelligent a companion. It generally remained concealed under a side table in a dark corner of the room; but in cold weather was accustomed to steal quietly to the inside of the fender, in order to get warmth from the fire. My presence had become familiar to it, but on the entrance of a stranger it would immediately spring out and hop away to its dark retreat under the corner table.
The bird represented in the Plate is one of a pair shot on the Poroporo ranges during the Huiahunting expedition of which an account is given further on. They were found perched in the midst of a superb bunch of puawhananga (Clematis indivisa), and feeding with avidity on the white petals, stopping at intervals to coy with each other and converse in a low musical twitter. The mated pair, with their unique floral surrounding, formed a lovely picture of real nature.
On dissecting the male, I found the whole of the viscera and even the membrane and skin covering it stained to a vivid blue; and on opening the stomach, I found it crammed with comminuted vegetable matter of a perfectly black colour. On examining some of this matter after washing it in cold water, I found that it was in reality composed of Clematis-flowers, the change in colour being apparently due to the action of some acid in the bird’s stomach.
Mr. Reischek found a nest of this species in a bunch of Astelia, the birds having simply made a
I agree in the opinion expressed by Mr. Kirk Journal of Science, 1882–83, vol. i. p. 262. Trans. New-Zealand Instit. 1875, vol. viii. p. 192.
Accepting, as I do, the view so well formulated by Professor Parker, that “in all respects, physiological, morphological, and ornithological, the Crow may be placed at the head, not only of its own great series (birds of the “There are, of course, innumerable points in regard to the Classification of Birds which are, and for a long time will continue to be, hypothetical as matters of opinion, but this one seems to stand a fact on the firm ground of proof” (art.“Ornithology,” Encyel. Brit., by Prof. Newton, F.R.S.).Crow-form), but also as the unchallenged chief of the whole of the Carinatæ”Glaucopis, I was glad of the opportunity to place a skeleton of this species in the hands of Dr. Gadow, of Cambridge, in order that he might investigate its natural affinities. That gentleman made a critical examination of the bones, and compared them with those of Strepera, Gymnorhina, Paradisea, Struthidea, Graucalus, Ptilonorhynchus, Heteralocha, and Sturnus, with the following general result. He finds that Glaucopis is a Corvine form, being closely allied to the Austrocoraces, a group of birds which form a connecting-link between the true Corvidæ and the Laniidæ. It agrees with Strepera, and shows considerable similarity in structure with Ptilonorhynchus, although Glaucopis presents in its skull, sternum, and sacrum several characters which are peculiar to the genus. Struthidea agrees with Glaucopis by far less than might have been supposed, whilst Graucalus is still further removed, being apparently on the line through which Glaucopis reaches the Muscicapine forms. Dr. Gadow sums up the results of his investigation by saying that “if a Satin-bird could be induced to marry a Piping-Crow, their offspring might, in New Zealand, become a Glaucopis.”
Cinereous Wattle-bird, Lath. Gen. Syn. i. p. 364, piv. xiv. (1781).
Glaucopis callœas, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 363 (1788).
Cryptorhina, callœas, Wagl. Syst. Av. Cryptorhina, sp. 5 (1827, ex Forster, MSS.).
Callœas cinerea, Forster, Descr. Anim. p. 74 (1844).
Ad. Similis G. wilsoni, vix saturatior, paullò minor: carunculis aurantiacis ad basin tantùm cyaneis distinguendus.
Adult. Similar in plumage to G. wilsoni, but with less of the brown tinge on the lower parts, and the tail-feathers blackish towards the tips. It is readily distinguished, however, by the colour of the wattles, which are of a rich orange, changing sometimes to vermilion, and blue at the base. Irides blackish brown; bill and feet black. Total length 16 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·25; tail 7; bill, along the ridge 1·25, along the edge of lower mandible 1; tarsus 2·5; middle toe and claw 2·15; hind toe and claw 1·5.
Partial albino. There is an interesting specimen in the Colonial Museum, which was obtained by Mr. Henry Travers at the foot of Mount Franklin, in the Spencer ranges, in January 1869. The general plumage as in ordinary specimens; hind head, sides and fore part of neck, and the whole of the back largely marked with pure white: one or two of the quills in each wing are either wholly or partially white, and there are a few scattered white feathers on the sides, abdomen, and thighs.
This species is the South-Island representative of Glaucopis wilsoni, to which it bears a general resemblance, except in the colour of its wattles and its rather smaller size. Like the North-Island species also, its distribution is very irregular: thus, in Otago, Dr. Hector found it very plentiful on Mount Cargill and in a strip of bush near Catlin river, but never in the intervening woods; while in the Nelson provincial district, as I a am informed by Mr. Travers, its range is exclusively restricted to certain well-defined localities, although the berries on which it is accustomed to feed abound everywhere. It is said to be very abundant on some of the wooded ranges of Westland, and Sir J. von Haast has obtained numerous specimens from the Oxford ranges in the provincial district of Canterbury.
I ought to add that, in the summer of 1867, one of these birds was seen by Major Mair at Te Mu, near Lake Tarawera, in the North Island. He followed it for some distance, in the low scrub, and got near enough to obtain a good view and to observe its bright orange wattles.
The habits of this bird differ in no essential respect from those of the preceding species. Mr. Buchanan, of the Geological Survey, has mentioned to me a very curious circumstance frequently observed by himself at Otago: he has seen these birds travelling through the bush on foot, Indian fashion, sometimes as many as twenty of them in single file, passing rapidly over the ground by a succession of hops, and following their leader like a flock of sheep; for, if the first bird should have occasion to leap over a stone or fallen tree in the line of march, every bird in the procession follows suit accordingly!
I saw a pair of caged ones at Hokitika, in the possession of Mr. MNee, who told me that he had snared them in the woods with perfect ease. They were apparently quite reconciled to confinement, hopping from perch to perch in a very lively manner, and occasionally meeting to utter a low chuckling
One of the many interesting discoveries, since the publication of my first edition, has been the finding of the nest and eggs of the Orange-wattled Crow. The Canterbury Museum contains two nests of this bird, both of which were obtained at Milford Sound.
One is a massive nest, with a depth of eight inches, composed of rough materials, but with a carefully finished cup. The foundation consists of broken twigs, some of them a quarter of an inch in diameter, and placed together at all angles, so as to form a compact support; over this a layer of coarse moss and fern-hair, to the thickness of two inches or more; then a capacious well-rounded cup, lined with dry bents, intermixed with fern-hair. The general form of the nest is rounded, but at one end of it the twig foundation is raised and produced backwards, for what purpose can only be conjectured In connection with the above I may mention that in the Canterbury Museum there is a much larger nest, from Australia, exhibiting the same form of construction in a more pronounced degree. It was presented by the Baron A. von Hügel, who obtained it at Dandenong, Mount Victoria, and who assigns the structure to the Lyre-bird ( The author of ‘Out in the Open’ describes, at p. 195, the finding of five nests, at heights varying from ten to seventeen feet from the ground, in the bush that fringes Milford Sound. This was in the month of January, and one of the nests contained two young birds, apparently just hatched. “They were partially clothed with slate-coloured down, which on the cranium stood up like a broad crest, or rather crown; the neck and underparts were quite bare; beaks flesh-colour, with a greenish tinge about the point of the upper mandible; rictal membrane pale greenish, changing to blue; wattles rosy pink, like an infant’s hand; legs and feet slatish anteriorly, dull flesh colour behind; claws dull white. The old bird suffered a close inspection of its home and its inmates without uttering any alarm-cry or showing any signs of defending its young.”Menura superba). It is composed chiefly of twigs and small sticks, some of them half an inch in diameter, laid together in a compact mass. The cavity is deep, rounded, and lined with soft fern-fronds, some of which are also interlaced with the framework of the nest. Its width on the outside is only 15 inches; but, owing to its extension backwards, its length is 2 feet 6 inches. The cup is situated at the proximal end, where the nest is more compact and somewhat raised, but without any appearance of a dome.
Two eggs of this species, collected by Docherty on the west coast, were presented by Mr. Potts to the Canterbury Museum, where I had an opportunity of examining them. They are of a regular ovoido-conical form, one of them being slightly narrower than the other, measuring, respectively, 1·60 by 1·15, and 1·66 by 1·10 inches. They are of a dark purplish grey, irregularly spotted and blotched with dull sepia-brown. These spots and markings are thicker and more prominent at the larger end, and of various shades, the lighter ones fading almost to purple and presenting a washed-out appearance.
Mr. W. D. Campbell has published Trans. New-Zealand Instit. 1879, vol. xii. pp. 249, 250.Coprosma scrub, about 9 feet above the ground, measured 15 inches externally, were somewhat loosely constructed of twigs and roots, and had a well-formed cup-shaped interior, lined with pineroots and twigs. He kept the two young birds for some weeks in a cage for the purpose of studying their habits. During life their wattles were of a light rose tint, changing into a violet colour towards the base; but after death, when their skins were dried, the wattles assumed a dull orange tint.
Neomorpha acutirostris, Gould, P.Z.S. 1836, p. 144 (♀).
Neomorpha crassirostris, Gould, P.Z.S. 1836, p. 145 (♂).
Neomorpha gouldi, Gray, List of Gen. of B. p. 15 (1841).
Heteralocha gouldi, Cab. Mus. Hein. Th. i. p. 218 (1850).
♂ undique sericeo-niger, sub certâ luce obscurè viridi nitens: caudâ conspicuè albo terminatâ: pileo carunculis magnis rotundatis Iætè aurantiacis utrinque ad basin mandibulæ positis ornato: rostro valido, eburneo, versus basin cinereo: pedibus cinereis, unguibus corneis.
♀ mari similis, sed rostro longo valdè decurvato semper distinguenda.
Adult. The whole of the plumage is black, with a green metallic gloss; the tail with a broad terminal band of white. Bill ivory-white, darkening to blackish grey at the base. Wattles large, rounded, and of a rich orange-colour in the living bird. Tarsi and toes bluish grey; claws light horn-colour.
Male. Length 18·75 inches; extent of wings 22·5; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 7·5; bill, along the ridge 2·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2·76; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 2·5; hind toe and claw 2.
Female. Length 19·5 inches; extent of wings 21; wing, from flexure, 7·5; tail 7·25; bill, along the ridge 4, along the edge of lower mandible 4·12; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 2·25; hind toe and claw 1·75.
Young female. Differs from adult bird in having the entire plumage of a duller black, or slightly suffused with a brownish tinge, and with very little gloss on the surface. Under ‘tail-coverts tipped with white, and the terminal white bar on the tail washed with rufous-yellow, especially in the basal portion. Wattles small and pale-coloured. Bill only slightly curved.
In another specimen in my possession, apparently a year older, the tail-coverts are without the margin, the white on the tail-feathers is purer, and the bill is perceptibly longer, with a darkened tip. In another, the tips of both mandibles are perfectly black for about half an inch in extent; the tail-feathers are only slightly stained with rufous, but instead of having an even white border the shafts are black to their tips, and the terminal bar has an emarginate edge.
Young male. On comparing a specimen in my collection with the above, the same general remarks apply, except that the under tail-coverts are not tipped with white at all, while the soft feathers on the lower part of the abdomen are largely tipped with pale rufous and white. The pale rufous wash on the tail-bar is likewise more conspicuous.
Trans. New-Zealand Instit. 1878, vol. xi. p. 370.Varieties. The Maoris speak of a “red-tailed Huia,” but I have no doubt that this is merely the condition of tail noticed above. A single tail-feather in my possession has the terminal band stained with rust-colour, and this would be described by a Maori as “red.” They also say that the birds from the Ruahine range have a somewhat broader band on the tail than those from Tararua, the skins from the former locality being in much greater demand on that account. A specimen which came into my hands had a single white feather in the tail—not a feather of the full quality but aborted in its character, being short, narrow, and shaped like one of the outer primaries, although filling the place of an ordinary tail-feather. In another
“I have received from Captain Mair some feathers which, in colour, have much the appearance of the soft grey plumage of Apteryx oweni, but which are in reality from the body of a Huia, being of extremely soft texture. I hope to receive the skin for examination, but in the meantime I will give a quotation from the letter forwarding the feathers:—Old Hapuku, on his death-bed, sent for Mr. F. taonga. This has just been shown to me. It is the skin of a very peculiar Huia, an albino I suppose, called by the Hawke’s Bay natives ‘Te Ariki.’ I send you a few feathers. The whole skin is of the same soft dappled colour, but the feathers are longer and softer. The bill is nearly straight, strong, and of full length. The wattles are of a pale canary-colour. The centre tail-feather is the usual black and white, while the others on each side are of a beautiful grey colour. These birds are well known to the Huia-hunting natives of Hawke’s Bay; and to possess an ‘Ariki’ skin one must be a great chief. The specimen I have described was obtained in the Ruahine mountains.”
The skin was afterwards sent to me, for examination, and was exhibited at a Meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society. It is that of a male bird of the first-year. The whole of the body-plumage is brownish black, obscurely banded or transversely rayed with grey; on the head and neck the plumage is darker, shading into the normal glossy black on the forehead, face, and throat. The tail-feathers are very prettily marked: with the exception of the middle one, which is of the normal character in its apical portion, they are blackish brown, irregularly barred and fasciated with different shades of grey, and with a terminal band of white; the under tail-coverts, also, are largely tipped with white, indicating adolescence.
Obs. In some adult examples of both sexes the white at the end of the tail is tinged more or less with rufous. It should be noted also that the brightness of the fleshy wattles depends, in some measure, on the health or condition of the bird; for during sickness they change to lemon-yellow. A recently killed specimen weighed 14 ½ oz. The palate and soft parts of the throat are bright yellow. The tongue is horny and slightly bifid at the tip. In fully matured examples the wattle measures nearly an inch across.
This is one of those anomalous forms that give to the New-Zealand avifauna so much special interest. Considerable difference of opinion has existed among naturalists as to its proper position in our artificial system. For many years it was placed, by common consent, among the Upupidæ, and that it possesses strong affinities to the Hoopoes is, I think, undeniable. Dr. Finsch proposed to group it in a separate family with Glaucopis and Creadion, under the name of Glaucopidæ; and Mr. Sharpe, in the British Museum Catalogue, has placed it with both of those forms in the family Corvidæ. According to my view, however, the investigation of its anatomy by the late Prof. Garrod leaves no doubt whatever that its natural place is among the Starlings.
The late Mr. Gould, who was the first to characterize the form, was deceived by the great difference in the shape of the bill, and treated the sexes as distinct species, naming them respectively Neomorpha acutirostris and N. crassirostris—a very natural mistake, “many genera even,” as Mr. Gould observes, “having been founded upon more trivial differences of character.” Mr. gouldi, in compliment to the original describer; and his example has been followed by others; but I have deemed it more in accordance with the accepted rules of zoological nomenclature to adopt the first of the two names applied to the species by Mr. Gould; and the name Neomorpha having been previously used in ornithology, it becomes necessary to adopt that of Heteralocha, proposed by Dr. Cabanis for this form.
In November 1870, 1 communicated to the Wellington Philosophical Society a paper Op. cit. 1870, vol. iii. pp. 24–29.
A well-known writer in ‘Nature’ (Dr. Sclater), in describing the peculiarity in the form of the bill that distinguishes it from the female, observes: “Such a divergence in the structure of the beak of the two sexes is very uncommon, and scarcely to be paralleled in the class of birds. It is difficult to guess at the reason of it, or to explain it on Darwinian or any other principles.” In the absence of any published account of its habits, beyond mere fragmentary notices, I have thought the subject of sufficient interest to justify my placing before the Society the following complete account of all that I have been able to ascertain respecting it. The peculiar habits of feeding, which I have described from actual observation, furnish to my own mind a sufficient “reason” for the different development of the mandibles in the two sexes, and may, I think, be accepted as a satisfactory solution of the problem.
Before proceeding to speak of the bird itself, I would remark on the very restricted character of its habitat. It is confined within narrow geographical boundaries, being met with only in the Ruahine, Tararua, and Rimutaka mountain-ranges, with their divergent spurs, and in the intervening wooded valleys. It is occasionally found in the Mr. Kane informs me that when travelling, two years ago, in the South Island he saw several Huias in a forest lying between Nelson and Picton. He states that he was quite close to them, and could not possibly be mistaken in the bird, with which he is familiar. Mr. W. T. Owen, who is a very careful observer, assures me that he met with it on the other side of Nelson. If the range of the Huia does in reality extend across the Straits, it is a very remarkable fact in the geographical distribution of this much-restricted species. That it does occasionally wander far beyond the limits assigned to it in the North Island is certain, because in 1881 Mr. Ambrose Potts met with one near Te Riuopoanga, in the Patea country. This was not an escaped bird, because the natives of the district knew nothing about it, and would scarcely credit the statement.Fagus forests of the Wairarapa valley, and in the rugged country stretching to the westward of the Ruahine range, but it seldom wanders far from its mountain haunts. I have been assured of its occurrence in the wooded country near Massacre Bay
My first specimen of this singular bird (an adult female) was obtained in 1855, from the Wainuiomata hills, a continuation of the Rimutaka range, bounding the Wellington harbour on the northern side—the same locality from which Dr. Dieffenbach, nearly twenty years before, received the examples figured by Mr. Gould in his magnificent work ‘The Birds of Australia.’ I have since obtained many fine specimens, and in the summer of 1864 I succeeded in getting a pair of live ones. They were caught by a native in the ranges, and brought down to Manawatu, a distance of more than fifty miles, on horseback. The owner refused to take money for them; but I negotiated an exchange for a valuable greenstone. I kept these birds for more than a year, waiting a favourable opportunity of forwarding them to the Zoological Society of London. Through the carelessness, however, of a servant, the male bird was accidentally killed; and the other, manifesting the utmost distress, pined for her mate, and died ten days afterwards.
The readiness with which these birds adapted themselves to a condition of captivity was very remarkable. Within a few days after their capture they had become perfectly tame, and did not appear to feel in any degree the restraint of confinement; for, although the window of the apartment in which they were kept was thrown open and replaced by thin wire netting, I never saw them make any attempt to regain their liberty. It is well known, however, that birds of different species differ widely in natural disposition and temper. The captive Eagle frets in his sulky pride; the Bittern
They were fully adult birds, and were 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. On receiving these birds I set them free in a well-lined and properly ventilated room, measuring about six feet by eight feet. They appeared to be stiff after their severe jolt on horseback, and after feeding freely on the huhu grub, a pot of which the native had brought with them, they retired to one of the perches I had set up for them, and cuddled together for the night.
In the morning I found them somewhat recruited, feeding with avidity, sipping water from a dish, and flitting about in a very active manner. It was amusing to note their treatment of the huhu. This grub, the larva of a large nocturnal beetle (Prionoplus reticularis), which constitutes their principal food, infests all decayed timber, attaining at maturity the size of a man’s little finger. Like all grubs of its kind, it is furnished with a hard head and horny mandibles. On offering one of these to the Huia, he would seize it in the middle, and, at once transferring it to his perch and placing one foot firmly upon it, he would tear off the hard parts, and then, throwing the grub upwards to secure it lengthwise in his bill, would swallow it whole. For the first few days these birds were comparatively quiet, remaining stationary on their perch as soon as their hunger was appeased. But they afterwards became more lively and active, indulging in play with each other and seldom remaining more than a few moments in one position. I sent to the woods for a small branched tree, and placed it in the centre of the room, the floor of which was spread with sand and gravel. It was most interesting to watch these graceful birds hopping from branch to branch, occasionally spreading the tail into a broad fan, displaying themselves in a variety of natural attitudes and then meeting to caress each other with their ivory bills, uttering at the same time a low affectionate twitter. They generally moved along the branches by a succession of light hops, after the manner of the Kokako (Glaucopis wilsoni); and they often descended to the floor, where their mode of progression was the same. They seemed never to tire of probing and chiselling with their beaks. Having discovered that the canvas lining of the room was pervious, they were incessantly piercing it, and tearing off large strips of paper, till, in the course of a few days, the walls were completely defaced.
But what interested me most of all was the manner in which the birds assisted each other in their search for food, because it appeared to explain the use, in the economy of nature, of the differently formed bills in the two sexes. To divert the birds, I introduced a log of decayed wood infested with the huhu grub. They at once attacked it, carefully probing the softer parts with their bills, and then vigorously assailing them, scooping out’the decayed wood till the larva or pupa was visible, when it was carefully drawn from its cell, treated in the way described above, and then swallowed. The very different development of the mandibles in the two sexes enabled them to perform separate offices. The male always attacked the more decayed portions of the wood, chiselling out his prey after the manner of some Woodpeckers, while the female probed with her long pliant bill the other cells, where the hardness of the surrounding parts resisted the chisel of her mate. Sometimes I observed the male remove the decayed portion without being able to reach the grub, when the female would at once come to his aid, and accomplish with her long slender bill what he had failed to do. I noticed, however, that the female always appropriated to her own use the morsels thus obtained.
For some days they refused to eat anything but huhu; but by degrees they yielded to a change of food, and at length would eat cooked potato, boiled rice, and raw meat minced up in small pieces. They were kept supplied with a dish of fresh water, but seldom washed themselves, although often repairing to the vessel to drink. Their ordinary call was a soft and clear whistle, at first prolonged, then short and quickly repeated, both birds joining in it. When excited or hungry, they raised their whistling note to a high pitch; at other times it was softly modulated, with variations, or changed into a low chuckling note. Sometimes their cry resembled the whining of young puppies so exactly as almost to defy detection.
I had afterwards another captive Huia, which came from the Fagus-covered hills at Wainuiomata. This bird became very tame, knew me well, and always welcomed my approach by making a melodious chirping note. He was fond of fresh meat, chopping it up into very small pieces with his bill, making a sound like the tapping of a Woodpecker as he cut up his dinner on the floor of his cage. He ultimately made his escape, and although he remained about the gardens and shrubberies of Wellington for more than two months, consorting freely with the Indian-Minahs, and occasionally indulging in a flight over his old habitation, he seemed to prefer freedom to captivity, and remained at large; but disappeared at last, having probably fallen a victim to the catapult of some city larrikin.
Dr. Dieffenbach, in forwarding his specimens of the Huia to Mr. Gould, in 1836, wrote:—“These fine birds can only be obtained with the help of a native, who calls them with a shrill and long-continued whistle resembling the sound of the native name of the species. After an extensive journey in the hilly forest in search of them, I had at last the pleasure of seeing four alight on the lower branches of the trees near which the native accompanying me stood. They came quick as lightning, descending from branch to branch, spreading out the tail and throwing up the wings.”
On the first occasion of my meeting with this species in its native haunts, I was struck by the same peculiarities in its manners and general demeanour. In the summer of 1867, accompanied by a friend and two natives, I made an expedition into the Ruahine ranges in search of novelties. After a tramp on foot of nearly twenty miles through a densely wooded country, we were rewarded by finding the Huia. We were climbing the side of a steep acclivity, and had halted to dig specimens of the curious vegetating caterpillar (Sphœria robertsii), which was abundant there. While thus engaged, we heard the soft flute-note of the Huia in the wooded gully far beneath us. One of our native companions at once imitated the call, and in a few seconds a pair of beautiful Huias, male and female, appeared in the branches near us. They remained gazing at us only a few instants, and then started off up the side of the hill, moving by a succession of hops, often along the ground, the male generally leading. Waiting till he could get both birds in a line, my friend at length pulled trigger; but the cap snapped, and the Huias instantly disappeared down the wooded gully. Then followed a chevy of some three miles, down the mountain-side and up its rugged ravines. Once more, owing to the dampness of the weather, the cap snapped, and the birds were finally lost sight of. I observed that while in motion they kept near each other, and uttered constantly a soft twitter. The tail was partially spread, while the bright orange lappets were usually compressed under the rami of the lower jaw.
We camped that night near the bed of a mountain rivulet, in a deep wooded ravine, and soon after dawn we again heard the rich notes of a Huia. Failing to allure him by an imitation of the call, although he frequently answered it, we crossed to the other side of the gully, and climbed the hill to a clump of tall rimu trees ( Dacrydium cupressinum), where we found him. He was perched on the high limb of a rimu, chiselling it with his powerful beak, and tearing off large pieces of bark, doubtless in search of insects; and it was the falling of these fragments that guided us to the spot and enabled us to find him. This solitary bird, which proved, when shot, to be an old male, had frequented this neighbourhood (as we were informed by the natives) for several years, his notes
On skinning the two sexes, it is at once apparent that the head of the male is formed on a different model to that of the female. In the latter the skin peels off very readily, but in the male the head seems too large for the neck. This difference is occasioned by the greatly developed muscles, forming a rounded mass or cushion on each side of the occiput, which enables this sex to wield his chisel in the effective manner described.
In October 1883, I made a special expedition into the mountain-forest in quest of the Huia; and as it will serve to complete my history of the species, I have transcribed the following narrative from my note-book:—
Taking the early train from Wellington to Masterton on the 9th, I met Captain Mair by appointment, and we forthwith made our arrangements for a start on horseback at daybreak. Instead of a fine day, as we had hoped, the morning opened with a heavy shower, which somewhat delayed our departure, and the day turned out drizzly. Our road lay through a bush and along a highway which had been formed but not metalled. The mire was knee-deep for the horses, and, for most part of the way, it was very toilsome work. The distance to be traversed was only twenty miles, the first four of which were over a hard road; but the shades of evening were closing in around us by the time we reached our camping-ground at the foot of the Patitapu range, and our Maori attendant (Rahui) had barely time to fix up our tent and collect “whariki” for bedding before thick darkness had set in. Our approach to this camping-place lay along the edge of a wooded ravine. On the opposite side from us there was a grove of tall manuka trees, several hundred acres in extent. Rahui informed us that this was a favourite resort of the Huia when feeding on the weta or tree-cricket (Deinacrida thoracica). The dull russet-green of the manuka bush was relieved on the sides of the ravine by those ever changing, ever beautiful, light-green tints so characteristic of our New-Zealand woods. Here and there a shapely rewarewa reared its tapering top, spangled all over with bunches of crimson flower, while along our path were fringes of the scented pukapuka with its dark green leaves, showing their silver lining as they yielded to the breeze, and covered with a profusion of creamcoloured inflorescence. At intervals might be seen a leafless kowhai laden with a wealth of beautiful golden blossom, and in the more open parts of the widening valley clumps of Cordyline with their waving crowns of green; whilst, adding immeasurably to the charm of the whole scene, the star-like clematis, in huge white clusters, hung everywhere in graceful festoons from the tangled vegetation. Down in the bed of the ravine, and hiding the babbling brook, the stunted overhanging trees were for the most part clothed in a luxuriant mantle of kohia, kareao, and other epiphytic plants.
Such was the spot in which we first heard the soft, whistling call of the Huia! Rahui imitated the cry, and in a few moments a fine male bird came across the ravine, flying low, taking up his station for a few seconds on a dead tree, and then disappearing, as if by magic, in the undergrowth below. Our guide continued to call, but the Huia was shy and would only respond with a low chirping note. But this was enough, and led us to where he was engaged, apparently grubbing among the moss on the ground. We shot the bird, which proved to be in beautiful plumage, and Rahui accepted this as an earnest of our success on the morrow.
Our camp was selected as only a native can select in the bush. The spot fixed upon was a gentle slope under the shadow of a three-stemmed tawhero ( Weinmannia racemosa), sheltered all round by close-growing porokaiwiria, torotoro, and other shrubby trees, and the whole fenced in, as
Even after a pall of darkness had settled on the woods, some Tuis in the tall tree-tops kept up a delicious liquid song, like the measured tolling of a silver bell, and far into the night could be heard, at intervals, the low whistling note of the Kaka communing with his mate. Then all was quiet, the night being very dark, and nothing broke the stillness of the forest till the Huia-call of our native guide brought us to our senses in the early dawn. But the day turned out unpropitious. The drizzling rain continued and a strong breeze set in; so we determined to shift our camp to the other side of the range. Our road lay along the side of another ravine. We had not proceeded more than a mile when Rahui’s call was answered from the other side. The bird’s loud cry was presently succeeded by a whistling whimper, and then he came towards us, bouncing through the brushwood as if in a desperate hurry. Descending to the ground a few yards in front of us, he hopped along the surface, and then up the trunk of a prostrate tree, with surprising agility. My companion took a shot at him; but owing to the dampness his gun missed fire, and the bird, taking alarm, disappeared in an instant, all our efforts to recall him proving of no avail. On reaching the head of the valley, we tethered our horses and commenced the ascent of the range, which we found very steep. About halfway up, we rested on the ground. 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. While waiting to get the bird within proper range, I heard far below me the rich note of the Kokako, repeated several times. It is scarcely distinguishable from the call of the Tui, but is preceded by a prolonged organ-note of rare sweetness. 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-note of surprise or pain, and then darted off, kangaroo-fashion, covering the ground with wonderful rapidity, and disappeared in the tangle.
We found the descent of the range much easier than our toilsome climb. Remounting our horses we continued up the valley. At a turn in the road, at a spot hemmed in by a wooded amphitheatre of beautiful shapely trees (chiefly rata), we halted for a moment to gaze on the scene. On a tree, immediately in front of us, a pair of Wood-Pigeons were sitting side by side, showing off their ample white breasts under the rays of sunlight glancing through the rain-drops. Whilst we were looking at and admiring this little picture of bird-life, 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 both 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 (a female of last year) who was unattended, and came up quite fearlessly to her doom.
After we had secured our horses and “refreshed the inner man,” Rahui and I started again for Huias, whilst our companion remained to fish for eels in the creek near our camp. After we had walked about a mile, a bird answered our call, and immediately afterwards a pair of Huias alighted in a pukatea tree above us. I brought them down, with right and left, and then another
The Huia never leaves the shade of the forest. It moves along the ground, or from tree to tree, with surprising celerity by a series of bounds or jumps. In its flight it never rises, like other birds, above the tree-tops, except in the depth of the woods, when it happens to fly from one high tree to another. The old birds, as a rule, respond to the call-note in a low tremulous whistle or whimper, and almost immediately afterwards answer the summons in person, coming down noiselessly and almost with the rapidity of an arrow. Occasionally a shy old bird refuses every allurement, and takes himself quietly off. These knowing ones are distinguished by the bird-hunters as Huia-paoke. Young birds answer the call, although somewhat feebly, but do not, as a rule, present themselves. With these, it is necessary to mark down the direction, and follow them up with gun or snare.
They are generally met with in pairs, but sometimes a party of four or more are found consorting together.
Its food consists largely, as already stated, of the huhu grub; but it also subsists on the weta and other insects of various kinds, and the berries of such trees and shrubs as hinau, porokaiwiria, poukaka, and karamu. In the stomachs of those which I opened I found hinau berries (Elœocarpus dentatus), orthopterous insects, caterpillars, and the remains of a large spider; and Mr. Drew informs me that birds skinned by him had been feeding on the green and brown Mantis.
Within its restricted habitat the Huia appears to maintain its position notwithstanding the wholesale slaughter of late years. To say nothing of the zeal of collectors, who obtain large numbers for the European markets, the natives annually kill a great many for the sake of their feathers. For example: a party of eleven natives went out for a month and scoured the wooded country lying between the Manawatu gorge and Akitio, and brought in 646 skins; and a party of three men obtained a considerable number near Turakirai on the south-western side of the Wairarapa Lake. Other instances of the kind might be given, all tending to show that the struggle for existence with the Huia is becoming a severe one. Already the fate of several species which, a few years ago, were plentiful enough in these woods has been decided. In the course of our expedition, which extended altogether 27 miles beyond Masterton, we travelled over a broad extent of broken, wooded country, and, to say nothing of Korimako and Pitoitoi (which have long since disappeared), we never saw or heard the notes of either the Piopio, the Tieke, or the Hihi, all of which birds were at one time more numerous even than the Huia. The Zosterops was everywhere abundant, also the Grey Warbler and Rifleman, and along the edges of the bush we found the Tomtit comparatively plentiful; the Parrakeet chased its mate through the tree-tops with sharp cries of “twenty-eight”; the Tui, in its playful flight, mounted high in the sunlight overhead; and among the tangle of the underwood the ever-present Flycatcher displayed its pretty fan-like tail. But, of course, the charm of these
Fagus-woods was the beautiful bird for which we had expressly come, and of which we had secured so many fine specimens.
One of the birds shot on our last day was a sitting female. The whole of the abdomen was denuded of feathers, and the skin had a smooth or polished appearance, as if the bird had been incubating for some time. This was on October 12, and was perhaps a case of early nesting, as none of the other birds presented any such appearance. In the ovary was a cluster of eggs, the largest of which was scarcely equal to a No. 6 shot. The ovarial duct was much enlarged, from which it may be, inferred that the egg had only lately been laid. Another point deserving of notice is that the bird was very fat, even the intestines being overlaid with thin layers; whereas most of the birds we shot’ were in rather poor condition. May we not fairly infer from this that the male bird attends upon and feeds the female during incubation?
In the generality of dried specimens, and in the published drawings that have hitherto appeared, the bill is of a yellowish horn-colour; but this, instead of being natural, is caused by the decomposition of the animal matter inside. I have succeeded in retaining the ivory whiteness of the bill, in preserved specimens, by treating them after the manner recommended by Waterton for preserving the bill of the American Toucan (see ‘Wanderings,’ p. 103)—that is to say, by removing with a sharp scalpel the whole of the inner substance, leaving nothing but the outer shell, which then retains its original appearance. The process is a tedious one; but the result amply repays the trouble. The wattles of the Huia are of a bright orange colour, and during life are usually carried half-curled inwards.
I have given elsewhere Trans. New-Zealand Institute, 1870, vol. iii. pl. iv. fig. 3.
I have also described and figured More, curious still is the case of deformity recently described by the Rev. In connection with this tendency to abnormal growth, I may mention a suggestive circumstance that has lately come under my notice. A male bird which I presented to the Zoological Society was fully adult when I brought it to England. For about a year, in its new home, it has been fed on soft food, the bill being thus deprived of the ordinary wear and tear incident to the natural habits of the species. As a consequence, the bill has far outgrown in length its normal proportions, and has assumed a somewhat curved form, resembling that of an immature female. The wattles have retained their rich orange colour, and the bird seems to be in perfect health. Mr. Op. cit. 1877, vol. x. p. 211.Strepsiceros. The total length of this deformed mandible, following the curves, is just six inches. It is flat above and devoid of nostrils, and the end or tip is sharply pointed…… The lower mandible is 2·75 inches long, being vory much shorter and not so much curved as this portion of the bird’s bill is in the normal state…… There is not the slightest indication of the upper mandible ever having been broken or bruised…… From its strange configuration it appears to have been far more than merely useless, for it must have been always an obstacle in the way and the means of keeping the bird’s mouth constantly open. How it could have managed to exist seems truly wonderfull” Vide woodcut on page 17.
In my former edition I mentioned that a live female Huia had been added to the collection of the Zoological Society. The cage containing it was kept in the “Parrot House,” being placed between
As stated in the Introduction to my former edition (page xvii) the loss to the collection was a gain to science, for the late Prof. Garrod had thus an opportunity of studying the osteology and anatomy of this singular form; and I quoted the following passages from his valuable paper on the subject read before the Zoological Society on the 21st of May, 1872:— “The arrangement of the feathers is completely Passerine. The rhombic saddle of the spinal tract does not enclose any ephippial space, therein differing from the Crow’s and resembling the typical Starling’s. There are ninetcen remiges, of which ten are on the hand; they increase in size up to the fifth. The reotrices are twelve in number. The oil-gland is nude…… The gizzard is well developed. The intestines are 16 inches long, with the bile-ducts 2 ½ inches from. the’ gizzard. The cæca are 1 inch from the cloaca and ¼ inch long, being cylindrical. There is one carotid artery, the left…… The palate is strictly ægithognathous; that is, the vomer is truncate in front abruptly, and cleft behind; the postero-external angles of the palatines are produced; the maxillo-palatines are slender, and approach towards, but do not unite with, one another, nor with the vomer, which they partly embrace. There is no ossification in the nasal septum anterior to the vomer. The whole cranial configuration closely resembles that of Sturnus; but the mandible, instead of being bent upwards, is straight. Like it, the palatines are narrow and approximate; the antero-internal angles of the posterior portions of those bones are reduced and rounded off, as is sometimes the case with Sturnus. The vomer is completely truncated in front, and is not prolonged forwards at its external angles, as in Corvus and its allies. The zygoma is not so slender as in Sturnus; but the curves are similar. The articular surfaces on the quadrate bone for the mandible are proportionally very large. The anterior extremities of the pterygoid bones articulate with the sphenoidal rostrum much as in Corvus, meeting in the middle line behind the posterior extremities of the palatines for a short distance. The maxillo-palatines, in their approximate portions, are shorter from before backwards than in Sturnus, and much resemble those of Corvus. The antero-inferior processes of the orbit are large and spongy; they almost touch the zygoma. But the most characteristic portion of the skull of Heteralocha is the occipital region; and in this it presents a great exaggeration of the peculiarities of Sturnus and its allies. In Corvus and most Passerines the digastric muscles occupy a narrow space intervening between the auditory meatus and the mass of occipital muscles, not extending so high up the skull as the latter. The occipital ridge encloses a space elongated from side to side, and of but little depth. In Sturnus the digastrics are much broader, and they narrow the occipital space; they also extend up the skull to so great an extent that they nearly meet in. the middle line above the origin of the biventres cervicis muscles; but in Heteralocha they are of still greater size, and, meeting above the middle line, they form a strong ridge, which extends for some distance into the parietal region vertically. This peculiar development of these muscles produces a correspoñding change in the shape of the space enclosed by the occipital ridge. In Heteralocha it is almost circular, and it extends some way above the foramen magnum. In Sturnus there is an approximation to this condition. A vertical parieto-occipital ridge in many other birds closely resembles that of Heteralocha; but it is the median limit of the temporal fossa in most. Correlated with this extensive digastric origin is a large surface for its insertion. The angle of the mandible is prolonged directly backwards for this purpose, in a manner unique among Passerine birds, but well seen in the Anatidœ. In Sturnus the angle of the mandible is slightly prolonged backwards for a similar purpose…… In the sternum Heteralocha differs in no important point from Sturnus, except that the posterior notches tend to be converted into foramina, as observed by Mr. Eyton in his ‘Osteologia Avium.’ .… In conclusion, it may be stated that the anatomy of Heteralocha shows clearly that it is truly Passerine, and not related to Upupa, as was previously supposed by most authors. When examined more in detail its relation to the Sturnidœ is found to be very intimate, and its structure is clearly not closely allied to that of the Corvidœ. In its relation to Sturnus it seems to present an exaggeration of the peculiarities of that bird, which would place it at the head of the family.”—Proc. Zool. Soc. 1872, pp. 643–647.
There is now living in the “Western Aviary” in the same Gardens a fine male bird which I brought to England in April 1886, and which had been in possession of the Wairarapa Maoris for nearly a year previous to my leaving the colony.
A study of this living bird has enabled my artist to depict the species in the highly characteristic attitudes shown in the Plate. The berries represented are those of the titoki (Alectryon excelsum), on which the Huia doubtless feeds, for although habitually insectivorous, I have often found in the stomach the kernels of the hinau and other berries; and Mr. Tone informs me that he once saw
Podocarpus dacrydioides).
The Maoris prepare the skin in a very primitive way: cutting off the wings and legs, they strip the body and then flatten the skin to dry between two sheets of totara bark, tied tightly round with native flax, taking special care to keep the tail-feathers unsoiled. The latter are much prized as head-plumes on festive occasions, and for the ornamentation of the dead. In former days very artistic boxes (papa-huia) were carved in relief as caskets for these precious feathers.
This species builds its nest in hollow trees, forming it of dry grass, leaves, and the withered stems of herbaceous, plants, carefully twined together in a circular form, and lined with softer materials of a similar kind See an interesting account by Mr. Potts (’Zoologist,’ 1884, p. 387) of a nest found in the cavity of an ancient hinau tree at Manawatu. On November 18th it contained one young bird. Another nest in the same neighbourhood contained three. Journal of Science, 1882–83, vol. i. p. 263.in utero when engaged in skinning a Huia. As already mentioned on page 4, the testimony of this man is not very reliable; but there can be little doubt that this is in reality the egg of the Huia, for it agrees in general character with one subsequently received at the Colonial Museum and described by Mr. Kirk
The specimen described by Mr. Kirk is somewhat smaller, being 1·45 inch in length by 1·1 in its widest diameter, the shell “having a beautifully fine and delicate structure, and pure white without any trace of markings whatever.” This egg was obtained by Mr. G. M. Hewson from the Maoris of Murimotu, who assured him that it was that of the Huia.
Wattled Stare, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. p. 9, pl. 36 (1783).
Sturnus carunculatus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 805 (1788, ex Lath.).
Creadion pharoides, Bonn. et Vieill. Enc. Méth. p. 874 (1823).
cterus rufusater, Less. Voy. Coq. i. p. 649, pl. xxiii. fig. 1 (1826).
Xanthornus carunculatus, Quoy et Gaim. Voy. de 1′Astr. i. p. 212, pl. 12. fig. 4 (1830).
Oxystomus carunculatus, Swains. Classif. of B. ii. p. 270 (1837).
Oreadio carunculatus, Cab. Mus. Hein. Th. i. p. 218 (1850).
Tieke, Tiraweke, Tirauweke, and Purourou.
♂ ad. nitidè niger: dorso cum tectricibus alarum, supracaudalibus et subcaudalibus laeté ferrugineis: carunculis rictalibus miniatis: rostro et pedibus nigris: iride nigricanti-brunneâ.
♀ mari similis, sed minor et carunculis minoribus distinguenda.
Adult male. General plumage glossy black; hack, wing-coverts, upper and lower tail-coverts bright ferruginous. Irides blackish brown’; bill and legs black; wattles varying in tint from a clear yellow to a bright vermilion, being apparently affected by physical conditions, such as the health of the bird or the temperature of the weather. Total length 10 inches; extent of wings 12·5; wing, from flexure, 4; tail 3·5; bill, along the ridge 1·25, along the edge of lower mandible 1·4; tarsus 1·6; middle toe and claw 1·25; hind toe and claw 1·1.
Female. Of inferior size to the male, and having the wattles of a somewhat lighter colour.
Young. Has the colours of the adult, but with the tints duller and no sheen or gloss on the plumage; the wattles extremely small and of a pale yellow colour.
Obs. In the Natural-History Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, I observed an adult specimen in partial albino plumage; and in the Canterbury Museum there is an example with a single white feather on the breast.
This bird derives its popular name from a peculiarity in the distribution of its two strongly contrasted colours, black and ferruginous, the latter of which covers the back, forms a sharply defined margin across the shoulders, and sweeps over the wings in a manner suggestive of saddle-flaps. The colours, in the male bird especially, are of so decided a kind as to attract special attention, to say nothing of the loud notes and eccentric habits of this remarkable bird. The bill is strong, sharply cut, and wedge-shaped, being well adapted for digging into decaying vegetable matter in search of larvæ, grubs, and insects, on which this species largely subsists. Berries, tender buds, and other vegetable substances likewise contribute to its support. From the angle of the mouth on each side there hangs a fleshy wattle, or caruncle, shaped like a cucumber-seed, and of a changeable bright yellow colour. The wings are short and feeble, and the flight of the bird, though rapid, is very laboured, and always confined to a short distance.
[The range of this species extends as far north as the Lower Waikato, beyond which district it is only rarely met with. It is numerous in the wooded ranges between Waikato Heads and Raglan, and is occasionally found in the neighbourhood of the Hunua coal-fields; but I have never heard of its occurrence in the Tauranga district, on the east coast, although I have an excellent ornithological correspondent there. In the summer of 1852 I obtained a pair at the Kaipara; but the bird was decidedly a Trans. New-Zealand Inst. 1868, vol. i. p. 160.rara avis, few of the natives in that part of the country being familiar with it. Captain
This species, formerly comparatively plentiful but now extremely scarce in the North Island, is very irregular in its distribution. In my first edition I endeavoured as above (within the brackets) to describe its range; but I omitted to mention that in one locality north of Auckland—a small wood at Kaitaia called Mauteringi, some three or four miles in extent—this bird was plentiful, although’ rarely ever met with in other parts of that district. Although never seen in the Bay of Plenty woods, it was, till within the last few years, numerous enough in the Ngatiporou country, where the natives were accustomed to regard it also as a bird of omen. A war-party hearing the cry of the Tieke to the right of their path would count it an omen of victory, but to the left a signal of evil. It is also the mythical bird that is supposed to guard the ancient treasures of the Maoris. The relics of the Whanauapanui tribe—mere pounamus and other heir—looms of great antiquity and value—are hidden away in the hollow of a tree at Cape Runaway, and it is popularly believed that the Tieke keeps guard over these lost treasures. According to Maori tradition, among these hidden things is a stone atua, which possessed at one time the power of moving from place to place of its own accord, but has since become inactive.
At the present time it is more plentiful on the Hen (a little wooded islet in the Hauraki Gulf) than anywhere else, a fact which may be attributable to the absence of wild cats; for on the Barrier Islands, where, the cat has obtained a footing, this bird is nearly exterminated. On the Hen, according to Mr. Reischek, it is actually increasing. in numbers, During his earlier visits they were only to be met with on the west and north-west sides of the island; on his last visit, after a lapse of only four years, they were to be heard and seen everywhere, being indeed the commonest bird on the island. They appeared to be of all ages; but neither here nor on the mainland did he ever meet with Creadion cinereus, which appears to be strictly confined to the South Island, where both species commingle.
The natives state that this species usually places its nest in the hollow of a tree, and they point to holes in well-known trees where the Tieke has reared its young for many years in succession. A pair is said to be still breeding in the hollow of the famous tree at Omaruteangi, known all over the country as “Putatieke” Putatieke: a renowned hinau tree in the Urewera country. It is supposed to possess miraculous attributes. Sterile women visit it for the purpose of inducing conception. They clasp the tree with their arms, and repeat certain incantations by way of invoking the atua.
Dr. Hector has informed me of a peculiarity in the habits of this species as observed by him in Otago. It is accustomed to follow the flocks of Clitonyx ochrocephala through the bush; but for what purpose it is difficult to imagine. Wherever he saw a flock of Yellow-heads there was invariably one of these Saddle-backs in attendance, mingling freely with them and, as it were, exercising a general supervision over the flock. He assures me that, during many months’ residence in the woods, he had almost daily opportunities of verifying his observations regarding this very curious fact.
Active in all its movements, it seldom remains more than a few seconds in one position, but darts through the branches or climbs the boles of the trees, performing the ascent by a succession of nimble hops, and often spirally. It is naturally a noisy bird, and when excited or alarmed becomes very clamorous, hurrying through the woods with cries of “tiaki-rere,” or a note like cheep-te-te, quickly repeated ‘several times. At other times it has a scale of short flute-notes, clear and musical; but the most remarkable exhibition of its’ vocal powers takes place during the breeding-season, when the male performs to his mate in a soft strain of exquisite sweetness. This love-song is heard only on a near approach, and it is at first difficult to believe that so clamorous a bird could be capable of such tender strains.
When feeding its young the female has a different cry—a low, musical whistle, repeated once or twice. When the nest is invaded, or the safety of the young threatened, the male bird becomes very excited and utters his shrill cry with renewed energy and with quicker repetition.
The Plate represents the bird on a flowering branch of the pukapuka ( Brachyglottis repanda); and I may here mention that in this and some other instances Mr. Keulemans has availed himself of my son’s drawings of the New-Zealand flora.
Professor Hutton discovered the nest of this species on the Little Barrier Island. It was situated about two feet down the hollow stem of a dead tree-fern that had been broken off at the top, and from which he saw a Saddle-back emerge. The nest was roughly composed of stems of Hymenophyllum and dead fibres of nikau (Areca sapida), and lined with the fine papery bark of the Leptospermum; and it contained three eggs, which, at the time they were found (December 27th), had been slightly sat upon. One of these specimens was kindly forwarded to me and is now in the Colonial Museum; it measures 1·4 inch in length by 1 in breadth, and is white, marked and spotted, especially at the thicker end, with purplish brown of different shades.
An egg more recently received by the Canterbury Museum, from the West Coast, is of a rather elliptical form, measuring 1·2 inch in length by ·85 of an inch in its greatest width. It is of a delicate purplish grey, becoming lighter at the smaller end, and marked all over the surface, but more thickly at the larger end, with points, spots, and blotches of dark purple and brown.
I was, informed by an intelligent Maori at Wellington that this bird is accustomed to ’repair, for many successive seasons, to the cavity in which it has once reared its brood, and that, although the number of eggs is generally three, he has occasionally found a nest containing four.
Creadion carunculatus (var.), Dieff. Report to N.-Z. Comp. (1844).
Creadion carunculatus (juv.), Hombr. & Jacq. Voy. Pôle Sud, Zool. iii. p. 12, fig. 4 (1853).
Creadion cinereus, Buller, Essay N.-Z. Orn. p. 10 (1865).
Creadion carunculatus (juv.), Finsch, Journ. f. Orn. 1867, p. 343; Hutton, Cat. of B. of N. Z. 1871, p. 17; Buller, Birds of N. Z. p. 149 (1873).
Ad. cinerascenti-brunneus, subtùs pallidior: scapularibus alisque umbrino lavatis: supracaudalibus et subcaudalibus lætè rufescentibus: tectricibus alarum minimis rufo maculatis.
Adult. The entire plumage dark cinereous brown, paler on the underparts, and tinged with umber-brown on the wings and scapulars; the tips of the small wing-coverts and the entire upper and lower tail-coverts bright rufous.
Young. May be distinguished by the extreme smallness of the caruncles.
Obs. Individuals vary in the general tone of the plumage, some being greyish, and others more strongly suffused with brown; the extent of the rufous markings on the wing-coverts is likewise variable, and in some examples they are entirely absent.
Mr. Potts has published Out in the Open,’ pp. 202, 203,Creadion cinereus, for the purpose of showing “how much variation may be met with in the young state of C. carunculatus.” He admits, however, that these supposed young birds were “procured at different seasons of the year,” which he accounts for on the supposition of an “extended breeding-season,” or “that the adult state is not arrived at till the second year.” It will be seen from what follows that this view is untenable.
In my ‘Essay on the Ornithology of New Zealand,’ published by command in 1865, I characterized and named what appeared to me then a new species of Creadion in the following terms:—“This species is of the size and general form of C. carunculatus, to which it bears a close affinity; but the colouring of the plumage is altogether different. The common species (the ‘Saddle-back’) is of a deep uniform black, relieved by a band of rufous brown, which occupies the whole of the back, and, forming a sharp outline across the shoulders, sweeps over the wing-coverts in a broad curve. In the present bird, however, the plumage is of a dark cinereous brown, paler on the underparts, and tinted with umber on the wings and scapularies; the upper and lower tail-coverts, and a few spots on the smaller wing-coverts, bright rufous. The wattles are of the same colour and shape as in Creadion carunculatus, but somewhat smaller.”
My new species was at once attacked by Dr. This series consists of four birds, all obtained in one locality:—No. 1 is in the plumage of Creadion carunculatus. Subsequently, in a paper which appeared in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute’ (vol. v. p. 208), Dr. Finsch expressed his satisfaction that “Captain
C. cinereus to be undoubtedly the young of the above-named species.” In my reply (I. c. vol. vi. p. 116) I explained that an examination by myself of a fine series of specimens in the Canterbury MuseumCreadion cinerus, as described above: No. 2 presents a few black touches on the head and neck: No. 3 has some new black feathers between the crura of the lower mandible, also on the sides of the head and along the edges of the wings; the upper wing-covorta bright ferruginous; the half-grown new secondaries and tail-feathers perfectly black, the back and rump presenting indications of change: No. 4 is in the plumage of C. carunculatus, as described at page 19.C. cinereus to be the first year’s dress of C. carunculatus, it seems to me quite inexplicable that the bird has never been met with in that state in the North Island. Captain Hutton suggests that this is due to the comparative scarcity of the species at the North. But during several years’ residence in the province of Wellington I obtained probably upwards of fifty specimens, at various times, without ever detecting any sign of this immature condition of plumage. Admitting the comparative scarcity of the species, one would naturally suppose that the younger birds would be more likely to fall into the collector’s hands than the fully adult ones. It may be suggested whether the condition of the Canterbury-Museum specimens has not possibly resulted from intercrossing; for we have not heard of any further examples of the kind being obtained. At any rate, till a specimen in the supposed immature dress has actually been taken in the North Island, the point cannot, I think, be considered finally set at rest.”
The descriptive notes which I had made will be found at page 149 of my former edition, with a statement of the conclusion arrived at. But I then added:—“Mr. Buchanan has observed the so-called C. cinereus in Otago in the summer, and Captain Hutton saw four birds in this plumage near Collingwood in the month of August; while, in the North Island, I have obtained fully-coloured specimens of C. carunculatus all the year round. It is sufficiently obvious, therefore, that the former cannot be a seasonal state of plumage.”
Strange to say, after a lapse of nearly fifteen years, the required evidence is forthcoming, and my Creadion cinereus recovers the specific rank so long denied to it.
In 1881 Mr. Creadion cinereus I have this to state: In December 1877, when I was on the west coast of the South Island, I shot about twenty of both kinds and of both sexes. What were supposed to be the young of C. carunculatus (your Creadion cinereus) I found on dissection to be fully adult birds, both male and female. My observations on this point were perfectly reliable. In December 1880 I stayed on the Hen (an island in the Hauraki Gulf) three weeks, and shot about thirty specimens of Creadion carunculatus, all of them being in the common saddle-back plumage. I could only determine the sex in each case by dissection, and what appeared to be the young birds differed only from the adult in having the wattles smaller and lighter in colour. I roamed over the whole island during my stay there, and never saw a bird in the plumage of your Creadion cinereus.”
In 1882, and again in the early part of 1884, this naturalist re-visited the Hen, and on both occasions remained there a considerable time exploring every part of the island and collecting its productions. During his last visit he saw probably forty or more birds, all in the plumage of C. carunculatus, and collected many specimens of both sexes and all ages. On the Little Barrier he found the species scarce, and obtained only two specimens; while on the Chickens and Island of Kawau he did not meet with the bird at all. In some which he dissected the testes were almost microscopic, the only external differences between these and the old birds being that the plumage
To place the matter, however, beyond all doubt, he found, on the occasion of his last visit (on the 14th February), two adult birds feeding a young one, and was successful enough to secure all three birds, which he carefully preserved and marked. He was loth to part with these specimens; but, to enable me to demonstrate the specific value of Creadion cinereus’, he handed all three birds over to me (marked respectively male, female, and young), and they are now in my collection.
In 1859 I found this species very abundant in the woods on Banks’ Peninsula; but it has long since disappeared before the advancing tide of European settlement. It is still, however, comparatively plentiful on the western and south-western portions of the South Island.
Its habits are precisely similar to those of “For its nesting-place a hollow or decayed tree is usually selected; sometimes the top of a tree-fern is preferred. We found a nost in a dead tree-fern not far from Lake Mapourika, Westland. This was of slight construction, built principally of fern-roots, deeply woven into rather a deep-shaped nest with thin walls; for as the structure just filled the hollow top of the tree-fern, thick walls were unnecessary. Another nest, in a small-sized decayed tree in the Okarita bush, was in a hole not more than three feet from the ground. It was roughly constructed, principally of fibros and midribs of decayed leaves of the kiekie, with a few tufts of moss, leaves of rimu, lined with moss and down of tree-ferns; and it measured across, from outside to outside of wall, 12 inches 6 lines, cavity 3 inches diameter, dopth of cavity 2 inches. The egg, measuring nearly 1 inch 4 lines through the axis with a breadth of 11½ lines, sprinkled over with faint purplish marks, towards the broad end brownish purple, almost forming one large blotch.”—Creadion carunculatus, already described; and its mode of reproduction is the sameOut in the Open, p. 202.
It has become the habit to speak of this bird as the Brown Saddle-back; but this is a misnomer, inasmuch as the absence of the “saddle” is its distinguishing feature. I have accordingly adopted the name of Jack-bird, by which it is known among the settlers in the South Island. Why it should be so called I cannot say, unless this is an adaptation of the native name “Tieke,” the same word being the equivalent, in the Maori vernacular, of our “Jack.”
That the two species occasionally interbreed is, I think, sufficiently evident from the specimens in so-called transitional plumage, in the Canterbury Museum, already specially mentioned. This is known to occur pretty often with the two allied species of Fan-tailed Flycatcher (Rhipidura flabellifera and R. fuliginosa) in the South Island, and, as there is every reason to believe, likewise in the case of our two species of Oyster-catcher, in both islands.
Under the head of Sturnidæ, Mr. Aplonis, with two species, A. zealandicus and A. obscurus. In my former edition, I omitted these birds altogether, as I had been unable to obtain any satisfactory evidence of their occurrence in New Zealand. In my ‘Manual of the Birds of New Zealand’ (published in 1882) I admitted Aplonis zealandicus on the authority of Dr. Finsch, who wrote:—“This is an excellent and typical species, which I had the pleasure of seeing in the Leiden Museum, being one of the typical specimens brought home by the ‘Astrolabe’ Expedition. Dr. Hartlaub informs me that there are three specimens in the Museum in Paris, all marked ‘Tasman’s Bay, New Zealand,’ and collected by the French travellers.” Further investigation, however, has satisfied me that it has no claim whatever to a place in the New-Zealand avifauna.
Last year I visited the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris for the express purpose of examining the type specimens referred to by Dr. Finsch; and, through the courtesy of Dr. Oustalet, the officer in charge of the Ornithological department, I had an opportunity of thoroughly investigating the subject.
There are two specimens in the mounted collection, from the voyage of the ‘Astrolabe,’ labelled Aplonis zealandicus, Quoy & Gaim., but without any habitat being assigned to them, the words “New Zealand” on the label having been crossed out. On referring to the original entry in MM. Quoy and Gaimard’s catalogue of the ‘Astrolabe’ collection, I found the following note under the No. relating to this species—“Vani koro (New Hebrides) et New Zealand.” There seems to be no other authority than this for considering it a New-Zealand bird; and I have no doubt, in my own mind, that the true home of the species is in the New Hebrides, the addition of “New Zealand” being merely a mistake in the entry, especially as there is no locality named. It is not the kind of bird that would rapidly become extinct; and if the French travellers had met with it during their casual visit to New Zealand, it is fair to assume that the species would have been known to the inhabitants of the country. The specimen in the Leiden Museum being simply a duplicate from this collection, the same remarks apply to that also. For these reasons I again reject Aplonis zealandicus as a New-Zealand form; but as one species occurs on Norfolk Island and possibly another on Lord Howe’s Island—within what is in reality the New-Zealand zoo-geographical region, although not within the scope of the present work—and as the claims of Aplonis zealandicus may again come up for discussion, I think it may be useful to place on record a full description of the species; and as there is much confusion in the nomenclature of this and the closely allied forms from Polynesia and Australia, I will add the result of my recent examination and identification of specimens both at Paris and in the British Museum.
As to the species itself being a good and valid one, I agree with Dr. Finsch, for although closely related to the other members of this confused group, the bright rufous colouring on its upper parts makes it readily distinguishable.
According to the views propounded by Mr. Nestor productus) on Phillip Island, of a form of Weka Rail (Ocydromus sylvestris) on Lord Howe’s Island, and of the great brevipennate Rail (Notornis alba) on Norfolk Island, if not on Lord Howe’s Island as well, indicates beyond doubt a former land connection, because it would be manifestly impossible for birds of this kind to traverse a wide extent of ocean. That the separation from each other of these distant habitats, by the submersion of the intervening land, took place at a very remote period, is sufficiently evident from the extreme specialization of the forms I have mentioned, although undoubtedly referable to the generalized New-Zealand types. From this point of view, it might be deemed advisable to include the birds inhabiting these various islands in the New-Zealand avifauna, which Mr. Wallace has already practically done by denning the boundaries of the New-Zealand “sub-region.” It will be found, however, on a closer examination, that, owing probably to accidental transportation and occasional immigration of individuals, over a long period of time, the avifaunæ of these islands have acquired features more in common with Australia than New Zealand. This very instance, indeed, of the existence in Norfolk Island of Aplonis fuscus (although not mentioned by Wallace) betrays this fortuitous relation, if I may so term it, of its ornis to that of Australia and of Central Polynesia. I have therefore decided to confine myself, in the present work, to the islands which come within the political limits or jurisdiction of New Zealand, namely, the Chatham Islands on the east, the Auckland Islands, Campbell Island, Macquarie Island, and Antipodes Island on the south and south-east; and I shall only refer incidentally to the occurrence of allied forms in the remote islands to the north in my treatment of our local species. As the number of Plates is necessarily limited, I shall figure only birds that are actually found in New Zealand, but
Aplonis Zealandicus.—Two examples (in Paris): no sex stated; but one is slightly larger than the other, with the colours of the plumage a little brighter, and is presumably the male.
♂ ad. General plumage rufous-grey, darker on the upper parts and deepening to rufous-brown on the lower part of back, rump, and upper tail-coverts; from the anterior edge of the eye a dull black streak extending. to the nostrils; the primaries bright rufous on their outer webs only, being blackish brown on their inner webs; large wing-coverts and bastard quills bright rufous; tail-feathers dark rufous-brown, with a rich vinous tinge on their outer edges; underparts lighter, the feathers of the breast and abdomen having obscure, narrow, greyish margins; flanks, vent, and under tail-coverts rufous-brown, mixed with tawny yellow, the feathers becoming lighter at the tips. Bill blackish brown, with a reddish tinge on the under mandible; legs and feet pale brown; claws yellowish brown. Total length 7·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 4; tail 2·5; bill, along the ridge ·75, along the edge of lower mandible ·75; tarsus ·8; middle toe and claw ·9.
♀ ad. Similar to the male, but with duller plumage, and of somewhat smaller size.
Obs. I am satisfied that A. rufipennis, Layard, from Vaté Island, New Hebrides, described in ‘The Ibis,’ 1881, p. 542, is this bird, and not Calornis cantoroides as suggested by Canon Tristram.
Allied Species. Aplonis tabuensis, Gmel. (=A. vitiensis, Layard, = marginatus, Gould, =marginalis, Hartl., = marginata, Cass., =cassinii, Peale).—More strongly built, and being a lighter-coloured species; only a rufous tinge on the plumage of the upper parts, with a purplish sheen on the head and neck; an obscure facial streak; the pectoral feathers with pale shaft-lines, giving a slightly streaky character to the breast. In young birds the sheen is absent and the pectoral streaks are more conspicuous. Irides red.—Hob. Tonga group, Savage Island, Friendly Islands, and Fiji. There is a slight difference observable in specimens from Tonga and Fijii, but nothing of any specific value.
Aplonis fuscus, Gould.—I do not think this form is separable from A. tabuensis. It is slightly browner on the upper parts than specimens from Tonga, but cannot be distinguished from some Fiji examples of the latter species.—Hab. Norfolk Island and Australia.
Aplonis brevirostris, Peale.—This species also seems to me scarcely separable from A. tabuensis, the only differences being in its somewhat smaller size, the darker crown, and the less streaky appearance on the underparts. In all essential respects the birds are alike. In the ‘Hand-list of Birds’ (vol. ii. p. 26) Mr. Aplonis australis, Gould, a synonym of this species, but I have not seen this type.—Hab. Samoa.
Aplonis nigroviridis, Less. (= A. pacificus, Forst.?, =striatus, Gmel., =obscurus, Dubus, =viridigriseus, G. R. Gr.).—Slaty grey, with a darker head and neck, and a very perceptible gloss on the plumage, especially on the upper surface; the facial streak broader than in A. zealandicus. The young of this species has the entire plumage slaty grey, paler and mixed with light brown on the underparts, some specks of white on the cheeks, and the small wing-coverts narrowly margined with whitish grey; but even in the young state the facial streak is quite conspicuous, having the appearance of a dull inky stain.—Hab. New Caledonia and Lord Howe’s Island.
Aplonis caledonicus, Bp.—Entire plumage black and glossy, with green reflections in certain lights and purplish on the head and throat. The sexes are alike, except that the female has less gloss on the plumage. Prince Bonaparte’s type, marked by his own hand, is in the Museum at Paris. The British Museum contains a good number of specimens, showing very little variation, and all from New Caledonia. A specimen marked Aplonis mavornata, but without any reference, differs from A. caledonicus in having the entire plumage dingy brown, without any gloss, the feathers of the underparts narrowly margined with grey. This may prove to be the young of A. caledonicus, but no locality is given.
Aplonis atronitens,
Otagon tanagra, Schl. Ned. Tijdschr. Dierk. iii. p. 190 (1865).
Turnagra hectori, Buller, Ibis, 1869, p. 39.
Turnagra tanagra, Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 284 (1869).
Keropia tanagra, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 323.
Piopio, Koropio, Korohea, and Tiutiukata.
Ad. statura T. crassirostris sed rostro crassiore, suprà olivascenti-brunneus: pileo nusquam striolato: uropygio caudâque clare rufis: gutture albo: pectore superiore cinerascente: abdomine medio albo, parte imâ et subcaudalibus conspicuè flavicantibus: hypochondriis olivascentibus: rostro et pedibus saturatè brunneis: iridè flavâ.
Adult. Crown of the head, hind neck, and upper parts generally clear olive-brown; throat pure white; breast and abdomen ashy grey, darker on the former, the abdomen and the under tail-coverts tinged with yellow; sides olive-brown, washed with yellow; wing-feathers dark olive-brown, dusky on their inner webs; tail-feathers and their upper coverts bright rufous, paler on their under surface, the two middle ones tinged above with olive-brown. Irides yellow; bill and feet dark brown. Total length 11 inches; wing, from flexure, 5·25; tail 5; bill, along the ridge ·8, along the edge of lower mandible 1; tarsus 1·25; middle toe and claw 1·25; hind toe and claw 1.
Young. Birds of the first year differ in having the feathers at the base of the upper mandible, the tips of those covering the crown and sides of the head, the small feathers fringing the eyelids, and a broad zone on the upper part of the breast bright rufous; the primary and secondary wing-coverts, and sometimes the secondary quills, are also largely tipped with the same colour, and the grey of the underparts is darker, but with a tinge of orange-yellow under the wings.
In January 1869 I communicated to ‘The Ibis’ the description of a new species of Thrush inhabiting the North Island, and differing from the South-Island bird (Turnagra crassirostris) not only in plumage, but in its superior size and more strongly developed bill; and I named it in compliment to my friend Dr. (now Sir)
In an editorial footnote to my paper, Professor Newton suggested that this species might be identical with one described, in a Dutch work, by Professor Schlegel, four years before, without, however, any habitat being assigned to it. This opinion has since been verified by a careful comparison of the specimen I have figured with the type of Schlegel’s Otagon tanagra in the Museum at Vienna; and under ordinary circumstances the name I have proposed would of course be reduced to a synonym. It will be observed, however, that Professor Schlegel has used a common generic name to distinguish the bird specifically, while he refers the form to the genus Otagon, established by Bonaparte in 1850. As I can see no valid reason for setting aside the generic title of Turnagra
Turnagra tanagra, I have deemed myself justified in retaining the distinctive appellation of T. hectori. At the same time I am anxious to give due prominence to the fact that Professor Schlegel was the first to discover the existence of this new species.
There is a peculiar charm about the New-Zealand forest in the early morning; for shortly after daylight a number of birds of various kinds join their voices in a wild jubilee of song, which, generally speaking, is of very short duration. This was the morning concert to which Captain Cook referred in such terms of enthusiasm; and the woods of Queen Charlotte’s Sound, where his ship lay at anchor, are no exception to the general rule. In illustration of this, I take the following from an entry in one of my note-books:—“Tuesday, 5 A.M.—At this moment the wooded valley of the Mangaone, in which we have been camped for the night, is ringing with delightful music. It is somewhat difficult to distinguish the performers amidst the general chorus of voices. The silvery notes of the Bell-bird, the bolder song of the Tui, the loud continuous strain of the native Robin, the joyous chirping of a flock of White-heads, and the whistling cry of the Piopio—all these voices of the forest are blended together in wild harmony. And the music is occasionally varied by the harsh scream of a Kaka passing overhead, or the noisy chattering of a pair of Parrakeets on a neighbouring tree, and at regular intervals the far-off cry of the Long-tailed Cuckoo and the whistling call of its bronze-winged congener; while on every hand may be heard the soft trilling notes of Myiomoira toitoi.” For more than an hour after this concert had ceased, and the sylvan choristers had dispersed in search of their daily food, one species continued to enliven the valley with his musical notes. This bird was the Piopio, or New-Zealand Thrush, the subject of the present article, and unquestionably the best of our native songsters. His song consists of five distinct bars, each of which is repeated six or seven times in succession; but he often stops abruptly in his overture to introduce a variety of other notes, one of which is a peculiar rattling sound, accompanied by a spreading of the tail, and apparently expressive of ecstacy. Some of the notes are scarcely distinguishable from those of the Yellow-head; and I am inclined to think that the bird is endowed with mocking-powers. The ordinary note, however, of the Piopio, whence it derives its name, is a short, sharp, whistling cry, quickly repeated.
It was when I obtained a caged Piopio that I first became acquainted with its superior vocal powers. In 1866 I purchased one for a guinea from a settler in Wellington, in whose possession it had been for a whole year. Although an adult bird when taken, it appeared to have become perfectly reconciled to confinement; but on being placed in a new cage it made strenuous assaults on the wire bars, and persevered till the feathers surrounding its beak were rubbed off and a raw wound exposed. It then desisted for several days; but when the abraded part had fairly healed, it renewed the attempt, and with such determined effort that the fore part of the head was completely disfigured, and the life of the bird endangered. On being removed, however, to a spacious compartment of the aviary, it immediately became reconciled to its condition, made no further efforts to escape, and for a period of fifteen months (when it came to an untimely end) it continued to exhibit the contentment and spright-liness of a bird in a state of nature.
I observed that this bird was always most lively during or immediately preceding a shower of rain. He often astonished me with the power and variety of his notes. Commencing sometimes with the loud strains of the Thrush, he would suddenly change his song to a low flute-note of exquisite sweetness; and then abruptly stopping, would give vent to a loud rasping cry, as if mimicking a pair of Australian Magpies confined in the same aviary. During the early morning he emitted at intervals a short flute-note, and when alarmed or startled uttered a sharp repeated whistle.
This caged bird was generally fed on dry pulse or grain; but he also evinced a great liking for cooked potato and raw meat of all kinds; in fact he appeared to be omnivorous, readily devouring
In the wild state this species subsists chiefly on insects, worms, and berries. I have shot it on. the ground in the act of grubbing with its bill among the dry leaves and other forest debris. Its flight is short and rapid. It haunts the undergrowth of the forest, darting from tree to tree, and occasionally descending to the ground, but rarely performing any long passage on the wing. It is very nimble in its movements; and when attempting on one occasion to catch one of these birds with an almost invisible horsehair noose, it repeatedly darted right through the snare, and defeated every effort to entrap it.
In my former edition of this work I stated that the Piopio was at that time comparatively common in all suitable localities throughout the southern portion of the North Island, but was extremely rare in the country north of Waikato. I mentioned also that a specimen which I shot in the Kaipara district in the summer of 1852 (doubtless a straggler from the south) was quite a novelty to the natives in that part of the country; that it was recognized, however, by an old Maori, who called it a “Korohea,” a name quite unknown in the south, and who stated that in former years it was very abundant in all the woods. I ventured then to express a belief that the bird whose biography I had undertaken to write would soon be equally scarce elsewhere. And so it has proved, for the North-Island Piopio is now one of our rarest species, and is certainly doomed to extinction within a very few years.
In the Bay of Plenty district it has never been heard of since the time of Hongi’s famous invasion (about the year 1820). A little wooded spur near Te Puke settlement, behind Maketu, frequented by a pair of these birds at that troublous period has ever since borne the name of Piopiorua; and to the present day the old men talk of the ominous appearance in their district of this “manu aitua” at the time that the bloodthirsty warrior landed in. his war-canoes and spread terror and destruction with his newly acquired firearms Captain Mair, -who took a prominent part throughout the late Maori War, and finally won the Now-Zealand Cross by his gallant conduct at Ohinemutu, informs me that on one occasion, when in close pursuit of
The last accessible place in which I met with it was Horokiwi, about 25 miles from Wellington.
Knightia excelsa; the bright green of the rimu with its graceful, drooping boughs, is everywhere present; and, as the eye scans the scene more closely, almost every tree common to the New-Zealand bush may be readily distinguished, all growing in rank profusion, plentifully sprinkled with the star-like crowns of giant tree-ferns, varied here and there with the bending palm-like top of the nikau (
One peculiarity about this species is its devotion to some particular locality, beyond which it never wanders very far. Mr.
A pair has been known to frequent for several seasons a spot on the western side of the Rangataua lake, near the source of the Mangawhero river, at the foot of the Ruapehu mountain. A correspondent who visited the place in the summer of 1880 was informed by the resident natives that the birds had always nested there. He could hear their musical song from his camp across the lake, and on going over he found the old birds in a maire tree, but could see nothing of the young brood. They were very tame and fearless, and on his simulating their notes they readily came to the ground and hopped about, scratching the surface and turning over the leaves as if in search of insects.
It shows how rare the bird has become when its habitat is thus localized. Indeed, it has already entirely disappeared from a tract of country where in former years it was specially abundant. In proof of this, I may mention the experience of Mr.
As to its nidification, I may mention that in the Ruahine ranges I met with a breeding-pair of these birds late in December. The sudden disappearance of the female and the cautious demeanour of the male satisfied me that I was in the immediate vicinity of the nest; but I nevertheless failed in my endeavours to find it. The bird resented my intrusion on its sanctum by a peculiar purr, not unlike the alarm-note of the American Cardinal (Cardinalis virginianus), accompanied by a sudden spreading of the tail.
A native once-described the nest to me as being of large size and composed of moss, twigs, and dry leaves. He assured me that he had twice met with it in the high scrub near the Manawatu river, and that in both cases the nest contained two eggs. This was many years ago; but that the account was reliable may be inferred from the fact, since ascertained, that this description applies very well to that of a closely allied species in the South Island.
Although Turnagra has hitherto been placed among the Turdidæ, the form is admittedly an aberrant one. Dr. Finsch has suggested the propriety of uniting it to Glaucopis, but I do not think this view has met with any acceptance or support. Fortunately I was able to bring with me to England a specimen in alcohol, which I forwarded to Dr. Gadow, of Cambridge, for anatomical study. After making an autopsy, with his accustomed care, he writes to me as follows:—” I am sorry to say that the outcome of my investigation regarding Turnagra is not very striking. After all, you are quite right in your suggestions as to its position and affinities. The fact is, we know so little of the anatomy of the many birds belonging to the Timeliidæ that comparison with these forms is almost out of the question. At any rate, it is satisfactory to know that there are not present any known characters to indicate other affinities, or to negative your suggestions.”
Mr. Sharpe has placed Turnagra among his Timeliidæ; but I have decided to make it the type of a new family, Turnagridæ, because the form seems to differ quite as much from typical Timelia as it does from Turdus.
As it is important to place on permanent record the results of Dr. Gadow’s patient study of the subject, I shall here append his report in full, together with his detailed remarks on Glaucopis (referred to on page 4), in order to show that there is no relationship between these two forms, not-withstanding the similarity of some of the external characters:—
“Turnagra.—Stomach quadrangular, flattened, very muscular. Crop absent. Tongue fleshy, with a few short bristles on the sides near the tip. Intestinal convolutions Thrush-like, certainly not Corvine, with decided graminivorous adaptation. Syrinx muscles acromyodean. Pterylosis agrees with Nitzsch’s Subulirostres s. Canoræ. Ten primaries; terminal (or first) long; tip of wing formed by third to seventh; sixth longest. Nine secondaries. Twelve tail-feathers. Metatarsus like that of Thrushes or Sylviæ. Sternum and shoulder-girdle agree with many birds: Struthidea, Graucalus, Strepera, Ptilonorhynchus, Turdus (i. e. all alike). Conclusion: After examination of the digestive apparatus, the pelvic nerve-plexus, the skeleton, and the pterylosis, I feel inclined to put Turnagra with the wide and ill-defined group of Timeliidæ. Turnagra is certainly neither Corvine nor Fringilline, and it is in fact a member of the Southern (Indian-Australian) mass of Thrush-like birds. Its bill and certain modifications of its digestive apparatus seem to show that this bird is a Thrush with graminivorous propensities. I would put it into Sharpe’s subfamily Ptilonorhynchinæ, to which Æluroedus belongs, but unfortunately Ptilonorhynchus itself is very different from Timeliidæ in its pterylosis.”
“Glaucopis.—After examination of the skeleton I am satisfied that Glaucopis comes nearest to the Corvidæ. The skull, although in general configuration and beak very similar to that of Struthidea, differs from the latter. Barring the peculiar lacrymals, it agrees with Ptilonorhynchus, also with Strepera, and, more remotely, with Paradisea. No agreement with Graucalus. Comparison with Heteralocha and Sturnus is not possible. Skull, consequently, agrees with Ptilonorhynchus and Strepera. Sternum: agrees most with that of Strepera, far less with Graucalus, Struthidea, Paradisea. Ptilonorhynchus disagrees in clavicles, like Heteralocha and Sturnus. Pelvis and sacrum: agrees with Graucalus, Heteralocha, and Ptilonorhynchus, also with Strepera, Paradisea, and Struthidea. Metatarsal scutes: agree most with Heteralocha; through the fusing condition in which the scutes are, very much with Ptilonorhynchus and Gymnorhina. Hyoid bones: Corvidæ. Pterylosis: Strepera and Ptilonorhynchus, but the latter has considerably more remiges. Conclusion: Glaucopis is nearly allied to the Austrocoracos. It agrees best with Strepera (Gymnorhininæ in general), and shows some considerable similarity in structure with Ptilonorhynchus. Struthidea agrees with Glaucopis by far less than you might perhaps suppose, and Graucalus is still further removed. Heteralocha is an unmistakable Starling form, and has little of importance in common with Glaucopis.”
Thick-billed Thrush, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 1, p. 34, pl. xxxvii. (1783).
Tanagra capensis, Sparrm. Mus. Carls. pl. 45 (1787).
Turdus crassirostris, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 815 (1788, ex Lath.).
Lanius crassirostris, Cu, v. Regn. Anim. p. 338 (1817).
Campephaga ferruginea, Vieill. Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. x. p. 48 (1817).
Tanagra macularia, Quoy et Gaim. Voy. de 1′Astr. i. p. 186, pl. vii. fig. 1 (1830).
Keropia crassirostris, Gray, List of Gen. of B. p. 28 (1840).
Turnagra crassirostris, id. op. cit. p. 38 (1841).
Loxia turdus, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 85 (1844).
Otagon turdus, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 374 (1850).
Ceropia crassirostris, Sundev. Krit. Framst. Mus. Carls. p. 9 (1857).
Turnaqra turdus, Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 284 (1869).
Ad. supra olivaceo-brunneus, pileo vix cinerascente irregulariter fulvo striato: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, rufo terminatis, fasciam duplicem alarem exhibentibus: remigibus brunneis, extus dorsi colore marginatis, primariis ad basin rufo lavatis: supracaudalibus rufo tinctis, imis omnino rufs: cauda læte rufa, rectricibus duabus mediis et reliquarum apicibus olivaceo-brunneis: loris cum regione oculari genisque brunneis pallide rufo maculatis: regione parotica pileo concolore, anguste fulvo striata: subtus olivascens, gutture toto rufescente lavato, plumis medialiter fulvescentibus: pectoris plumis medialiter albidis, utrinque olivaceo marginatis, quasi striatis: pectore superiore vix rufescente lavato: hypochondriis magis olivascentibus; abdomine imo et subcaudalibus flavo lavatis: subalaribus rufis: rostro pedibusque saturate brunneis: iride flava.
Adult. General plumage olive-brown, darker on the upper parts; forehead, lores, throat, and sides of neck largely marked with rufous; breast, abdomen, and under tail-coverts covered with broad longitudinal spots of yellowish white, narrower towards the sides of the body; on the abdomen and under tail-coverts less of the olive-brown, with a strong tinge of yellow; wing-feathers dark olive-brown, dusky on their inner webs; the superior and lesser wing-coverts largely tipped with rufous, forming two broad transverse bars; lining of wings pale rufous; tail, for the most part, with the upper coverts bright rufous, the two middle feathers and the apical margins of the rest olive-brown, only slightly tinged with rufous. Irides yellow; bill and feet dark brown. Total length 11 inches; wing, from flexure, 5; tail 5; bill, along the ridge ·7, along the edge of lower mandible ·8; tarsus 1·25; middle toe and claw 1·15; hind toe and claw 1.
Young. May be distinguished from the adult by the larger amount of rufous colouring on the forehead, sides of the head, throat, and upper wing-coverts.
Obs. In some specimens the bend of the wing and the exterior edges of the outer primaries are also marked with rufous. The colour of the bill likewise varies, in different examples, from a light brown to dusky black.
This fine species is confined to the South Island. Formerly it was excessively abundant in all the elevated wooded country; but of late years it has become comparatively scarce, while in some districts
Sir
Mr. Buchanan, of the Geological Survey, assures me that in the woods in the neighbourhood of Dunedin, where it was formerly very common, it has been quite exterminated by the wild cats. It may be here observed that there is no indigenous cat in our country; but ill-fed or ill-used members of the race, in the struggle for existence, frequently quit the settlers’ houses and betake themselves to the woods, where they, in course of time, produce a purely wild breed. To this cause is partly owing the almost entire extermination of the Quail and other ground species.
It is worthy of remark that Mr. Burton obtained a specimen on Stephens Island on the south side of Cook’s Strait.
The habits of this bird differ in no respect, so far as I am aware, from those of its congener in the North Island. The following incident is illustrative of its predaceous nature:—My brother, Mr. Fletcher Buller, while residing in Canterbury, obtained a live one from the woods, and placed it in a cage with a pair of tame Parrakeets (Platycercus novoe-zealandioe). On the following morning he found, to his dismay, that the newly introduced bird had slain both of his fellow prisoners, and was actually engaged in eating off the head of one of them|
There is a nest of this bird in the Canterbury Museum, obtained from the River Waio, County of Westland. It is a round nest, somewhat loosely constructed, composed of small, dry twigs, shreds of bark, fragments of moss, &c., with a rather large cup-shaped cavity, lined with dry grasses and other fibres. To all appearance it is carelessly, but nevertheless firmly, fixed in the forked twigs of a small upright branch. In the same collection there is another nest from Lake Mapourika, which is formed of soft green moss on a tapering foundation of small twigs, completely filling the crutch of a manuka fork and being fully a foot in depth. Another, formed externally of dry twigs, is of more irregular shape, but is likewise built in a forked branch as a means of support. The circular cup is neatly lined with dry bents. Mr. Potts, who studied this bird pretty closely in Westland, states that the nest is generally found among the thick foliage of the tutu (Coriaria ruscifolia), but sometimes in karamu or manuka, that it is sometimes finished off with soft tree-fern down as a lining, and that it usually contains two eggs; and he is of opinion that the bird breeds twice in the season. The Museum collection contains four specimens of the egg, which exhibit considerable difference in form. Two of them—probably from one nest—are very ovoido-conical; one of these measures 1·3 inch by 1·05 inch, and is pure white, marked at irregular distances over the entire surface with specks and roundish spots of blackish brown. The other is slightly narrower in form, the white is not so pure, and the markings are less diffuse, being collected into reddish-brown blotches towards the larger end. The other two eggs (apparently also from one nest) are of a long ovoido-elliptical form, and of equal size; the one I tested measuring 1·6 inch in length by ·95 of an inch in its widest part. The shell is pure white, with widely-scattered irregular spots of blackish brown, less numerous and of smaller size in one than in the other. Both eggs have a rather glossy surface.
Turdus australis, Sparrm. Mus. Carls. iii. pl. 69 (1788).
Muscicapa longipes, Garnot, Voy. Coq. i. p. 594, pl. xix. fig. 1 (1826).
Myiothera novœ-zealandiœ, Less. Man. d’Orn. i. p. 248 (1828).
Miro longipes, Less. Tr. d’Orn. p. 389 (1831).
Petroica australis, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 7 (1844).
Myioscopus longipes, Reich. Syst. Av. Taf. lxvii. (1850).
Petroica longipes, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 223.
Miro longipes, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 119 (1873).
Pitoitoi, Toutou, Toutouwai, and Totoara.
♂ saturatè cinereus, scapis plumarum albidis: maculâ, frontali albâ: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus brunneis, extùs cinereo lavatis: cauda nigricantc: facie laterali cinereâ, albido magis distinctè striolatâ: abdomine medio albicante: corporis lateribus cinereis: subcaudalibus albidis: cruribus cinereis albido terminatis: subalaribus pallidè cinereis: primariis intùs ad basin albidis: rostro nigricanti-brunneo, mandibulâ brunnescentiore: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride nigrâ.
♀ pallidior: remigibus brunnescentibus: facie laterali cinerascente, albo striolatâ: pectore superiore pallidè cinerascente, plumis medialiter albido striatis: abdomine albido.
Adult male. Head, neck, and all the upper surface dark slaty grey, plumbeous beneath; the shafts of the feathers greyish white, forming rather conspicuous lines on the crown and nape; a frontal spot at the base of the upper mandible pure white; rictal bristles black; throat, fore neck, and sides of the body paler slaty grey; the lower part of the breast, the middle of the abdomen, the vent, and the under tail-coverts white, blending on the edges with the darker plumage of the surrounding parts; wing-feathers dull smoky brown, with lighter shafts; lining of wings and a broad oblique bar on the under surface of all the quills except the first three primaries pure white; tail-feathers dull smoky brown, the shafts light brown on their upper and white on their under aspect. Irides black; bill blackish brown; tarsi and toes pale yellowish brown; soles dull yellow. Total length 6 inches; extent of wings 9·25; wing, from flexure, 3·5; tail 2·65; bill, along the ridge ·6, along the edge of lower mandible ·8; tarsus 1·35; middle toe and claw ·95; hind toe and claw ·8.
Female. Slightly smaller than the male and with duller plumage; the upper parts tinged with smoky brown; the throat, fore neck, and sides of the body lighter, the centre of each feather inclining to greyish white.
Young. The young of both sexes resemble the female in the comparative brownness of the plumage of the upper parts; the rictal membrane is largely developed and of a rich orange-colour.
Obs. In this and the other closely allied species the feathers of the body have loose or disunited filamentous barbs, and are very soft in texture, especially on the upper parts.
Note. I entirely agree with Dr. Finsch that this form should be separated from Petrœca (erroneously called Petroica); but I am unable to follow him in adopting the genus Myioscopus of Reichenbach, the name of
Miro proposed by Lesson having a prior claim in regard to date. The long legs, shorter wings, and stouter bill distinguish this genus from Petrœca and bring it nearer to Erythacus.
This species is confined to the North Island, where, till within the last ten years, it was very common in all the wooded parts of the country; but it is represented in the South Island by a closely allied and still common species, the Miro albifrons. There is a specimen of the North-Island Robin in the Auckland Museum said to have been obtained at Nelson; but I have never found this bird south of Cook’s Strait, and vice versâ as regards the South-Island Robin. The two species may therefore be regarded as true representatives of each other in the North and South Islands respectively.
Generally speaking, in New Zealand it is only on the outskirts of the woods that we meet with insessorial birds in any number. As we penetrate into the heart of the forest, the birds become fewer, till at length they almost entirely disappear. But there is one species whose range seems to be quite without restraint: common enough in the open coppice, it is to be found also in the gloomiest and most secluded parts of the forest. This bird is the subject of our article—the Pitoitoi or Toutouwai There are some curious coincidences with Maori names, of which this is an instance. The Robin is called “Toutouwai” by the Ngapuhi tribe at the far north. The small European Owl, Athene noctua, has “Koukouwai” as its Greek name. Drop the final syllable, and we have the Maori name for the New-Zealand Owl, “Koukou.”
I have been assured by officers who accompanied the celebrated Taranaki Expedition under Major-General Sir Nestor meridionalis), which had attended them far into the bush, had gradually ceased to be heard, and the Wood-Pigeon (Carpophaga novœ-zealandiœ), whose range extends to the summits of the low wooded ridges of the interior, was no longer to be met with. An oppressive silence reigned around them, broken only by the shrill chirp of the startled Robin as the advanced guard cut a path for the troops through the hitherto untrodden woods. Indeed the presence of this little bird was the only exception to the utter absence of animal life, and almost the only relief to the monotony of the march. Perched on a low branch, it might frequently be seen looking gravely down, as if in silent wonderment, on the weary ranks, as they toiled their way through this virgin forest in the very heart of the enemy’s country!
As the popular name implies, it is naturally a tame bird; and in little-frequented parts of the country it is so fearless and unsuspicious of man that it will approach to within a yard of the traveller, and sometimes will even perch on his head or shoulder. It is the favourite companion of the lonesome wood-cutter, enlivening him with its cheerful notes; and when, sitting on a log, he partakes of his humble meal, it hops about at his feet, like the traditional Robin, to pick up the crumbs.
Like its namesake in the old country, moreover, it is noisy, active, and cheerful. Its note is generally the first to herald the dawn, while it is the last to be hushed when the evening shades bring gloom into the forest. But there is this noticeable difference between the morning and the evening performance: the former consists of a scale of notes commencing very high and running down to a low key, uttered in quick succession, and with all the energy of a challenge to the rest of the feathered tribe; and I have sometimes heard a native, when listening to this strain, exclaim “Ka kanga te manu ra!” (How that bird swears!). The evening performance is merely a short chirping note, quickly repeated, and with a rather melancholy sound. Three or four of them will sometimes join in a chirping chorus, and continue it till the shades of advancing twilight have deepened into night.
It lives almost entirely on small insects and the worms and grubs which are to be found among decaying leaves and other vegetable matter on the surface of the ground in every part of the woods. Its nature is pugnacious and, in the pairing-season, the male birds often engage in sharp encounters with each other.
It generally breeds in the months of October and November. It constructs a large and compact nest, composed externally of coarse moss firmly interwoven and thickly lined inside with the soft hair-like substance which covers the young stems of the tree-fern. It is usually built against the bole of a tree, at a moderate elevation from the ground, being often found attached to and supported by the wiry stems of the kiekie ( Freycinetia banksii), a climbing parasitical plant which is everywhere abundant. I have found scores of the nests of this species, and almost invariably in the situation described. I found one, however, placed in the fork of a tree at some elevation, and another in the truncated stem of a tree-fern (
Should the nest happen to be molested after the young are hatched, the parent birds manifest the utmost solicitude, hopping about near the intruder with outspread and quivering wings, uttering a low piping note, and showing every symptom of real distress.
The last example of the nest I examined was obtained recently on the Little Barrier Island, where it was found supported against the bole of a tree about five feet from the ground. It is not so massive as many I have seen, and is composed chiefly (and probably for protective purposes) of the green moss which clings to the trunks of old trees, mixed with dry leaves and little twigs of wood; the cup, which is rather shallow, measures three and a half inches in diameter and is deeply lined with fern-hair and vegetable fibres. It was found about the middle of December, just after the young birds had quitted it.
But for the fact that much of the foregoing article applies equally to the South-Island species, it would have been almost necessary to expunge it from the present edition; for, alas! its subject, instead of being, as formerly, the commonest of our native birds, is now one of the rarest. It is still comparatively plentiful on the Island of Kapiti, and on some of the wooded islets in the Hauraki Gulf; but it is seldom met with on the mainland, and, in common with many other native forms, its doom is sealed.
Ornithologists everywhere must regret this, because the genus to which it belongs has no representative in any other part of the world; and those who are at all familiar with the bird itself will assuredly grieve over its threatened extirpation. Personally I regard this gentle Robin with a strong sentiment of affection. In the days of my boyhood it was one of the dominant species, and some of my earliest memories are associated with it. The first nest I ever found in my juvenile excursions through the bush near the parental home—the dear old Church Mission station of forty years ago—was naturally that of the Robin. It was the first bird of which I ever prepared a specimen; and having, while yet at school, conceived the idea of writing a history of our native birds, I well remember that the first species whose biography I essayed to sketch was this everyday companion of my holiday rambles. Its presence therefore never fails to awaken reminiscences of the past; but unfortunately ere long the bird itself will be but a memory of by-gone years. Either on account of its being an easy prey to wild cats and rats, or else in obedience to some inexplicable law of nature, the species is rapidly dying out; and it requires no prophetic vision to foresee its utter extinction within a very short period. Well may the Maori say, as he laments over the decadence of his own race—“Even as the Pitoitoi has vanished from the woods, so will the Maori pass away from the land and be forgotten!”
White-fronted Thrush, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 1, p. 71 (1783).
Turdus albifrons, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 822 (1788).
Miro albifrons, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 190 (1843).
Petroica albifrons, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 7, pl. 6. fig. 2 (1844).
Turdus ochrotarsus, Forster, Descr. Anim. p. 82 (1844).
Muscicapa albifrons, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7465.
♂ similis M. australi, sed multo major et magis fuliginosus, scapis plumarum minùs distinctè albis: sed præcipuè pectore et abdomine medio ochrascenti-albis distinguendus.
Adult male. Head, neck, sides of the body, and all the upper surface dark sooty grey, the base of the feathers plumbeous; at the root of the upper mandible a small spot of yellowish white; breast, abdomen, and vent yellowish white, tinged with lemon-yellow on the breast, and forming a tolerably well-defined line against the dark plumage of the fore neck; inner lining of wings, flanks, and under tail-coverts greyish white; quills and tail-feathers smoky black; an oblique bar of white on the inner face of the wings, as in M. australis. Irides black; bill brownish black; palate and soft parts of the mouth yellow; tarsi, toes, and claws brownish black; soles of the feet dull yellow. Total length 7·25 inches; extent of wings 10·5; wing, from flexure, 4; tail 3; bill, along the ridge ·65, along the edge of lower mandible ·85; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·05; hind toe and claw ·9.
Female. Somewhat smaller than the male, and having the plumage of the upper parts tinged with brown; there is less yellow on the breast, and the grey of the underparts is lighter.
Obs. This species may readily be distinguished from M. australis by its appreciably larger size, its black legs and darker coloration, and the more defined patch of yellowish white on the under surface. The white shaft-lines are not so distinet on the crown and nape, but are far more so on the throat and fore neck, owing to the ground-colour of these parts being darker than in M. australis. The frontal spot is smaller and less conspicuous.
Dr. Finsch has expressed an opinion in favour of uniting “These birds seem to be scarcely distinct” (Finsch, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. v. p. 207).M. australis and M. albifrons; but a glance at the Plate will show how decidedly the two species differ from each other in their external characters
In the ‘Journal of Science,’ vol. ii. p. 170, a full description is given of a pied example, or partial albino, the white preponderating over the normal colour, and the breast being creamy yellow.Var. My collection contains a specimen received from Christchurch in which the whole plumage is suffused with brown, and the underparts are smoky grey instead of being white
Note. The figure of this species in the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror’ is incorrect, on account of the exaggerated extent of white on the underparts; but the attitude is a very characteristic one.
The habits of this bird differ in no respect from those of its near congener Miro australis; and the account given in the foregoing pages may be considered equally applicable to both species.
It has large lustrous eyes, and the feathered fringe to the eyelid imparts to them an unusually prominent appearance. When its attention is excited, it assumes a very erect position, and flips its wings and tail, often uttering a short chirp between each operation. It is popularly said to have the power of expanding and contracting the small white spot on its forehead, but the explanation is a simple one: when the bird is at rest, it habitually raises the frontal feathers, making the head look large and rounded and rendering the white spot almost invisible; when excited or alarmed the feathers are immediately depressed and the frontal spot is at once conspicuous.
Under the head of Eudynamis taitensis, mention will be made of its services as foster-parent to the young of that Cuckoo, of which we have at least one undoubted instance.
On comparing the eggs of this species with those of M. australis, there is a manifest difference. They are slightly larger and more ovoido-conical in form, measuring 1·05 inch in length by ·7 in breadth. They present also more individual variation than do those of the North-Island bird, which are all marked on the same pattern. In two eggs of M. albifrons in my son’s collection one has the entire surface minutely and indistinctly freckled with grey, whilst the other has the larger end splashed all over with confluent spots of purplish brown, with a few widely scattered specks over the rest of the surface. Another (taken from the nest in February) is somewhat pyriform in shape, measuring ·9 of an inch in length by ·7 in breadth; the obtuse end thickly smudged with dull brickred, washed over with brown, and a few sprinkles of the same colour on other portions of the shell.
Some doubts having existed as to the true position of the genera “Miro and Myiomoira, I furnished Dr. Gadow with specimens in spirit of Miro albifrons and Myiomoira toitoi to enable him to study their internal characters, and he reports, as the result of his investigations, that both forms are true Singing-birds, and that the place I had already assigned them, in my former edition, among the Sylviidæ is undoubtedly the right oneMiro albifrons (Passeres, Aeromyodi, Turdiformes).—Stands very well with the Sylviidæ, where you have already put it. Tail-feathers twelve. Primary remiges ten, the terminal one being long, more than half the length of the next. Secondary remiges nine. Pterylosis typically Sylviine and Turdine. Metatarsus completely encased by three long scutes or shields, one anterior and two lateral, the latter forming a sharp posterior prominent keel; truly Sylviine. Intestines agree with Sylviine birds likewise. Stomach contained insects. Nothing peculiar about Miro at all. The same applies to Myiomoira.”—H. Gadow.
In the British Museum Catalogue (Birds, vol. iv.) Mr. Sharpe places both these forms among the Muscicapidæ, associating M. toitoi and M. macrocephala with twelve other species in the genus Petrœca, with a range extending over Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands.
Professor Newton, in his able article on “Ornithology” (Encycl. Brit.), has the following remarks:—“There is no doubt whatever as to the intimate relationship of the Thrushes (Turdidæ) to the Chats (Saxicolinæ), for that is admitted by nearly every systematizer. Now most authorities on classification are agreed in associating with the latter group the Birds of the Australian genus “Petrœca and its allies—the so-called ‘Robins’ of the English-speaking part of the great southern communities. But it so happens that, from the inferior type of the osteological characters of this very group of birds, Prof. Parker has called them (Trans. Zool. Society, v. p. 152), ‘Struthious Warblers’Petrœca has been stated by Professor Parker to be a ‘Tracheophone’ (i. e. Mesomyodian), having ‘the muscles of lower larynx quite indistinct.’ In three specimens, however, of that genus examined by me I find a perfectly Oscinine syrinx with its muscles as well developed as in other birds of the same size” (Forbes, P. Z. S. 1882, p. 545).Petrœca group be, as most allow, allied to the Saxicolinæ, they must also be allied, only rather more remotely, to the Turdidæ—for Thrushes and Chats are inseparable, and therefore this connexion must drag down the Thrushes in the scale. Let it be granted that the more highly developed Thrushes have got rid of the low Struthious features which characterize their Australian relatives, the unbroken series of connecting forms chains them to the inferior position, and of itself disqualifies them from the rank so fallaciously assigned to them.”
Miro traversi, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 123 (part ii.), June 1872.
Petroica traversi, Hutton, Ibis, July 1872, p. 245.
Ad. omninò niger, remigibus et rectricibus paullò brunnescentioribus: rostro nigro: pedibus nigris, plantis flavis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
Adult male. The whole of the plumage black, the base of the feathers dark plumbeous; wing-feathers and their coverts tinged with brown, the former greyish on their inner surface; tail-feathers black, very slightly tinged with brown. Irides dark brown; bill black; tarsi and toes blackish brown, the soles of the feet dull yellow. Total length 6 inches; wing, from flexure, 3·4; tail 2·6; bill, along the ridge ·5, along the edge of lower mandible ·7; tarsus 1·1; middle toe and claw 1; hind toe and claw ·8.
Female. Slightly smaller than the male, and without the brown tinge on the wings and tail.
This species was discovered by Mr. Henry Travers during an exploratory visit to the Chatham Islands in 1871. Through the courtesy of His Excellency Sir
Mr. Travers supplies the following note respecting it:—“I only found this bird at Mangare, where it is not uncommon. It is very fearless, possessing in other respects the habits of Petroica albifrons and P. longipes. Its ordinary note is also the same, but I did not hear it sing. It appears to be specially obnoxious to Anthornis melanocephala, which always attacks it most savagely when they meet.”
This form appears to be the small degenerate representative of the New-Zealand Robin, which, strangely enough, does not occur in the Chatham Islands; but it is even more remarkable still that, so far as our information goes, the present bird is not found either on the main island or on its satellite, Pitt Island, being confined exclusively to Mangare, which is described as a mere rocky slet covered with low rigid scrub.
The antipathy, mentioned by Mr. Travers, on the part of Anthornis melanocephala towards this species is quite unaccountable, because the ordinary habits of the two birds do not conflict in any way, whilst between Anthornis melanura and the Robin in New Zealand the most perfect amity exists. Possibly the pugnacious habit has been developed by the insular nature of its environment, and the more severe conditions of life in the struggle for existence.
It may be here stated that the Chatham Islands, to which frequent reference will be made in the course of this work, are situated about 450 miles eastward of New Zealand, in lat. 42° S. The group consists of Wharekauri, about seventy miles in extent, shaped like an isosceles triangle, and presenting a low diversified surface of bush, lake, and open land, with much fertile soil; Pitt Island, about ten miles in circumference, separated from the main island by a deep channel, and now occupied by a sheep-farmer; Mangare, the home of Miro traversi, as mentioned above; South-east Island and other small rocky satellites, which are uninhabited.
Muscicapa toitoi, Garnot, Voy. Coq. i. p. 590, t. xv. fig. 3 (1826).
Miro toitoi, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 191 (1843).
Petroica toitoi, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 6 (1844).
Myiomoira toitoi, Reich. Syst. Av. Taf. lxvii. (1850).
Muscicapa albopectus, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7465.
Miromiro, Komiromiro, Pimiromiro, Ngirungiru, Pingirungiru, and Pipitori.
♂ suprà sericeo-niger: maculâ frontali conspicuâ albâ: tectricibus alarum plerumque nigris, medianis brunnescentibus: remigibus brunneis, primariis interioribus ad basin albo maculatis, secundariis magis conspicuè notatis, plagam albam exhibentibus: caudâ nigrâ, rectricibus tribus exterioribus ferè omninò albis, basi pogonii interni et apice pogonii externi exceptis nigris: facie laterali, gutture toto et pectore superiore nigris, gulâ, vix brunnescente: corpore reliquo subtùs albo, basi plumarum nigricante: rostro et pedibus nigricantibrunneis: plantis pedum flavicantibus: iride nigrâ.
♀ mari dissimilis: brunnea, subtùs albida, hypochondriis brunnescente lavatis: loris et facie laterali brunneis, fulvescente variis.
Adult male. Head, neck all round, and all the upper parts black; frontal spot, at the base of the upper mandible, white; breast and underparts pure white, the black of the fore neck having a sharply defined lower edge; wing-feathers crossed near their base by an angular patch of white, which is narrow and interrupted on the primaries, broad and continuous on the secondaries, the black shafts, however, forming fine intersecting lines; tail black, the three outer feathers on each side crossed obliquely upwards by a broad bar of white, which covers more than a third of their surface. Irides and rictal bristles black; bill and tarsi blackish brown; toes paler, yellow on their inner surface. Total length 5 inches; wing, from flexure, 3; tail 2·25; bill, along the ridge ·4, along the edge of the lower mandible ·5; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw ·8; hind toe and claw ·65.
Adult female. Upper surface smoky brown, with a minute frontal spot of white; throat, fore neck, and all the underparts greyish white, more or less clouded with dull smoky brown; wing-feathers blackish brown, a bar across the base of the secondaries and some indistinct marks on the webs of the outer primaries fulvous white; tail black, the three outer feathers on each side barred obliquely with white, as in the male.
Young. In the young male the colours are much duller and browner, and the sharply defined pectoral line is wanting; but the plumage is sufficiently different from that of the female to distinguish the sexes.
Obs. The sexes do not present any perceptible difference in size. Individuals, however, vary perceptibly. The measurements of an ordinary bird are given above; but a smaller example of the adult male which I shot in the Forty-Mile Bush gave the following results:—Length 4·75 inches; extent of wings 8; wing, from flexure, 2·75; tail 2; bill, along the ridge ·25, along the edge of lower mandible ·5; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw ·75.
In both sexes the tongue, palate, and interior of the mouth, as well as the angle, are orange-yellow; differing in this respect from Clitonyx, in which the male bird has a black mouth and the female a flesh-coloured one.
Mr. Sharpe says (Cat. Birds Brit. Mus.) that This elegant little bird belongs to the North Island, where it has a pretty general distribution, being met with in all localities suited to its habitsM. toitoi is found in the Chatham Islands. But this is obviously a mistake, the only species at present known from these islands being M. dieffenbachii, which, as explained above, is identical with M. macrocephala of the South Island.ngi-i-ru, ngiru-ngiru, from which it derives its native name, the first syllable being somewhat prolonged. Throughout the day, and often till late in the evening, it utters, at frequent intervals, a soft note like the words “Willoughby-willoughby,” repeated several times. This is often heard in association with the musical trill of Gerygone, the two birds warbling, as it were responsively, from the same bush.
It is very tenacious of life, and I have found it difficult to kill, even with dust-shot, the bird often flying some distance after being mortally wounded. On examining it after death, one is struck with the disproportionately large size of the head, which is kept drawn in upon the body during life, as shown in the figure. The plumage, which is peculiarly soft and yielding, is distributed in well-defined tracts or areas, as in all other Carinate birds; but the intervening spaces are unusually wide, being perfectly smooth and bare, and the skin on the hind neck rises in a peculiar, naked fold, with a narrow line of feathers on the top like a mane.
It is interesting to watch this active little creature as it flits about the fences and fallen timber in the bush-clearings, where it is to be found at all hours of the day. It rests for a moment on its perch, flirting its wings and tail in a rapid manner, then darts to the ground to pick up a grub or earthworm, and, flying upwards again almost immediately, clings by its tiny feet to the upright bole of a tree or some other perpendicular surface, a peculiar attitude which it appears to delight in. Its food consists of small insects and their larvæ; and it proves itself useful by devouring a destructive little aphide which infests our fruit-trees. I have opened many and in every instance found its stomach full of minute insect remains, proving how serviceable it must be to the husbandman.
Like its allies, Erythacus for instance, this bird has a pugnacious spirit, and during the pairing-season the males meet and fight on the slightest provocation, whether real or imaginary.
I have noticed that it often manifests an attachment for a particular locality, resorting to the same perch day after day. The Maoris, too, have observed this; and at Otaki they passed their title to a plot of ground through the Native Land Court under the name of “Te-tau-a-te-Miromiro” (the perching-place of the Miromiro).
It is far less plentiful than it formerly was in our fields and gardens. There seems no reason to fear, however, that the species is dying out, for in the Fagus forests of the interior I have found it extremely plentiful. In the woods at the foot of Ruapehu and neighbouring high lands, where, save the occasional twitter of small birds in the branches, all is silent as the grave, this pretty little creature is always to be met with. It flits noiselessly from one tree to another, then descends to the ground, and in a few instants reappears on its perch, flirting its tail upwards, and emitting at intervals a soft call-note of peculiar sweetness. Destitute of animal life as these sub-alpine woods undoubtedly are, they are not without their attractions. Owing to their high elevation vapour-clouds are continually hanging over them, causing a perpetual moisture. In consequence of this the
Its ally, Myiomoira macrocephala, in the South Island, has the same habit of frequenting high altitudes; for not only is this bird met with among the high tussock-grass on the plains, but likewise on the summits of the ranges, flitting about among the snow-grass and other stunted vegetation, at an elevation of 5000 feet or more, and subsisting on the small alpine lepidoptera and théir larvæ, or such diptera and other minute insects as inhabit these mountain heights.
Common as this species is, I have found it difficult to study its breeding-habits, and have never succeeded in finding more than one nest. I met with this in the Upper Hutt valley, in the neighbourhood of Wellington, as late as the 3rd of December. It was placed in the cavity of a tree a few feet from the ground, and contained four young birds apparently about a week old. The nest was composed entirely of dry moss, shallow in its construction, but with a neatly finished rim or outer edge. The parent birds manifested some solicitude for the safety of their offspring while I was handling them. After I had replaced the young birds and retired a few steps from the spot, the female squatted upon the nest, which was sufficiently near the entrance of the cavity to be distinctly visible; and on being disturbed she fluttered away with wings outstretched and quivering, as if unable to fly, and apparently to divert attention from the nest.
Mr. Weston Brown, a bird-collector at Wellington, showed me a pair of newly fledged young birds of this species which he had taken himself. He informed me that he had found them in a rudely constructed nest in the hollow of a whitewood tree, and about 9 inches from the entrance. There were only two young birds in the nest, and these were male and female. The plumage of the former was strongly suffused with brown; but the colours were sufficiently distinct to indicate the sex.
During the early part of the breeding-season the female is never visible, and I think it is probable that while engaged in the task of incubation she is attended and fed by the male, for I have seen the latter carrying food in his bill. As late as September 30, I have seen as many as ten males in an afternoon’s ramble, without catching a glimpse of the other sex. The young birds do not seem to pair till the second year; for in the breeding-season I have, on dissection, found well-plumaged birds with microscopic testes, whilst in others these organs were developed to the size of buck-shot, being conspicuously large for so small a creature.
There is every reason to believe that this species breeds twice in the season, because it is a common thing to find nests containing fresh eggs in October and again in December. The usual complement of eggs is four, but sometimes there are only three. Mr. Reischek told me that, on the Little Barrier, he came upon a nest, containing three eggs, which through some misadventure had got filled with rain-water. The birds seemed fully aware of the gravity of the situation, and were flitting around it in a very excited and distressed manner; but when he proceeded to take possession of both nest and eggs they sat perfectly quiet and did not utter a sound.
The nest is a compact round structure, with a thick foundation, and composed of dry moss, grass, and vegetable fibres, felted together; the cup, which is comparatively large, measuring 2·25 inches in diameter, is often lined with the inner bark of the ribbon-wood ( Hoheria populnea), and the outer rim is well pressed together just as if bound by some invisible thread. The eggs are of large size in proportion to the bird, measuring ·85 inch in length by ·80 in breadth; they are in form broadly ovoido-conical and are creamy white, freckled all over with yellowish brown, the markings running together and forming a clouded zone near the larger end. Sometimes the zone is absent and the freckled appearance less pronounced. A specimen taken from a nest in the hole of a dry stump differs in being of a pale reddish tint, thickly speckled and freckled with light brown.
Great-headed Titmouse, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 2, p. 557, pl. lv. (1783).
Parus macrocephalus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 1013 (1788, ex Lath.).
Pachycephalus? macrocephalus, Steph. Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 267 (1826).
Rhipidura macrocephala, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 190 (1843).
Miro forsterorum, Gray, op. cit. ii. p. 191 (1843).
Miro dieffenbachii, Gray, op. cit. ii. p. 191 (1843).
Petroica macrocephala, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 6 (1844).
Petroica dieffenbachii, id. op. cit. p. 6, pi. 6. fig. 1 (1844).
Turdus minutus, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 83 (1844).
Miro macrocephala, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 299 (1850).
Muscicapa macrocephala, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7465.
Muscicapa minuta, Ellman, tom. cit. p. 7465.
Myiomoira dieffenbachii, Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 229 (1869).
Myiomoira macrocephala, id. op. cit. p. 229 (1869).
The same as those applied to the preceding species.
♂ similis M. toitoi, sed maculâ frontali albâ minore et pectore flavido distinguendus.
♀ similis feminæ M. toitoi, sed pectore flavido lavato.
Adult male. Similar to M. toitoi, except in the colour of the under surface, which is pale lemon-yellow instead of being white, deepening to orange where it meets the black of the fore neck, and fading away into yellowish white on the vent and under tail-coverts; the white frontal spot, moreover, is somewhat less distinct than in the former bird. Irides lustrous black. Legs and feet blackish brown, the under surface and sides of the toes orange-yellow. Total length 5·4 inches; extent of wings 8·5; wing, from flexure, 3·2; tail 2·2; bill, along the ridge ·35, along the edge of lower mandible ·55; tarsus ·7; middle toe and claw ·8; hind toe and claw ·7.
Female. Similar to the female of M. toitoi, but having the breast and abdomen washed with very pale lemonyellow, and the wing-bar tinged with fulvous.
Young. In the young of both sexes the yellow is reduced to a scarcely perceptible tinge, and in some examples is altogether wanting. In the young male the breast is obscurely mottled with dusky black, and in the young female these markings are brown and extend to the flanks.
Varieties. A very pretty albino specimen, received from Otago, has nearly the whole of the body white, with a wash of bright yellow on the head, breast, and abdomen; on the fore part of the breast there is a broad mark of velvety black, and on the upper surface there are a few scattered feathers of the same; some of the wing-feathers are pure white, the rest are black; the two middle tail-feathers are white, the outer ones black, obliquely crossed with a bar of white; bill and legs as in ordinary specimens.
Another albino, in the Otago Museum, has the general plumage white, with a faint tinge of brown on the
Professor Hutton, I believe, still recognizes two species, both of them found in the South Island. In the critical notes appended to his ‘Catalogue’(1871) he remarked:–“Mr. Obs, Individuals vary much both in size and in the tone of their colouring, some males having the underparts of a uniform pale lemon-yellow, others rich canary-yellow, deepening into orange on the breast. The one figured is a highly coloured specimen in my own collection. A specimen in the Canterbury Museum measures only 4·75 inches in length, corresponding, both in size and plumage, with the type of Mr. M. dieffenbachii; and I have received equally small examples from the Chatham Islands; but, after a very careful comparison, I am unable to admit the validity of the supposed new speciesPetroica dieffenbachii as being smaller than P. macrocephala, and with the yellow on the chest darker; but of the two species that aro found in the South Island it is the larger one that has the darker colour on the chest. It is therefore doubtful which of the two is the true maorocephala.” The answer to the above is that I have in my possession a series of speoimens showing every gradation of colour between the two extremes, and that the darkest is likewise the smallest of them all.
This Tomtit is the South-Island representative of the preceding species, which is only found north of Cook’s Strait. It appears, however, to enjoy a wider geographical range; for I obtained specimens at the Chatham Islands, and the Antarctic Expedition brought some from the Auckland Islands.
The stomachs of all those I opened were crammed with small diptera, coleoptera, and caterpillars, showing the strictly insectivorous character of this species.
The habits of this bird are similar to those of its northern ally (M. toitoi), except that it appears to be less recluse in its nidification; for it is a common thing to find its somewhat elaborate nest, and often in exposed situations, a favourite location being under the head of the ti ( Cordyline australis).
There is much variation in nests from different localities, but a very typical example in my collection is of a rounded basket-shape, with a thick foundation, measuring four inches across the top, with a maximum depth of a little over three inches. It is composed of moss, dry leaves, roots of umbelliferous plants, minute fragments of bark and other vegetable substances, compactly bound together; and the cup, which is fully an inch and a half in depth, is thickly lined with soft tree-moss. Mixed with the building-materials I have enumerated are some small tufts of sheep’s wool; and passing right through the wall of the nest, apparently to serve as a support, there is a bent fern-stalk nearly six inches long Mr.
The eggs, which are generally three in number, but occasionally four, are ovoido-conical, measuring ·75 inch in length by ·6 in breadth; they are white, with a broad freckled zone of purplish brown at the larger end, and with the whole surface dusted or minutely freckled with paler brown; sometimes without the zone, and beautifully speckled all over with various shades of brown.
Curruca igata, Quoy et Gaim. Voy. de l’Astrol., Zool. i. p. 201, pl. xi. fig. 2 (1830).
Acanthiza igata, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 189 (1843).
Gerygone flaviventris, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 5, pl. 4. fig. 1 (1844).
Gerygone igata, id. op. cit. p. 5 (1844).
Gerygone assimilis, Buller, Essay on Orn. N. Z. p. 9 (1865).
Acanthiza flaviventris, Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 219 (1869).
Ad. suprà grisescenti-brunneus, dorso et uropýgio cum supracaudalibus olivaceo lavatis, his lætiùs tinctis: tectricibus alarum remigibusque brunneis, extùs angustè olivaceo limbatis: rectricibus cinerascenti-brunneis versùs apicem conspicuè nigricantibus, duabus externis maculâ anteapicali albâ notatis, reliquis ad apicem pogonii interni albo maculatis: facie laterali guttureque toto sordidè cinereis: corpore reliquo subtùs albicante, abdomine imo et hypochondriis flavido tinctis, his etiam paullò olivascentibus: rostro et pedibus saturatè brunneis: iride rubrâ.
Juv. similis adultis, sed coloribus dilutioribus.
Adult male. Upper parts brownish grey, tinged on the back with olivaceous brown; throat, fore part of neck, breast, and sides cinereons grey; abdomen and under tail-coverts white, the former slightly tinged with yellow; primaries dark brown, paler on the inner webs; tail-feathers dark brown in their basal, almost black in their apical portion, and, with the exception of the two median ones, having an angular white spot near the tip on their inner webs. The plumage is sooty black at the base, but this is only observable on moving the feathers. Irides red; bill, tarsi, and toes dark brown. Total length 4·5 inches; extent of wings 6; wing, from flexure, 2·12; tail 2; culmen ·3; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw ·5; hind toe and claw ·75.
Female. Similar in plumage, but of smaller size.
Young. In the young bird the tints of the plumage generally are paler and there is an entire absence of the yellow tinge. Irides brown.
Obs. In some adult examples the measurements are slightly larger than those given above, there is an absence of the yellow tinge on the abdomen, and the white spot on the lateral tail-feathers is terminal.
Note. A figure of this bird in the act of feeding a young Cuckoo will be found on the Plate representing Eudynamis taitensis. The illustration given in the ‘Voy. de l′Astrolabe’ is scarcely recognizable.
In the warm sunlight of advancing summer, when the manuka-scrub is covered with its snow-white bloom and the air is laden with the fragrance of forest flowers, amidst the hum of happy insect-life, a soft trill of peculiar sweetness—like the chirping of a merry cricket—falls upon the ear, and presently a tiny bird appears for an instant on the topmost twigs of some low bush, hovers for a few moments, like a moth before a flower, or turns a somersault in the air, and then drops out of sight again. This is the Grey Warbler, the well-known Riroriro of Maori history and song.
This little bird, of sombre plumage and unobtrusive habits, is an interesting species, whether we regard it merely as the familiar frequenter of our gardens and hedgerows, or, more especially, as the builder of a beautiful pensile nest and the foster-parent of our two parasitical Cuckoos (Eudynamis taitensis and Chrysococcyx lucidus). It belongs to a group of which there are numerous representatives in Australia, and its habits are in no way different from those of its relations.
It is plentiful in every part of New Zealand, and appears to be as much at home in the woods as in the open scrub. I have seen it hunting for its minute prey in the leafy tops of forest trees, the tawa being its favourite resort, probably on account of some special kind of insect food. On one occasion, after very cold weather, I picked up a dead one at the foot of an aged kauri tree, with a smooth trunk fully seventy feet in height. In the Hot Lakes district I have found it flitting round the steaming geysers, apparently unaffected by the sulphur fumes, and catching the minute flies that are attracted thither by the humid warmth. Down by the sea-shore its note may be heard in the low vegetation that fringes the ocean beach; whilst far up the mountain-side, where the scrub is scarce and stunted, it shares the dominion with the ever-present “I hea koe i te tangihanga o te riroriro”? (Where were you when the Riroriro began to sing?): a proverb applied to a lazy man who neglects his planting.Zosterops. Its sweet trilling warble is always pleasant to the ear, being naturally associated in the mind with the hum of bees among the flowers, and the drumming of locusts in the sunshine. It becomes louder and more persistent in the spring-time; and “Kua tangi te riroriro” has become a sort of watchword among the Maoris, signifying “Planting-time has commenced: let us be up and doing.” I remember the late Sir
Its food consists of minute flies and insects and their larvæ, in the eager pursuit of which it appears to spend its whole time, moving about with great agility and uttering at short intervals a note of much sweetness, though of little variety. The bird is easily attracted by an imitation of this note, however rudely attempted, and may be induced to fly into the open hand by quickly revolving a leaf or small fern-frond, so as to represent the fluttering of a captive bird. Layard compares the note to the creaking sound of a wheel-barrow; and I have sometimes heard it so subdued and regular, as to be scarcely distinguishable from the musical chirping of the pihareinga or native cricket.
When resting on a twig, it has a habit of flipping its wings after the manner of a Goldfinch. Its ordinary flight is in short undulations with the tail outspread, showing the markings on the lateral feathers.
Where the rank growth of bracken covers the open land, mixed here and there with the flowering Leptospermum and blending its sombre tints with the dark-green clumps of tupakihi forming together a close thicket over which the wild convolvulus twines itself and exhibits its pendent flowers of pink and white—here the Grey Warbler has its home in absolute security, and here in some shady recess it hangs its pear-shaped nest and rears its little brood. It builds a large and remarkably ingenious nest, in which it lays from three to six eggs, and, as I am inclined to think, breeds twice in the season. The construction of the nest, which is of great size as compared with the bird, occupies of necessity a considerable time. In one instance noted, I observed the birds collecting materials for their work towards the end of August, and the young did not quit the clump of climbing-rose in which the nest was placed till the first week in October.
Selected on accóunt of its unwearied industry, or because of the peculiar fitness of its warm domed nest for the nurture of a semitropical species, this little bird is the willing victim of our two migratory Cuckoos, the Warauroa and Koheperoa—the former of which, at any rate, deposits its egg in the nest of this species, while both of them delegate to this tiny creature the task of rearing their young.
I have found the intrusive egg of the former in the nest with those of the Grey Warbler, and I have frequently observed the voracious young Cuckoo being attended and fed by the foster-parent, but I have never seen the young of these birds together. Either the parasitic egg being the first hatched, the others are neglected and allowed to perish, or the intruder, finding the accommodation insufficient, by virtue of his superior size and strength casts out the rightful occupants and usurps entire possession of the nest.
Although, as already mentioned, the Grey Warbler appears to lay twice in the season In further support of my view as to a double brood, I am glad to find room for the following valuable note received from Mr. J. Brough, of Nelson:—“It may interest you to know exactly the time it takes the Grey Warbler to construct its nest. On November 29 I took a nest with five eggs which I had found close to my camp. On December 1 the birds commenced a fresh nest near the site of the old one. I watched them carefully, and will give you the result as entered every night in my diary.— Dec. 2. Showery day; warblers hard at work. Dec. 3. Snow showers; but no interruption in the work. Dec. 4 & 5. Snowing all day, but warblers hard at work from morning till night. Dec. 5. Fine day; birds working diligently. Dec. 6. Another fine day; warblers completed their nest. Dec. 8. First egg laid. Dec. 11. Another egg. Dec. 12. Third egg. Dec. 13. Fourth egg laid, and hen commenced to sit. Whilst the building of the nest was proceeding, I noticed that the male bird undertook the chief part of the labour in collecting and carrying materials, and that the weaving of these materials together and building of the nest was performed almost entirely by the female.”
The young on leaving the nest are extremely nimble and somewhat shy. For several days after quitting their domed cradle they remain in its. vicinity, following the old birds about in a restless manner and emitting incessantly a scarcely audible piping note. On these occasions I have noticed that the birds hunt all day long in a wide circle, with the nest-home as a centre; and they probably take their young family back to it at night for shelter and warmth. The nests of most birds, when the young have flown, are polluted and unserviceable, being easily distinguishable as “old nests;” but this is not the case with the nest of the species under consideration. The cavity or chamber is deeply lined with soft feathers; and to keep the interior clean and pure, the young birds may be seen elevating their bodies to the edge of the orifice on the side of the nest and ejecting the alvine discharge to some distance. Thus the nest is kept in perfect condition for continued use, in the manner suggested, for the rearing of a second brood. At the close of the breeding-season it may be observed that this bird has the shafts of the tail-feathers denuded, often to the extent of a quarter of an inch, the result, no doubt, of its laborious building-operations.
I have examined a large number of their nests in various parts of the country and in almost every variety of situation; and while invariably exhibiting the pensile character, they are, as a rule, referable to one or the other of two distinct types—the bottle-shaped nest with the porch or vestibule, and the pear-shaped form without the porch. This peculiarity, coupled with the significant fact that in some instances the eggs were pure white, in others speckled or spotted with red, led me at one time to suspect the existence of two distinct but closely allied species; and a manifest difference in the size of some examples tended to strengthen that view. In my ‘Essay on the Ornithology of New-Zealand’ (1865) I described the two forms of nest, and proposed to distinguish the builder of the large Gerygone assimilis. It may yet be necessary to recognize the existence of a larger and a smaller race, although the subject requires further investigation. My present belief is that the difference in size is only sexual. It may be considered settled, however, that the ascertained difference is not such as to justify a specific separation.
Since the foregoing was written, Mr. Having given the result of my own examination of the type of Gerygone igata, Quoy et Gaim.) is a distinct species. Being anxious to determine the point for myself, I lately paid a visit to Paris and examined the type. I was unable to find any character by which it could be distinguished from the common species. It is apparently a young bird with soft plumage; there is no tinge of yellow on the underparts, and the dark grey of the upper surface is somewhat suffused with brownGerggone igata, I think it is only right to quote, in full, the conclusion in an opposite direction arrived at by Mr. Sharpe, in his notes to the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror,’ pp. 25, 26:—“During a recent visit to Paris I examined, in company with Dr. Oustalet, the type of this species, which still exists in the Jardin des Plantes…… We compared the type with Dr. Buller’s figure and with the specimens of Gerygone flaviventris and we could not believe that the two species were identical. I take the following observations from my note-book:—‘It is very close to G. flaviventris, but instead of being grey on the throat, the latter is whitish washed with yellow, a shade of which is also apparent on the cheeks; sides of the breast washed with brown; abdomen white, the flanks washed with yellow. “Wing 1·95 inch, tarsus ·75.’ The tail is imperfect, but on the feathers which remain the white spot is decidedly more correctly described as terminal instead of subterminal. I mention this latter observation á propos of the following remarks made by Dr. Buller in his great work: ‘In some examples the measurements are slightly larger, there is an absence of the yellow tinge on the abdomen, and the white spot on the lateral tail-feathers is terminal.’ The last-named author does not seem to allow these differences to be specific; but I think that further investigation by the field-observers in New Zealand may prove G. igata to be a good species, and I leave the matter in their hands.” On the other hand, Dr. Finsch, in a letter to myself, stated, as the result of an independent examination:—“It will interest you to hear that the specimen of the so-called Gerygone igata in the Museum at Paris is positively Gerygone flaviventris.”
Strictly speaking, according to this view, Gerygone igata ought to take the place of Gerygone flaviventris, owing to its priority over the latter; but, in the first place, the name is a barbarous one and objectionable on that account, and, secondly, I am unwilling to disturb a name that has been in general currency for close upon fifty years.
The two forms of nest above alluded to were thus described in my ‘Essay’ (p. 9):—“That of the smaller species is a compact little nest, measuring about 6 inches by 3·5. It is ‘bottle-shaped,’ full and rounded at the base, and tapering upwards to a point, by which it is suspended. It is composed of a variety of soft materials—spiders’ nests, dry moss, grass, vegetable fibres, &c. The spiders’ nests consist of a soft silky substance, by the aid of which the materials composing the nest are woven into a compact wall, with a smooth and finished exterior. The entrance, which is situated on the side of the nest, is so small as barely to admit the finger, and it is protected from the weather by a very ingenious contrivance. It is surrounded by a protecting rim or ledge, composed of extremely fine roots interlaced or loosely woven together and firmly secured to the groundwork of the nest. This facing is arched at the top so as to form a vestibule or porch, while at the base it stands out boldly from the wall, and is nearly an inch in depth, thus furnishing a firm and secure threshold for the bird in its passage to and from the cell. The interior apartment or cavity is about two inches deep, and is thickly lined with soft feathers; and the nest forms altogether a well-proportioned and symmetrical structure, testifying alike to the skill and industry of the modest little builder. The nest of the other species is of a somewhat similar size; but it is fuller in the middle than the one described, and is pear-shaped towards the apex instead of tapering. The materials composing it are of coarser texture, there is less execution or finish about it, and the ingenious porch, the peculiar feature of the one, is altogether wanting in the other.”
A specimen of the nest, with a porch entrance, in Dr. Sisson’s possession, measures nine inches, and is produced downwards to a point, instead of being rounded as in the typical examples.
As I have previously pointed out, in a communication to the Wellington Philosophical Society (November 12,1870), among the substances used as building-materials by this bird, spiders ‘nests are always conspicuous; indeed, in some specimens, the whole exterior surface is covered with them. The particular web chosen for this purpose is an adhesive cocoon of loose texture and of dull green colour. These spiders’ nests contain a cluster of flesh-coloured eggs or young; and in tearing them off the bird necessarily exposes the contents, which it eagerly devours. Thus, while engaged in collecting the requisite building-material, it finds also a plentiful supply of food—an economy of time and labour very necessary to a bird that requires to build a nest fully ten times its own size, and to rear the Cuckoo’s offspring in addition to its own. Curiously enough, the bird uses only the green-coloured nests of Epeira verrucosa, and rejects the orange-coloured nests of E. antipodiana. I think this may be explained on the principle of assimilative or protective colouring. Dry freshwater algæ are sometimes used for binding the exterior and giving additional firmness to the structure.
In the Canterbury Museum there is a beautiful nest of this species, composed almost wholly of sheeps ‘wool intermixed with soft dry leaves. It is almost globular in shape, with the entrance near the top, and is lightly suspended from a branch of Leptospermum. There is also another of much larger size, composed of wool and spiders’ nests, with fragments of cotton and twine carefully interwoven, and furnished with a hoodless vestibule or porch, composed of fibrous rootlets; the threshold is unusually deep and firm, probably because of the very yielding materials of which the nest is built.
Another series presents some curious departures from the normal type, showing that the exact form of the nest is often the result of accident, the structure being adapted to the materials of which it happens to be composed and to the circumstances of its location. The subjoined woodcuts may help to illustrate the subject. Fig. 1 represents a nest of larger size than usual, and of a long elliptical shape, which exhibits the uncommon feature of several soft Emu-feathers, worked into the felting among the other building-materials. Fig. 2 shows a nest of the ordinary form, ornamented with the long dry leaves of the red gum (Eucalyptus rostrata), around and among which the neat structure is most cleverly built. In fig. 3 there is a manifest departure from the typical character exhibited in fig. 4. Lastly, fig. 5 shows the condition of the nest after the young Cuckoo usurper has pulled it out of shape and symmetry. Four is the normal number of eggs, although there are sometimes six. They differ somewhat in size; and in shape are ovoido-conical or slightly pyriform. They are sometimes pure white, but more generally freckled and marked with purplish brown, and are so fragile in texture as to bear only the most delicate handling. Ordinary specimens measure ·7 of an inch in length by ·5 in breadth. I have remarked that among the highly variable eggs of this species several distinct types may be recognized, and that all the eggs in one nest are invariably alike. Thus there is the spotted variety, in which the whole surface is studded with scattered dots of purplish brown; secondly, the freckled variety, in which the coloration is more diffuse; and, thirdly, the zoned variety, presenting a broad zone of colour near the thick end. Two examples, taken from a nest which contained also an egg of the Shining Cuckoo, had the thick end broadly capped with reddish brown.
Gerygone? albofrontata, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 5, pl. 4. fig. 2 (1844).
Acanthiza albofrontata, Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 219 (1869).
Ad. suprà olivascenti-brunneus, pileo obscuriore, uropygio et supracaudalibus lætè et conspicuè rufescenti-fulvis: tectricibus alarum et remigibus cinerascenti-brunneis, dorsi colore limbatis: rectricibus cinerascenti brunneis, versus apicem purpurascenti-nigris et fasciâ fulvescente transversim notatâ, pennis duabus centrali bus reliquorumque apicibus omninò cinerascenti-brunneis: fronte, supercilio et facie laterali albidis, loris et regione paroticâ brunneo notatis: subtùs albicans, abdomine imo et hypochondriis flavicantibus: sub caudalibus et tibiis fulvis: subalaribus albicantibus flavido lavatis: iride cruentatä: rostro brunneo, goyde pallidiore: pedibus saturatè brunneis.
Adult male. Upper surface rusty brown, lighter on the wings and rump; the whole of the plumage plumbeous beneath; forehead, sides of the head, fore neck, breast, and the underparts generally greyish white, tinged with yellow on the flanks and abdomen; an obscure streak of dusky brown passes through the eyes; wing feathers dusky brown, with lighter shafts, margined on their outer webs with yellowish brown; inner lining of wings yellowish white; tail-feathers rusty brown, tinged with rufous towards the base, darker brown in their apical portion, with the tips paler; the two outermost feathers on each side with a broad subterminal bar of fulvous white, and the two succeeding ones with an obscure triangular spot of fulvous white on the inner webs; upper tail-coverts rufous-brown. Irides blood-red; bill and feet blackish brown. Total length 5·75 inches; wing, from flexure, 2·6; tail 2·5; bill, along the ridge ·4, along the edge of lower mandible ·5; tarsus ·9; middle toe and claw ·65; hind toe and claw ·65.
Female. Similar to the male, but slightly smaller, and without the yellow tinge on the underparts.
Obs. In my former edition, under the head of Gerygone albofrontata, I observed:—“I have never met with this bird in New Zealand; but it is highly probable that the supposed new species of
This fine species was originally described and figured by Mr. G.Gerygone flaviventris; but with a larger aperture, and without any threshold projection, although the upper edge is overhanging. The green-coloured nests of the meadow-spider (Epeira) are used among the building-materials, and likewise the white cocoons of some ground species, which I have not been able to identify. The eggs (of which I have three specimens) are slightly ovoido-conical, measuring ·75 inch in length by ·55 in breadth; pinkish white, marked over the entire surface with minute specks and linear freckles of reddish brown, which coalesce and form a cap at the larger end.
Gerygone sylvestris, Potts, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1872, vol. v. p. 177.
Ad. ♂ similis G. flaviventri, sed supra saturatior: tectricibus alarum nigris, extùs, flavido lavatis: remigibus brunneis, extùs flavido lavatis: subalaribus albidis: caudä, brunneä, nigro conspicuë transfasciatä, rectricibus duabus mediis nigris brunneo terminatis, duabus externis albidis conspicuë transfasciatis et brunneo terminatis: supracaudalibus schistaceo-nigris, flavido terminatis: rostro nigro, versus apicem flavicante: pedibus nigris, plantis flavicantibus: iride cruentatâ.
Adult male. “Upper surface dark olivaceous; wings smoky black, except first two feathers, outer webs fringed with yellow; cheek dark grey, darkest in a line from the gape through the eye; chin grey; neck and breast pale grey; abdomen white; under wing-coverts white; upper wing-coverts brown, margined with yellow; upper tail-coverts slaty black, tipped with yellow; tail brown, with a broad band of black, two centre feathers black, tipped with brown, four feathers on each side tipped with white on inner webs, pale brown on outer web, two outer feathers broadly barred with white, tipped with brown. Bill black; both mandibles horn-colour at the point; legs and feet black; inside of feet yellowish flesh; irides bright bloodred. Bill, from gape, 6 lines; wing from flexure 2 inches; tail 2 inches 2 lines; tarsus 9 lines; middle toe and claw 5 lines; total length 4 inches 5 lines. Male bird killed in full song, Dec. 20.” (Potts.)
The above Warbler, of which unfortunately no specimen exists in any collection, by which to test its value as a species, was first made known by Mr. Gerygone flaviventris, in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute’; and, never having seen the bird, I have quoted his description of it.
The following is the account he gives:—“Whilst journeying in the dense bush which clothes the western slopes of the Middle Island, making acquaintance with the Kiwi and Kakapo, the note of a bird was heard that was new to us; it was evidently that of a Gerygone, but differed much from that of our familiar gully-haunting Warbler. The habitat was unusual, in the thick bush, between the bluff of Okarito and Lake Mapourika; whereas our little Riroriro delights in trilling from the shrubs on the creek-side or more open country, or in flitting about the bushy vegetation of the gullies that fringe or form the outskirts of a forest. Neither my son, who accompanied me, nor myself had ever heard a similar note. For the next few days, whilst rambling in that locality, we heard the same note repeatedly, and saw the birds, but we never observed one of them on the outside of the bush.”
Possibly to this species belongs the alpine bird mentioned by Mr. Reischek in a letter to myself, as having been met with by him during his trip to the west-coast sounds in search of Notornis:—“At Dusky Sound (on the 2nd July, 1884) I ascended one of the heavily wooded ridges, and on arriving at the top I heard a new bird. It was out of sight in the foliage of a tree, and got away before I could get a glimpse of it. Its call consists of three notes, like di-di-di, repeated several times. I went in search of it again but without success. I have been exploring in the New-Zealand forests for the last eight years and am familiar with all the birds’ notes; but this one was quite new to me, and was evidently produced by some small bird which I have not yet seen.”
New-Zealand Titmouse, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 2, p. 558.(1783).
Parus novæ seelandiæ, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 1013 (1788, ex Lath.).
Parus novæ zealandiæ, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 571 (1790).
In the ‘Voyage de l′Astrolabe’ there is a flgure intended to represent this bird, under the title of “Mésange de la Nouvelle Zélande;” but without the descriptive text it would be quite impossible to identify the species, the drawing being very defective and the colouring incorrect.Parus zelandicus, Quoy & Gaim. Voy. de l’Astrol. i. p. 210, pl. xi. fig. 3
Certhiparus novæ zelandiæ, Lafr. Rev. Zool. 1842, p. 69.
Certhiparus novæ seelandiæ, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 189 (1843).
Certhiparus maculicaudus, Gray, op. cit. ii. p. 189 (1843).
Parus urostigma, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 90 (1844).
Certhiparus novæ zealandiæ, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 254.
♂ suprà chocolatino-brunneus, pileo paullulum obscuriore: facie laterali nuchâque cinerascentibus: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus brunneis, primariis extùs angustè fulvescente limbatis, secundariis latiùs dorsi colore lavatis: caudâ rufescenti-chocolatinâ, rectricibus (duabus mediis exceptis) fasciâ nigrâ transnotatis: subtùs rufescenti-albus, corporis lateribus et tectricibus subcaudalibus chocolatino lavatis: rostro et pedibus pallidè brunneis, unguibus fulvescenti-brunneis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
♀ mari omninò smilis.
Juv. vix ab adultis distinguendus, sed magis vinaceo tinctus.
Adult. Fore part of head, crown, back, rump, and upper surface of wings bright cinereous brown, inclining to rufous; quills light brown, the outer webs tinged towards their base with rufous; tail-feathers pale rufous, and, with the exception of the two middle ones, crossed on their inner web, about half an inch from the tip, with a broad band of black; sides of head and nape cinereous grey; throat, breast, and abdomen rufous-white. Irides grey; bill, tarsi, and toes pale brown; claws lighter brown. Total length 5·25 inches; extent of wings 6·75; wing, from flexure, 2·5; tail 2·6; tarsus ·75; bill, along the ridge ·5, along the edge of lower mandible ·6; middle toe and claw ·6; hind toe and claw ·6.
Young. Plumage as in the adult, but suffused with vinous brown.
Obs. The sexes are alike, both as to size and colouring.
Remarks. I carefully examined, with the late Mr. G.Certhiparus novæ zealandiæ and C. maculicaudus. The individual differences were trivial, and I felt perfectly satisfied that the new species could not be maintained—a conclusion in which Mr. Gray concurred.
Captain Hutton, writing from Auckland, in the North Island, stated, in a letter to ‘The Ibis’ (1867, p. 379), that This lively little species is confined to the wooded parts of the South IslandCerthiparus novœ zealandiæ is “one of the commonest birds in the bush about here;” but he was evidently confounding this bird with some other species, probably Clitonyœ albicapilla, at that time common enough. He repeated, in his ‘Catalogue of the Birds of New Zealand’ (published in 1871) that Certhiparus novæ zealandiæ inhabits “both islands;” but this is undoubtedly an error. I have never heard of the occurrence of this bird, even as a straggler, in any part of the North Island.
Like the other members of the group to which it belongs, it is a gregarious species, associating together in small flocks, and hunting diligently for its insect food among the branches and dense foliage of the forest undergrowth. On being disturbed or alarmed they quickly assemble and chirp round the intruder for a few minutes; and on being reassured they disperse again in search of food.
One of their ordinary notes is not unlike the cry of Creadion carunculatus, although, of course, much feebler.
I have seen them consorting with the Yellow-head in the low underwood, owing doubtless to a community of interest, their habits of feeding being very much the same. They seem to prefer the outskirts of the bush, where insect-life is more abundant; but they are also to be met with in the thick forest.
During severe seasons it has been known to leave the shelter of the bush and to frequent the sheep-stations, flitting about the meat gallows and picking off morsels of fat from the bones and skins of the butchered animals, exactly after the manner of Zosterops under similar circumstances.
In the stomachs of those I examined I found the scale-insect, with minute coleoptera, diptera, and their larvæ, all testifying to the strictly insectivorous character of the bird. The ovary of one which I opened on November 3 contained a small cluster of eggs, the largest being of the size of buck-shot, indicating a late nesting-season.
A nest of this species in the Canterbury Museum is of a rounded form, with a slightly tapering apex, and not unlike a large pear in shape. The structure is composed of dry vegetable fibres, fragments of wool, moss, spiders’ nests, and other soft materials closely felted together. The entrance is placed on the side, about one third distant from the top, and is perfectly round, with smoothened edges. The interior cavity is deeply lined with soft, white, pigeon feathersOf. Trans. N.-Z. Instit. 1872, vol. v. pl. 37.Gerygone rather than to Clitonyx, with which it is associated in the British Museum Catalogue (vol. viii.). I have grouped the birds together on one Plate merely for the sake of artistic convenience.
This bird breeds late in the year, for the nest just mentioned was found far above the Rangitata gorge, in the month of December, and contained three nestlings. Mr. Potts reports that it was “placed in a black-birch between the trunk and a spur, from whence sprouted out a thick tuft of dwarfed sprays, about seven feet from the ground.” He says that it usually lays three eggs and that he has a note of finding the young in the nest as late as December 25th.
There are two eggs of this bird in the Otago Museum. They are broadly ovoido-conical, measuring ·7 of an inch in length by ·6 in breadth, and white with small purplish and brown spots, which run together and form a zone round the larger end.
Acting on Professor Newton’s suggestion, I have substituted albicapilla for albicilla; for the bird is white-headed and not white-tailed, and I cannot believe that Lesson ever intended to apply the latter name to it. Although it has hitherto been the practice to use it, I think Im justified in rectifying what was obviously a lapsus calami.
Fringilla albicilla, Less. Voy. Coq. i. p. 662 (1826).
Parus senilis, Dubus, Bull. Acad. Roy. Brux. vi. pt. 1, p. 297 (1839).
Certhiparus senilis, Lafr. Rev. Zool. v. p. 69 (1842).
Certhiparus albicillus, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 6 (1844).
Certhiparus cincrea, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7465.
Mohoua? albicilla, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 220.
Orthonyx albicilla, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 253.
Orthonyx albicilla, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 101 (1873).
Certhiparus albicillus, Gadow, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. vol. viii. p. 75 (1883).
Popotea, Poupoutea, Popokotea, and Upokotea.
Ad. pileo undique et pectore superiore albis: dorso toto brunneo, supracaudalibus pallidioribus: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus saturatè brunneis, extùs dorsi colore lavatis, primariis paullò pallidiùs limbatis: pogonio interno flavicanti-albo marginato: caudâ flavicanti-brunneâ: pectore medio fulvescenti-albo: corporis lateribus brunneis, dorso concoloribus: subalaribus albis, brunneo lavatis: rostro nigro: tarso et pedibus plumbescenti-nigris, plantis pallidioribus, unguibus brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Juv. vix ab adultis distinguendus, sed coloribus dilutioribus et pileo brunneo lavato.
Adult male. Head and neck all round, breast, inner face of the wings, and middle of the abdomen white, slightly tinged with brown; sides of the body and flanks pale vinous brown; the whole of the back, rump, and upper surface of wings vinous brown, paler on the upper wing-coverts; quills blackish brown, the primaries narrowly margined on their outer webs with grey, and more broadly on their inner webs with yellowish white; tail-feathers and their coverts pale yellowish brown on their upper aspect, sometimes tinged with rufous, the shafts darker; paler on the under surface, with white shafts. Irides black; bill and rictal bristles black; tarsi and toes bluish black, with paler soles and brown claws. Total length 6·5 inches; extent of wings, 8·4; wing, from flexure, 2·9; tail 2·75; bill, along the ridge ·4, along the edge of lower mandible ·5; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 8; hind toe and claw 6.
Female. Similar to the male but somewhat smaller. Total length 6 inches; extent of wings 7·75; wing, from flexure, 2·6; tarsus 9; middle toe and claw 6.
Qbs. In the male bird the palate and soft parts of the mouth are black, and in the female flesh-coloured.
Young. Upper parts pale vinous brown, whitish on the head; throat and underparts greyish white, shading into brown on the sides; wings tinged with yellow on their inner edges.
My account of this species in the former edition of this work commenced thus:—“This interesting little bird is distributed all over the North Island, but is replaced in the South by a representative species, the Orthonyx ochrocephala or Yellow-head. It frequents all wooded localities, but seems to prefer the outskirts of the forest and the low bush fringing the banks of rivers and streams. It is gregarious in its nature; and the report of a gun, the cry of a Hawk, or any other exciting cause will instantly bring a flock of them together, producing a perfect din with their loud chirping notes. It is a curious or inquisitive bird, following the intruder as he passes through the bush, and watching all his movements in a very intelligent manner. If he remains stationary for a few moments, it will peer at him through the leaves with evident curiosity, and will hop gradually downwards from twig to twig, stretching out its neck and calling to its fellows in a loud chirp, and approaching the object of this scrutiny till almost within reach of his hand.”
But alas! what of the Popokotea in this year of grace 1887? In the interesting account which Mr. Reischek has furnished me of a collecting tour he made through almost every part of the island lying to the north of Hawke’s Bay, he says:—“I found one pair of Orthonyx albicilla on Castle Hill, Coromandel, one pair in the Pirongia ranges, Waikato, and one pair in the Tuhua ranges, near Mokau; that was all.” So this is the rapid fate of the pretty, noisy, little White-head, once the commonest bird in all our northern forests!
Even five years ago it was quite plentiful on Te Iwituaroa, at the north-east extremity of the Kuranui-whaiti range in the Waikato district; but now it has disappeared entirely. It is still numerous on the island of Kapiti in Cook’s Strait, and on the Little Barrier; but, strange to say, it no longer exists on the Great Barrier, Kawau, the Hen and Chickens, or indeed, so far as I am aware, on any of the other islands in the Hauraki Gulf. The only localities on the mainland in which I have met with it of late are the wooded hill-tops in the Upper Wairarapa district, and a clump of bush near the Owhaoko station in the Patea country, at a considerable elevation above the sea. It has a simple but very melodious song, some bars of it reminding one of the musical notes of English birds. Its loud chirp is not unlike that of the House-Sparrow, but sharper.
Its food consists of insects and minute seeds. It is very active in all its movements, flitting about among the leafy branches and often ascending to the lofty tree-tops; clinging by the feet head downwards, and assuming every variety of attitude as it prosecutes its diligent search for the small insects on which it principally subsists. I have frequently observed it inserting its beak into the flower of the Metrosideros, either for the purpose of extracting honey, or, as is more likely, to prey on the insects that are attracted by it. I have also known them occasionally caught on the tuke baited with these flowers to allure the Tui and Korimako, which are genuine honey-eaters.
I have found scores of nests of this species, and have made frequent but ineffectual attempts to rear the young in a cage. The nest is usually fixed in the fork of a low shrubby tree, frequently that of the Ramarama (Myrtus bullata), and is always so placed as to be well concealed from observation. It is a round, compact, and well-constructed nest, being composed of soft materials, such as moss, dry leaves, spiders ‘nests, shreds of native flax, and sometimes wool, all firmly knit together. The cavity is deep and well rounded, the walls being formed of dry bents and vegetable fibres, and thickly lined with soft feathers. The lip or outer edge of the nest is carefully bound in with these fibres, sometimes mixed with spiders’ webs, and often presenting a high degree of finish. The eggs are usually three in number, but sometimes four; they are of proportionate size, measuring ·8 of an inch in length by ·6 in breadth, rather rounded in form, and with a shell of very delicate texture. They are creamy white, minutely speckled or marbled over the entire surface with reddish brown, the markings being denser towards the thick end, where they sometimes form an irregular zone. During incubation the hen bird sits closely, and leaves the nest with reluctance, almost permitting herself to be touched by the hand before quitting it.
I have before me now a beautiful nest of this species, which was taken on the Little Barrier in December, and contained three young birds. It is almost spherical, except at the top, which is flattened, measuring in its largest part 4 inches by 3; and its structure is very close and compact, all the materials composing it being well felted together; the cup or cavity is rather deep and rounded with an overhanging lip, the edges being very closely bound and interlaced; and the opening measures just two inches in diameter. The nest is composed of many coloured mosses and lichens, dry leaves, grasses, vegetable fibres, and here and there a feather closely interwoven with the web; and the interior is lined with fine grass-bents and a few feathers.
For the rapid disappearance of our indigenous birds it is hard to assign any special cause. The introduced rat is undoubtedly an important factor in the business by preying on the eggs and young of such species as habitually nest in places accessible to them; but we can hardly account in this way for the almost total disappearance of the pert little White-head, once the commonest denizen of our woods. The introduced bee gets a share of the blame in the case of honey-eating and treehole nesting birds, like the Korimako and Stitch-bird on the one hand, and the Kaka and Parrakeet on the other; but with even less probability than the Norwegian rat can this agent be credited with the destruction of the White-head. The disappearance of the Quail we are accustomed to attribute to the introduction of sheep and the prevalence of tussock fires; the diminution of the Wild Duck to the extensive draining-operations of the farmer; and the thinning of the Wood-Pigeon to the wholesale slaughter of these birds by both Europeans and natives, and in some districts without cessation all the year through. But we find it extremely difficult to discover any sufficient reason for the wonderfully rapid extinction of the White-head, or Popokatea, in most parts of the island. No doubt it is due to a variety of causes, operating with more or less force, all round, and thus furnishing another illustration of what appears to be an almost universal natural law—that indigenous forms of animal and vegetable life sooner or later succumb to, and are displaced by, more vigorous types from without. As the Maori is being rapidly supplanted by his Anglo-Saxon neighbour, as the rat has exterminated and replaced the Kiore maori, as the native fern and other herbaceous vegetation disappears in all directions before the spreading grass and clover of the colonist, so in like manner the native birds, or at any rate many of the well-known species, are giving place to the ever-increasing numbers of Sparrows, Linnets, Greenfinches, Yellowhammers, Starlings, and other introduced birds that are now to be met with in every part of the country.
On the other hand, how are we to account for the almost total disappearance of the introduced Pheasant from the Waikato and other districts, where a few short years ago they were excessively abundant, proving almost a plague to the farmers and Maori cultivators? Some ascribe it to the Hawks, but these were always as numerous as they are now; some to poisoned wheat laid for rabbits, but the Pheasant has disappeared from districts where there are no rabbits, and consequently no poisoned wheat. Others believe that the native Woodhen is responsible for the change; but the habit of feasting on Pheasants’ eggs, whenever it gets the chance, is by no means a newly acquired one with this bird. Doubtless there are agencies at work of which at present we have no knowledge. The fact nevertheless remains, and is quite as inexplicable as in the case of some of our indigenous birds.
For my own part, I deplore very much this displacement of the natural Avifauna, which appears to be almost inevitable, because many interesting types will disappear for ever. Efforts are being made to save some of them by means of island reserves, but I fear the task is a hopeless one. All therefore that remains to us now is to record their history as fully and minutely as possible for the benefit of science. This I shall endeavour to accomplish in the present work, describing faithfully their habits of life, and omitting nothing that may seem likely to prove of interest or value to the student of the future.
Yellow-headed Flycatcher, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. p. 342 (1783).
Muscicapa ochrocephala, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 944 (1788, ex Lath.).
Certhia heteroclites, Quoy & Gaim. Voy. Astrol. i. pl. 17. fig. 1 (1830).
Mohoua hua, Less. Compl. Buff. ix. p. 139 (1837).
Orthonyx icterocephalus, Lafr. Rev. Zool. 1839, p. 257.
Orthonyx heteroclitus, Lafr. Mag. de Zool. 1839, pl. 8.
Mohoua ochrocephala, Gray, List of Gen. of B. p. 25 (1841).
Muscicapa chloris, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 87 (1844).
Orthonyx ochrocephala, Gray & Mitch. Gen. of B. i. p. 151, pl. 46 (1847).
Orthonyx ochrocephala, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 103 (1873).
Certhiparus ochrocephalus, Gadow, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. vol. viii. p. 76 (1883).
The same as those applied to the preceding species: “Canary” of the colonists.
Ad. pileo undique et corpore subtùs lætè citrinis, nuchâ vix olivascente, abdomine imo cum cruribus crissoque cineraceis: dorso toto olivascenti-brunneo, flavido lavato, uropygio conspicuè lætiore flavo: tectricibus alarum et supracaudalibus olivaceo-flavis, illarum majoribus saturatioribus, potiùs olivaceo-viridibus: remigibus brunneis, extùs dorsi colore lavatis, primariis cano limbatis, pogonii interni margine lætè flavicante: caudâ olivaceo-flavâ, subcaudalibus et subalaribus olivaceo-flavis, his albido lavatis: rostro nigro: pedibus nigris, unguibus saturatè brunneis: iride nigrâ.
♀ mari similis, sed coloribus obscurioribus.
Juv. similis adulto, sed pileo et nuchâ olivascente lavatis.
Adult male. Head and breast, sides of the body, and upper part of the abdomen bright canary-yellow; shoulders, back, and upper surface of wings yellowish brown, with an olivaceous tinge; upper surface of tail and the outer margins of the secondary quills dark olivaceous yellow; the colours are blended where they meet, the nape being more or less mottled with yellowish brown; lower part of abdomen greyish white; thighs and flanks pale brown; upper and lower tail-coverts yellow; the whole of the plumage dark plumbeous at the base. Irides black; bill and feet black; claws dark brown. Total length 6·75 inches; extent of wings 9·5; wing, from flexure, 3·25; tail 2·75; bill, along the ridge ·5, along the edge of lower mandible ·7; tarsus]; middle toe and claw ·87; hind toe and claw ·75.
Female. Similar to the male, but with the tints of the plumage generally duller.
Young. The young bird differs from the adult in having the yellow plumage tinged with olivaceous, especially on the crown and nape, where the latter colour predominates; rictal membrane yellow.
Obs. The shafts of the tail-feathers are often found denuded at the tips. During the breeding-season the testes are enormously developed, attaining to the size of small marbles.
This bright-coloured bird is the southern representative of Clitonyx albicapilla. Its range is confined to the South Island, where it is quite as common as the preceding species formerly was in the North. A narrow neck of sea completely divides their natural habitat-a very curious and suggestive fact, inasmuch as this rule applies equally to several other representative species treated of in the present work.
The habits of this bird are precisely similar to those of its northern ally; but it is superior to the latter in size and in the richer colour of its plumage, while its notes are louder and its song more varied and musical. A flock of these Canary-like birds alarmed or excited, flitting about among the branches with much chirping clamour, and exhibiting the bright tints of their plumage, has a very pretty effect in the woods. Even under ordinary conditions it is very pleasing to watch their movements. Hopping from twig to twig, and calling to each other almost continuously in a short clear note, they pass quickly through the branches, moving the body deftly, first to one side then to the other, as they pry into every crevice for the insect food on which they live; then, after remaining stationary a few seconds, they utter a louder and more plaintive note and fly a few yards further to repeat these movements; and so on, all through the day, with never tiring persistence. Sometimes they may be seen hunting among the mosses and lichens that grow on the bark of old forest trees, on which occasions they will ascend the trunks in company, clinging to the hanging vines or any other projecting point, as they make their rapid search, and finally consorting together in the topmost branches. Their black eyes, in a setting of yellow plumage, have a pretty effect, and nothing seems to escape their close scrutiny. They love to move about in the thick foliage, indicating their presence when not chirping by an audible rustling of the green leaves.
The discharge of a collector’s gun, the snapping of a stick under foot, or the cry of a wounded bird, will sometimes bring a flock of forty or fifty of these bright-coloured creatures into the branches overhead, where they move restlessly about, peering down and chirping with noisy din, as if in eager consultation.
In all the specimens opened by me the stomach contained comminuted insect remains, chiefly those of minute coleoptera, and larvae of various kinds.
A life-size drawing of this species, by Mitchell, appeared long ago in the ‘Genera of Birds;’ but the attitude is unnatural, the bird being placed on the ground instead of a tree. The attitude in which Mr. Keulemans has depicted the bird is a highly characteristic one.
On comparing the nest of this species with that of Clitonyx albicapilla, it appears to exhibit more care and finish in its general construction, although composed of the same materials. It is a round and compactly built structure, composed chiefly of mosses, felted together with spiders’ webs, and having the cup lined with fine grasses. In the specimen under examination there are a few feathers of the Tui and Parrakeet intermixed with the other materials. Mr. Potts has “sometimes found it placed in the hollow trunk of a broad-leaf.” His son found a nest containing two young birds. It was built of moss, grass, and sheep’s wool, with a few feathers intermixed, and was placed in a cluster of young shoots on the side of a black birch, near a shepherd’s homestead.
The eggs differ in colour from those of C. albicapilla, but the type is the same. They are ovoido-elliptical in form, measuring ·9 inch by ·7 inch, although some specimens which I have examined were slightly smaller. They are of a uniform reddish cream-colour, minutely and faintly freckled over the entire surface with a darker tint, approaching to pale brown. In one of my specimens the entire surface is of a warm salmon-colour, without any freckled markings; and another is minutely freckled and dotted with reddish brown, of which colour there are also some irregular smeared markings towards the smaller end. The last-mentioned specimen differs also from the typical form in being almost pear-shaped, with the thick end rather flattened, and measuring only ·75 of an inch in length by ·65 in breadth.
As to the systematic position of this form, much doubt and uncertainty existed till the appearance of a paper. “On the Structure of the genus “Both forms are Handb. Spec. Ornith. p. 167 (1851).Orthonyx,” by the late Mr. Forbes, the Prosector to the Zoological Society, in which he gave the results of a careful dissection and comparison of the typical Orthonyx spinicauda of Australia with the so-called Orthonyx ochrocephala from New Zealandtypical Singing-birds (‘Oscines Normales’.), with a well-developed. Oscinine syrinx with its normal complement of four pairs of muscles. Of these the short anterior muscle runs to the anterior end of the third bronchial semiring alone in O. spinicauda; whilst in O. ochrocephala this ring receives its muscular supply from a fasciculus of the long anterior muscle. They thus differ essentially from Menura, with which they have been associated, that bird having but three pairs of muscles peculiarly arranged. In this, as in all other points examined-with one exception in the case of Orthonyx spinicauda—these birds quite resemble the normal Passeres, as they do in having the bilaminate tarsus and reduced ‘first’ (tenth) primary nearly always associated with the normal Acromyodian syrinx. Orthonyx spinicauda, however, has a peculiarity quite unknown to me in any other bird, inasmuch as its carotid artery, the left alone of these vessels (as in all Passeres) being developed, is not contained anywhere in the subvertebral canal, but runs up superficially in company with the left vagus nerve to near the head, where it bifurcates in the usual manner. In Orthonyx ochrocephala the left carotid retains its normal situation, though the point of entrance into the canal is somewhat higher up than is usual in other Passeres.” (P. Z. S. 1882, pp. 544, 545.)Clitonyx of Reichenbach Mohoua, though of prior application, is not only barbarous but, what is more important, liable to be confounded with Mohoa, also a genus of Passeres from the Pacific Subregion.
In the present unsatisfactory condition of the systematic grouping of the Oscinine Passeres, it is impossible for me to point out clearly any definite position either for Orthonyx or Clitonyx, though both forms might, I apprehend, be safely placed in Mr. Sharpe’s somewhat vaguely defined ‘Timeliidae.”’
The above conclusions were based upon an examination of Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 204.C. ochrocephala only from New Zealand. It will be seen that I have placed the North-Island form (C. albicapilla) in the same genus. I am aware that Dr. Finsch has proposed to separate these birds generically, and that his views have been adopted by one or two of our local naturalists. It appears to me, however, quite impossible to find any sufficient distinguishing characters. It will be seen, on comparison, that the wing-feathers present the same proportional arrangement in both species, and that the bill and feet of C. albicapilla, although somewhat more slender, are formed on exactly the same model as in C. ochrocephala. Apart from these external characters, the two forms agree in other essential respects. The peculiar feature of a black mouth (in the male) is common to both; their style of song is the same; the sexes are alike in both, and their habits of nidification are very similar. It is true that the colour of the plumage is different, and that there is some dissimilarity in the coloration of the eggs, but these differences have no generic value. On these grounds I adhere to my old contention
Dr. Gadow, in the ‘Catalogue of the British Museum’ (l. c.), while accepting this relationship of the two forms to each other, has grouped them together with the New-Zealand Creeper in the genus Certhiparus. So far, however, from adopting this arrangement, I have deemed it necessary not only to separate these birds generically but to place them in different Families.
Synallaxis punctata, Quoy & Gaim. Voy. de l’Astrol. i. p. 255, t. 18. fig. 2 (1830).
Sphenœacus punctatus, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 5 (1844).
Megalurus punctatus, Gray, Gen. of B. i. p. 169 (1848).
1 Mata, Matata, Kotata, Nako, and Koroatito.
Ad. suprà ochrascenti-fulvus, dorsi plumis medialiter nigris, lineas latas longitudinales formantibus: pileo rufe-scente, fronte immaculatâ, vertice angustiùs nigro striolato: loris et regione oculari albidis: facie laterali albidâ, brunneo maculatâ, regione paroticâ brunnescente: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus et eodem modo medialiter nigris: remigibus rectricibusque nigricanti-brunneis, ochrascenti-fulvo limbatis, his acumi-natis, scapis versùs apicem nudis: subtùs albescens, hypochondriis et subcaudalibus ochrascenti-fulvis, latè nigro striolatis: gutture indistinctè, pectore superiore magis distinctè, brunneo punctatis et pectore laterali nigro lineato: rostro brunnescente, mandibulâ flavicante: pedibus flavidis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Upper parts dark brown, each feather margined with fulvous, shading into rufous-brown on the forehead and crown; streak over the eyes white; throat, fore neck, breast, and abdomen fulvous-white, each feather with a central streak of black, giving to the underparts a spotted appearance; wing-feathers and their coverts blackish brown, edged with bright fulvous; tail-feathers dark brown, with black shafts. Irides black; bill and feet pale brown. Total length 6·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 2·25; tail 3·25; bill, along the ridge ·4, along the edge of lower mandible ·6; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw ·7; hind toe and claw ·6.
Young. The young assume the adult plumage on quitting the nest.
Obs. The tail-feathers have the barbs disunited in their whole extent.
This recluse little species is one of our commonest birds, butis oftener heard than seen. It frequents the dense fern (Pteris aquilina) of the open country, and the beds of raupo (Typha angystifolia) and other tall vegetation that cover our swamps and low-lying flats. In these localities it may constantly be heard uttering, at regular intervals, its sharp melancholy call of two notes, u-tick, u-tick, and responsively when there are two or more. When the shades of evening are closing in, this call is emitted with greater frequency and energy, and in some dreary solitudes it is almost the only sound that breaks the oppressive stillness. In the Manawatu district, where there are continuous raupo-swamps, covering an area of 50, 000 acres or more, I have particularly remarked this; for, save the peevish cry of the Pukeko, occasionally heard, and the boom of the lonely Bittern, the only animate sound I could detect was the monotonous cry of this little bird calling to its fellows as it threaded its way among the tangled growth of reeds.
Large portions of the North Island consist of rolling land covered with stunted brown fern, this being the characteristic feature for twenty miles at a stretch, broken only by little patches of bush in the gullies. Intersecting these fern-ridges are narrow belts of wiwi-swamp, of a dark
During my last visit to the Hot Lakes district, I found it still plentiful in all suitable localities. There are marshy tracts occurring at intervals along the road from Taupo to Ohinemutu, and the familiar note of this little bird was the only relief to those quiet solitudes. The pairing-season had commenced, and it was most pleasant to hear the couples singing their simple duet, the notes being always in harmony and responsive. When excited or alarmed its cry becomes sharper, being not unlike the call “Philip, Philip!” with a short pause between.
Like the other members of the group to which it belongs, it is a lively creature, active in all its movements, and easily attracted by an imitation-of its note; but, when alarmed, shy and wary. Its tail, which is long and composed of ten graduated feathers, with disunited filaments, appears to subserve some useful purpose in the daily economy of the bird; for it is often found very much denuded or worn. When the bird is flying, the tail hangs downwards. Its wings are very feebly developed, and its powers of flight so weak that, in open land where the fern is stunted, it may easily be run down and caught with the hand; but in the swamps it threads its way through the dense reed-beds with wonderful celerity, and eludes the most careful pursuit. When surprised or hard pressed in its more exposed haunts, it takes wing, but never rises high, and, after a laboured flight of from fifteen to twenty yards in a direct line, drops under cover again. Its food consists of small insects and their larvæ and the minute seeds of various grasses and other plants.
Major Jackson, of Kihikihi, who is a keen sportsman, assures me that this bird has a very strong scent, so much so that when he has been out pheasant-shooting his pointer has “stood” to it quite as staunchly as if it had been a game bird.
This pretty little creature is not exempt from the common ills that “flesh is heir to.” A specimen brought to me on the 8th March presented a remarkable diseased swelling, larger than a pea, at the root of the beak. After carefully examining it, I turned the little sufferer free, leaving Dame Nature, in this case as in others, to work out her own cure.
It is a matter of extreme difficulty to study the breeding-habits of species that resort to the dense vegetation of the swamps. Even a systematic search for the nests, in such localities, is of very little use, and the collector must trust to the chapter of accidents for opportunities of examining them. Although so common a bird, I have only once succeeded in finding the nest. This discovery was made many years ago, on the edge of a raupo-swamp, near the old Mission Station on the Wairoa river. The nest was a small cup-shaped structure, composed of bents and dry grass-leaves, not very compact, but with a smooth and carefully lined interior. It was attached to reed-stems standing together, and contained four young birds, which showed remarkable nimbleness, darting out of the nest and disappearing in the long grass on the first moment of my approach. I have, however, heard of others, containing sometimes four eggs, sometimes three. The eggs are ovoido-conical in form, measuring ·8 of an inch in length by ·6 in breadth, and are creamy white, thickly speckled over the entire surface with purplish brown.
Mr. Potts describes the nest as being composed of grass-leaves, with generally a few feathers of the Swamp-hen, and sometimes a small tuft of wool. The breeding-season appears to embrace the months of October and November; for on November 4 he found a nest containing three young birds, and three days later, but in another locality, a nest with four eggs in it.
Sphenœacus fulvus, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 221.
Megalurus fulvus, Gray, Hand-l. of B. i. p. 206 (1869).
Ad. similis S. punctato, sed paullò major: ubique laetiùs fulvescens, plumis vix ita distinctè medialiter lineatis: pectore etiam minùs distinctè maculato: caudâ minùs acuminatà scapis plumarum haud nudis, sed ad apicem ipsum plumiferis.
Adult. Upper parts dark fulvous, each feather centred with black; forehead and crown slightly stained with rufous; line over the eyes, throat, fore neck, breast, and upper part of abdomen fulvous-white, obscurely spotted on the breast with brown; sides of the body, flanks, thighs, and lower part of abdomen bright fulvous; primaries and secondaries blackish brown, margined on their outer webs, and the three innermost secondaries broadly margined all round, with bright fulvous; tail-feathers fulvous, with a dark shaft-line, and lighter on the edges. Total length 7·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 2·5; tail 4; bill, along the ridge ·4, along the edge of lower mandible ·6; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw ·7; hind toe and claw ·6;
Young. An example in the Canterbury Museum, so immature that the tail-feathers are only two inches long, has more fulvous in the plumage and no indication whatever of a superciliary streak.
Obs. Mr. Sharpe says of the type in the British Museum:—“Similar to S. punctatus, but rather larger, and very much lighter and more ochraceous in colour. Both on the upper and under surface the black centres to the feathers are not so broad, and thus the plumage appears more distinctly streaked” (Cat. Birds B. M. vii. p. 98).
This species, as distinguished by Mr. Sphenœacus punctatus; but, on comparing them, the following differences are manifest:—The present bird is larger and has the whole of the plumage lighter; the upper parts have the central marks much narrower, and on the hind neck and rump they are entirely absent; the white superciliary streak is less distinctly defined, the spots on the under surface are less conspicuous, and the tail-feathers, which are much paler than in S. punctatus, differ likewise in their structure, the webs being closely set, instead of having loose disunited barbs.
Several specimens have passed through my hands, all of which have been obtained in the South Island.
Mr. Potts distinguishes the eggs of this bird from those of S. punctatus as being “slightly larger and white, marked with reddish-purple freckles.”
Whilst, however, keeping the form distinct for the present, I am far from being satisfied that it can be separated from S. punctatus. I am more inclined to regard it as a somewhat larger local race, with a corresponding modification of plumage. But for the fact that the latter species is as common in the South Island as in the North, this might be treated as the representative form.
Sphenoeacus rufescens, Buller, Ibis, 1869, p. 38.
Megalurus rufescens, Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 206 (1869).
Ad. suprá saturatè castaneus, pileo concolore: dorso paullò fulvescente, plumis latè medialiter nigis: tectricibus alarum medialiter nigris, dorso concoloribus: remigibus nigris, rufescente limbatis: caudâ rufescente, subtùs fulvescentiore, scapis pennarum nigris: loris et supercilio distincto fulvescenti-albis: regione paroticâ saturatè castaneâ, nigro notatâ: genis fulvescentibus, nigro maculatis: subtùs fulvescenti-albus, corporis lateribus castaneis nigro striolatis, dorso concoloribus: subalaribus stramineis, rufescente lavatis: rostro corneo, mandibulâ flavicante: pedibus flavicanti-brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Adult male. Upper parts dark rufous-brown, brightest on the crown and hind neck; streak over the eyes, throat, breast, and abdomen dull rufous-white, slightly tinged with yellow on the throat; sides of the head, ear-coverts, and a series of spots from the base of the lower mandible brownish black; sides of the body and the flanks bright rufous-brown, each feather with a central streak of black; wing-feathers dusky black, margined on both webs with rufous-brown; the wing-coverts and the scapularies broadly centred with brownish black; tail-feathers clear rufous-brown, with glossy black shafts, paler on their under surface. Irides black; bill and feet yellowish brown. Total length 7·25 inches; extent of wings 7; wing, from flexure, 2·25; tail 4·25; bill, along the ridge ·5, along the edge of lower mandible ·7; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw ·85; hind toe and claw ·75.
Female. Similar to the male, but somewhat smaller in size and with rather duller plumage.
Obs. Prof. Hutton states that two of the specimens collected by Mr. Travers are “variegated with white feathers, principally on the wings.”
This well-marked species is confined to the Chatham Islands, where it was first discovered, in 1868, by Mr.
Mr. Henry Travers says:—“I only found this bird on Mangare, where it is not uncommon. Its peculiar habit of hopping from one point of concealment to another renders it difficult to secure. It has a peculiar whistle, very like that which a man would use in order to attract the attention of another at some distance; and although I knew that I was alone on the island, I frequently stopped mechanically on hearing the note of this bird, under the momentary impression that some other person was whistling to me. It also has the same cry as Sphenœacus punctatus. It is solitary in its habits and appears to live exclusively on insects.”
I am indebted to Mr. Walter Shrimpton for an egg obtained on Pitt Island, and assigned, I believe correctly, to this species. It is broadly ovoido-conical, measuring ·80 of an inch in length by ·65 in breadth, and has the entire surface covered with a speckled or marbled graining of reddish brown on a creamy-white ground.
New-Zealand Lark, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 2, p. 384, pl. 21 (1783).
Alauda novœ seelandiœ, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 799 (1788).
Alauda littorea, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 90 (1844).
Anthus novæ zealandiæ, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 4 (1844).
Anthus grayi, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 249 (1850).
Anthus aucklandica, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p, 254.
Corydalla aucklandica, id. Hand-l. of B. i. p. 253 (1869).
Corydalla novæ zealandiæ, id. op. cit. i. p. 253 (1869).
Pihoihoi and Whioi; “Ground-Lark” of the colonists.
Ad. brunneus, fulvescente lavatus, plumis medialiter paullò saturatioribus, uropygio unicolore fulvescenti-brunneo: loris et supercilio lato fulvescenti-albis: lineâ brunneâ per oculum ab ortu rostri ductâ: genis et regione paroticâ albidis, hâc paullô brunneo maculatâ: fasciâ mystacali irregulari brunneâ: colli lateribus dorso concoloribus et eodem modo notatis: tectricibus alarum brunneis, minimis lætè et conspicuè aurantiacofulvo lavatis, majoribus angustè fulvido marginatis: remigibus brunneis, primariis angustissimè, secundariis latiùs fulvo marginatis: caudâ brunneâ, fulvo marginaâ, rectrice extimâ ferè omninò albâ, pogonio interno versùs basin brunneo, proximâ versùs apicem obliquè albâ, tertiâ extùs angustè albo limbatâ: subtùs fulvescenti-albus, hypochondriis brunneis: pectore superiore brunneo longitudinaliter maculato: rostro corneo, mandibulâ flavicante: pedibus flavicanti-brunneis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
Juv. similis adultis, sed pallidior, plumis indistinctè fulvo marginatis: collo postico conspicuè fulvescente: tectricibus alarum, remigibus et rectricibus latiùs fulvo marginatis: subtùs sordidè albus, pectore superiore vix distinctè brunneo striolato.
Adult. Upper parts brownish grey, darker on the rump and upper tail-coverts; on the back, each feather centred with brown; from the base of the bill a broad line of white passes above, and an irregular band of black extends across the eyes; cheeks greyish white, minutely spotted with black; chin, or intercrural space, white; throat, fore neck, and upper part of breast fulvous, with numerous broad dashes of brown; under-parts white, tinged on the flanks and under tail-coverts with fulvous; sides of the body greyish white, with longitudinal streaks of brown; all the plumage of the underparts plumbeous at the base; wing-feathers and their coverts dark brown, margined on their outer webs with fulvous-grey, broadest on the tertiaries, and reduced to a mere line on the primaries; the marginal colour changes to fulvous-white on the secondary-coverts, presenting, when the wings are closed, a series of small crescentic bands; tail-feathers dark brown, with paler edges, except the two outermost ones on each side, which are white, the inner one crossed by an oblique band of dusky brown, and the outer one with a mere streak of the same colour near the root. Irides very dark brown, almost black; bill and feet yellowish brown. Total length 8 inches; extent of wings 12; wing, from flexure, 3·35; tail 3; bill, along the ridge ·5, along the edge of lower mandible ·75; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw ·85; hind toe and claw ·75.
Young. The young has the breast more spotted, and the feathers of the upper parts narrowly margined with pale rust-colour.
Obs. The sexes are alike. In some examples the under tail-coverts are pure white, while in others the upper wing-coverts are broadly margined with light rufous-brown. Allowing for this variation, I cannot see the propriety of admitting the supposed new species from Queen Charlotte’s Sound (Anthus grayi, Bonap.), which I have accordingly expunged from our list.
Varieties. Albinos, more or less pure, are of common occurrence. The following is the description of an example in the Canterbury Museum:—General plumage pure white, varied on the back and wings with brownish grey; some of the quills and tail-feathers pure white, the others dark brown, as in ordinary specimens; bill and feet white horn-colour; the hind claw conspicuously long, measuring ·55 of an inch. Another specimen, in Mr.
Of this bird I may remark that it is a true Pipit both in structure and in its habits of life. It bears a general resemblance to an Australian species (Anthus australis); but the specific differences are sufficiently manifest on an actual comparison of the two birds.
It is common throughout the country, frequenting the open land, and sometimes resorting to the dry sands along the sea-shore. During the autumn months it is gregarious, and may then be observed in flocks varying in number from twenty to fifty or more, alternately collecting and mounting in the air with a loud cheerful note, and scattering themselves again on the open ground to search for their food, which consists of insects and their larvae, small earthworms, and occasionally minute seeds as well. At sundown the flocks break up, each bird seeking a convenient resting-place for the night; and with the first streak of daylight they begin to reassemble. On the approach of winter the flocks disperse The accuracy of the above statement, in my former edition, having been called in question (Ibis, 1874, p. 38), I made careful observations over a continuous period of ten years, during which time I was constantly moving from one part of the colony to the other. From the notes in my diary I have abstracted the following particulars:—Autumn months (March, April, and May), numerous flocks, and often of considerable size, all over the country; winter months (June, July, and August), always in pairs; spring and summer (September to February, inclusive), still in pairs, but sometimes congregating. I have seen a flock numbering upwards of fifty as early as September 4, In the months of November and December it is a common thing to see parties of five or six, consisting probably of early broods of the year; and I find a note of one party of five on the 23rd October. The autumnal gathering commences about the second week in March, at the close of a prolonged breeding-season, with probably two broods; and I have no record of any flock after the beginning of June. Professor Hutton’s statement that “they congregate in the autumn after the breeding-season is over and disperse to breed in spring” would seem to imply that the flocks keep together during the winter; but this is certainly not the case.
When searching for food, a flock of these birds will spread themselves out in all directions; but the instant a Hawk appears in sight, or some other common danger threatens, they will rise into the
This is one of the few species that appear to thrive and increase in the cultivated districts; and in localities where formerly it was only tolerably plentiful it has kept pace with the progress of colonization, becoming every year more abundant. It frequents the mountain-tops, being often met with above the snow-line. Mr. Ernest Bell observed one on the very summit of Mount Egmont.
It is never met with in the woods; and I have observed that in the open country it is rarely seen to alight on a green tree or shrub, although often poising itself on the slender stalks of the Phormium tenax or on a bunch of fern. I have occasionally seen it dusting itself after the manner of some gallinaceous birds, rolling in the dust with evident delight, and then shaking its feathers, probably in order to free the body of parasitic insects.
It is amusing to watch a pair of them chasing and making love to each other at the commencement of the breeding-season, each one alternately springing up in the air, with expanded wings and tail, and curvetting over the other in the most playful manner. The call of the young resembles the sharp note of the Silver-eye (Zosterops cœrulescens); and when engaged in feeding them, the parent bird displays an unusual degree of caution in the presence of an intruder, alighting ten or fifteen yards from the nest, and loitering about for a considerable time with the food in its bill before attempting to deliver it. I have seen a pair skimming playfully together over the ground but close to the surface, when one would suddenly drop out of sight in the vicinity of the nest, leaving the other to pursue its wayward flight, as if to divert attention.
The natives catch this bird by means of a running-noose at the end of a long stick; and there are various modes of trapping it, very generally known and appreciated among colonial school-boys.
I have noticed that it is very subject to a disease of the foot, which takes the form of a large irregular swelling. This may probably result from accidental burns; for I have often observed these birds alight on ground over which a fire had recently passed, leaving a light surface of smouldering ashes, and rise again immediately in evident pain.
On the Hastings-Napier railway line and elsewhere I have observed a peculiar habit which this species has developed of following the train. I have seen, in autumn, a flight of a hundred birds keeping abreast or a little ahead of the train in rapid motion for two or three miles at a stretch, picking up stragglers en route, and to all appearance thoroughly enjoying the excitement.
The breeding-season of the New-Zealand Pipit extends from October to February or March, and, like the other members of the same group, it appears to rear two broods; for I have seen well-fledged young ones in November, while nests containing eggs are often met with as late in the season as January or the early part of February. The nest is composed of dry grass and other fibrous substances loosely put together, and is always placed on the ground, generally in a horse’s footprint or in some natural depression, and under shelter of a tussock or clump of rushes. The eggs are usually four in number, rather ovoido-conical in shape, measuring, as a rule, ·9 of an inch by ·65, and marked over the entire surface with numerous spots or freckles of dark grey on a paler or ashy ground. A fine series of eight in my son’s collection exhibit a considerable amount of individual variation both in form and colouring. The smallest of these measures ·85 inch in length by ·65 in breadth, and is almost a perfect oval; and the largest 1 inch in length by ·70 in breadth. The ground-colour varies from pale stone-grey to a warm creamy-grey, and the markings pass through every gradation, from a covering of uniform speckles and freckles of greyish brown to a much darker character, blotched and mottled with purplish brown of different shades.
Black-faced Crow, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. ii. p. 116 (1801).
Corvus melanops, Lath. Suppl. Ind. Orn. p. xxiv (1801).
Rollier à masque noir, Levaill. Ois. de Paradis, pl. 30 (1806).
Ceblepyris melanops, Temm. Man. d’Orn. i. pl. lxii. (1820).
Graucalus melanops, Vig. & Horsf. Tr. Linn. Soc. xv. p. 216 (1826).
Graucalus melanotis, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 143.
Campephaga melanops, Gray, Cat. B. N. Guin. p. 32 (1859).
Colluricincla concinna, Hutton, Cat. B. New Zealand, p. 15 (1871).
Graucalus concinnus, Hutton, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. v. p. 225 (1872).
Graucalus melanops, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 148 (1873).
Descr. exempl. ex N.Z. Suprà cinereus: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus nigricanti-brunneis, primariis angustè, secundariis latiùs albido marginatis: rectricibus nigricanti-brunncis, parte basali cinereâ, pennis externis ad apicem albis, duabus exterioribus graduatim obliquè albis, rectrice extimâ etiam albo marginatâ: facie laterali totâ nigrâ: gutture et pectore superiore cinereis dorso concoloribus: corpore reliquo subtùs albo: rostro nigro versùs basin mandibulæ brunnescente: pedibus saturatè brunneis.
New-Zealand example (young). General plumage light cinereous or ashy grey; a patch of black fills the lores, crosses the eyes, and covers the cheeks and ear-coverts; on the upper part of the breast the grey fades into white, with a purplish tinge; lower part of breast, lining of wings, flanks, abdomen, and under tail-coverts pure white; wing-feathers dark brown, the primaries narrowly and the secondaries broadly margined with greyish white; tail-feathers dark brown, the two middle ones tinged with ashy grey, especially in their basal portion; the lateral ones tipped progressively outwards with white, the outermost one on each side having an inch at the extremity and a narrow line along the apical portion of its outer web pure white. Bill black, changing to brown at the base of the lower mandible; legs blackish brown. Total length 13 inches; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 5·5; bill, along the ridge ·9, along the edge of lower mandible 1·25; tarsus 1·12; middle toe and claw 1·2; hind toe and claw 1.
Adult male (from Australia). General colour above light French grey, the wing-coverts like the back, with edgings of still lighter grey; primary-coverts and primaries black, externally edged with grey, inclining to white towards the tips of the quills; secondaries black, the outer aspect of the feathers light grey on the innermost, with the outer web grey and the inner one black; two centre tail-feathers ashy grey, blacker towards the tip, which is white, all the other feathers black, washed with grey towards the base and tipped with white, which increases in extent towards the outermost feather, which is also edged with white along the outer web; entire forehead, feathers above the eye, ear-coverts, sides of face, sides of neck, entire throat, and fore neck black, with a greenish gloss, fading off paler towards the chest, which is iron-grey, becoming gradually lighter and more delicate grey on the sides of the body, so as to leave only the lower abdomen and under tail-coverts pure white; thighs grey; under wing-coverts and axillaries pure white, as also the inner lining of the quills, which are otherwise ashy grey below; bill black; feet dull ashy; iris black. Total length 12·5 inches, culmen 1·05, wing 7·65, tail 5·75, tarsus 1·05. (Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. vol. iv. p. 31.)
Obs. “♂, Louisiade Islands specimen, wing 8·1 inches; ♀ N.W. Australia, wing 7·1 inches. These two seem to be the extremes, and every intermediate link between them can be found.” (Id. l. c.)
The example from which the above description is taken was shot by Mr. Giblin at Motueka, in the Provincial district of Nelson, and now forms part of the public collection in the Nelson Museum. Mr. Huddleston informs me that he saw the bird in the flesh, and knows the precise locality in which it was shot. There can be no doubt, therefore, as to the authenticity of the specimen as a New-Zealand bird; but as it appears to be quite unknown to the natives of the country, it may, I think, be safely assumed that this was an accidental visitant from Australia, where the species is very plentiful. Another example was shot at Invercargill in April 1870, and forwarded to the Colonial Museum. Of this Professor Hutton writes (l. c.):—“Like the bird shot in Nelson province, this one also has the general plumage of the young of G. melanops; but the feathers of the chin and forehead are similar to those on the throat and top of the head, and not lighter as in G. melanops; there is also no indication of any black feathers coming on the chin or upper part of the head. It differs from the Australian bird in having a more slender bill, a rather longer tail, the feathers of which are acutely pointed at the tip instead of being rounded, and in having much more white on the wings. These differences are, I think, quite sufficient to warrant its being kept as a distinct species”Graucalus concinnus, Hutton (l. c.):—“The whole of the upper surface uniform pale grey, the feathers of the forehead with the shafts darker; feathers of the throat and breast pale grey, slightly tipped with white; those of the upper abdomen and thïghs pale grey, with white circular bands; lower abdomen, vent, and under tail-coverts pure white; a broad band of black passes from the nostrils and gape through and below the eye to the region of the ears; primaries brownish black, the first slightly tipped with white, the second, third, fourth, and fifth margined outwardly and slightly tipped with white, the remainder margined all round with a white band, which is broader on the tip and inner web; secondaries greyish black, with more or less grey on the outer webs near the base, and with a rather broad white margin on the outer web and tip; greater wing-coverts margined outwardly with white; tail-feathers acutely pointed at the tip, the two middle ones brownish grey, laterals brownish black tipped with white, the white decreasing inwards; shafts of the tail-feathers greyish black above and pure white below; bill (dry) brownish black, paler at the base; legs and feet (dry) black. Wing 8 inches; tail 7; tarsus 1·1; hind toe ·8; middle toe 1·1; bill, culmen, ·85, breadth at nostrils ·4, height at nostrils ·35.”
This species is liable to so much variation, both in plumage and size, that I am unable at present to consider the form which has thus occurred at such rare intervals in New Zealand as distinct from the Australian one. Of the latter Mr. Gould says that the “infinite changes of plumage which these birds undergo from youth to maturity render their investigation very perplexing.”
Dr. Finsch expresses his belief that the bird which has occurred in New Zealand is G. parvirostris, Gould; but Mr. Sharpe, in his account of G. melanops (Cat. of Birds Brit. Mus. iv. p. 31) says:—“This species varies much in size, but it is impossible to believe in the existence of more than one species; and G. parvirostris is little more than a race of the present bird.”
I have gone carefully over the whole series of skins in the British Museum, and am confirmed in my original conclusion that our bird is the young or immature state of G. melanops. I attach no value to the two characters on which Professor Hutton appears mainly to rely, namely, the white margins to the greater wing-coverts and the more acutely pointed tail-feathers. In a large series, of all ages, I find the extent of white on the wings very variable, and in the younger birds the tail-feathers are undoubtedly narrower at the points than in fully adult specimens. In the Nelson bird, of which a full description is given above, it will be seen that the former of Professor Hutton’s distinguishing characters is absent. I should be inclined to give more weight to the colour of the primaries, as described by him, because in every specimen of G. melanops examined by me the first five primaries are uniform brownish black, or with only a very narrow greyish-white margin on the outer web, there being no sign of any white tips. This difference, however, appears to me too trivial to separate the species, the more so as it is wanting in the Nelson example. The “white circular
G. parvirostris (as suggested by Dr. Finsch), it ought to present other markings, for the young of this form exhibits numerous arrow-heads of brownish black on its chin and throat.
Assuming, therefore, the species to be the same, this bird is very common in New South Wales, especially in the summer months, frequenting “plains thinly covered with large trees,” rather than the thick brushes. It is said to be also abundantly dispersed over the plains of the interior, such as the Liverpool, and those which stretch away to the northward and eastward of New South Wales.
“It breeds in October and the three following months. The nest is often of a triangular form, in consequence of its being made to fit the angle of the fork of the horizontal branch in which it is placed; it is entirely composed of small dead twigs, firmly matted together with a very fine, white, downy substance like cobwebs and a species of lichen, giving the nest the same appearance as the branch upon which it is placed, and rendering it most difficult of detection. The ground-colour of the eggs, which are usually two in number, varies from wood-brown to asparagus-green, the blotches and spots, which are very generally dispersed over their surface, varying from dull chestnut-brown to light yellowish brown; in some instances they are also sparingly dotted with deep umber-brown; their medium length is thirteen lines, and breadth ten lines. Its note, which is seldom uttered, is a peculiar single purring or jarring sound, repeated several times in succession.” (Gould, Handb. Birds Austr. i. pp. 193, 194.)
The ornithology of New Zealand has now been so thoroughly explored that we cannot hope to make any further additions to our list of species, except by recording accidental visitants like the above at long intervals of time—such birds, for example, as Acanthochœra carunculata and Eurystomus pacificus; or the occurrence of foreign Waders, such stragglers from the flock as may occasionally pass out of their course to New Zealand during their seasonal migration—as, for instance, Charadrius fulvus and Phalaropus ruficapillus; or of oceanic species whose home is on the rolling sea and whose habitual range, within uncertain degrees of latitude and longitude, is often extended almost indefinitely by the terrific and long-continued storms that sweep over the face of the great Pacific Ocean—such as the beautiful red-tailed Tropic-bird (Phaëton rubricauda), or that noble “Vulture of the sea,” Tachypetes aquila, and the rarer kinds of Petrel. The opportunities, however, of recording such occurrences are becoming every year more difficult for the practical ornithologist, owing to the number and variety of foreign birds that are being introduced into the country through the efforts of Acclimatization Societies and other local agencies. In the early days of the colony nothing that was new escaped the vigilant eye of the Maori, and the appearance of a strange bird, whether on the sea-shore, in the lagoons, or on the land, was immediately noticed, and the fact sooner or later reported to the colonists. But nowadays the country teems with imported birds of every kind —Thrushes and Blackbirds, Greenfinches and Linnets in the woods and shrubberies; Pheasants, Partridges, and Quail in the open, with Sky-Larks and Starlings on the meadows; Black Swan and Egyptian Geese on the lagoons, and the ubiquitous Sparrow in every street and hedgerow, besides numberless other introduced species of more or less importance. Consequently, when a Maori sees a bird hitherto unknown to him he puts it down in his mind as a “manu pakeha,” and pays no further heed to it.
The occurrence in New Zealand, from time to time, of Australian and Polynesian forms, without any suspicion of human intervention or of artificial assistance such as that afforded by ships’ rigging, is a matter of extreme interest to the philosophic naturalist, because these cases serve to illustrate the manner in which the avifauna of oceanic islands lying far apart from one another or from any continental area—as, for example, Norfolk Island and Lord Howe’s Island—may undergo, in process of time and by insensible degrees, important changes of feature through the accidental intrusion of foreign types. For this reason, I have been very careful to notice in the present work every instance of the kind that has come to my knowledge.
Fan-tailed Flycatcher, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 1, p. 340, pl. xlix. (1783).
Muscicapa flabellifera, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 943 (1788, ex Lath.).
Rhipidura flabellifera, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 190 (1843).
Muscicapa ventilabrum, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 86 (1844).
Rhipidura albiscapa, Cass. U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 150 (1858, nec Gould).
Piwaiwaka, Tiwaiwaka, Piwakawaka, Tirairaka, Pirairaka, Tiwakawaka, and Pitakataka.
Ad. suprà olivascenti-brunneus, pileo nigricante: lineâ supraoculari albidâ: tectricibus alarum brunncis, olivaceo lavatis, albido terminatis: remigibus nigricanti-brunneis extùs dorsi colore lavatis: caudâ aordidè albâ, scapis purè albis, rectricibus duabus centralibus nigricantibus ad apicem albidis, reliquis extùs brunnescentinigris, pennâ extimâ omninò albidâ: facie laterali pileo concolore: gulâ albidâ: torque pectorali nigrâ: subtùs aurantiaco-fulvus, pectore superiore et subcaudalibus pallidioribus: cruribus nigricantibus: rostro nigro: pedibus brunnescenti-nigris: iride nigrâ.
Juv. similis adulto, sed suprà magis brunnescens: gutture grisescenti-albo: corpore reliquo subtùs sordidè fulvescentó: torque pectorali absente: tectricibus alarum fulvido apicatis, et secundariis extùs eodem colore marginatis.
Adult male. Crown, nape, and sides of the head sooty black; the whole of the back, rump, and upper surface of wings dark olive-brown; the small wing-coverts tipped with fulvous white; rictal bristles black; throat and mark over the eyes greyish white; across the fore neck and upper part of breast a broad band of sooty black; lower part of breast and all the under surface fulvous, tinged with cinnamon, the base of the feathers plumbeous; quills dark olive-brown, with paler shafts, the inner secondaries edged with fulvous white; the two middle tail-feathers brownish black, with pure white shafts, and tipped with greyish white; the lateral feathers greyish white and, with the exception of the outermost one on each side, margined on their outer webs with brownish black, all having pure white shafts. Irides and bill black; feet blackish brown; soles greyish. Total length 6·5 inches; extent of wings 8; wing, from flexure, 2·75; tail 4; bill, along the ridge ·3, along the edge of lower mandible ·4; tarsus ·7; middle toe and claw ·6; hind toe and claw ·5.
Female. Similar in plumage to the male, but slightly smaller.
Young. The young bird has the throat greyish white; the breast and all the under surface dark fulvous brown; the small wing-coverts are largely tipped and the secondaries narrowly edged with fulvous brown, and the plumage of the back is more or less tinged with the same colour.
Obs. I have observed birds in the young plumage as late as the middle of March; but the adult livery is certainly assumed at the first moult.
The Pied Fantail, ever flitting about with broadly expanded tail, and performing all manner of
It is very tame and familiar, allowing a person to approach within a few feet of it without evincing any alarm, sometimes, indeed, perching for an instant on his head or shoulders. It will often enter the settler’s house in the bush, and remain there for days together, clearing the window-panes of sand-flies, fluttering about the open rooms with an incessant lively twitter during the day, and roosting at night under the friendly roof Major Jackson told me a romantic story about this bird. A friend of his met with an accident and got his leg broken. He was carried into a little country house, and could not safely be moved for some time. During his detention he suffered very much from the heat and the swarms of small flies that inraded his improvised hospital. On one occasion, however, the window being open, a Fantail came in from the adjoining garden, took up its station on a peg in the wall, and soon cleared the room of flies, flitting airily about, and snapping its mandibles so long as a single fly remained. After this and as long as the invalid remained, the bird was a daily visitors, ministering in the manner described to the peace and comfort of the fly-pestered inmate.
You may always make sure of finding it flitting noiselessly about the bushes at the edges of the little mountain-stream which
These localities often swarm with minute diptera, on which the bird subsists. And I have seen five or six of them together displaying their fans, and hawking, as it were, for these invisible flies above the surface of the water.
In winter it generally frequents the darker parts of the forest, where insect-life is more abundant at that season; but it is nevertheless to be met with, wherever there is any bush, all the year round. It is a true Flycatcher, subsisting entirely by the chase: darting forth from its perch, it performs a number of aërial evolutions in pursuit of invisible flies-the snapping of its mandibles as it catches its prey being distinctly audible-and generally returns to the twig from which it started. It hops about along the dry branches of a prostrate tree, or upwards along the tangled vines of the kareao (Rhipogonum scandens), with its tail half expanded and its wings drooping, seizing a little victim at almost every turn, and all the while uttering a pleasant twitter. When hurt or alarmed it immediately closes its pretty fan, and silently flies off in a direct course, disappearing in the denser foliage.
It breeds twice in the season, producing four young ones at each sitting. It generally commences to build in September, and brings out its first brood about the last week in October. The second brood appears to leave the nest about the beginning of January.
The nest is a beautiful little structure, compact and symmetrical, A forked twig is the site usually selected; and the nest, instead of being placed within the fork for support, is built around it, the branchlets being thus made to serve the purpose of braces and stays to strengthen the work and to hold it together. It is therefore generally impossible to remove or detach the nest from the branch without tearing it to pieces. In form it is cup-shaped, the upper part towards the rim being closely interwoven and securely bound, while the base is left unfinished or loosely constructed. The materials composing the foundation are light fragments of decayed wood, coarse mosses, and the skeletons of dead leaves. The centre and upper portion of the nest consist principally of the tough and elastic seed-stems of various mosses finely interwoven. There is an exterior wall composed of
Mr. Vidua rubritorques, Swains.), says:—“These birds build amongst the grass in the open country. The nest is curiously built; they select a convenient tuft of grass, and interlace the blades as they stand, without breaking them off; so that the nest is green during the whole time of incubation, and is very beautiful when thus seen.” This brings to my recollection a very pretty nest of the Pied Fantail which I found in the Kaipara woods many years ago. It was smaller and more cup-shaped than the generality of these nests, and was composed chiefly of moss firmly bound together with spiders’ webs; but it was an “old nest,” and the winter rains had soaked it, causing the moss to vegetate afresh; and when it came into my hands it was covered on the outer surface with a luxuriant growth of stunted moss of the brightest green, and presented a very beautiful appearance.
To any one having any experience of bird-craft, it is very easy to discover the nest of this species. The movements of the old birds, properly interpreted, are a very sure index. As you approach the nest, the Fantails, which follow your steps with an incessant twitter, become ominously silent. If you fail immediately to discover the object of your search, and chance to wander away from it, the anxious little birds give vent to their joy by an exuberant strain of notes, which, as I have often thought, might be appropriately compared to the supposed merry laugh of one of Gulliver’s Liliputians In one of the Maori legends we are told that the great ancestor Maui-Potaka, whose ordinary companions were a flock of Piwaiwaka, was betrayed by this “laugh” when eating up the body of Hinenuitepo and was forthwith killed. The myth relates how those little birds could contain themselves no longer, and when Hinenuitepo’s head and shoulders had disappeared down Maui-Potaka’s throat “they danced about and laughed,” a pretty allusion to the habits of the Fantail.
The multiplication of numbers by second broods, in the proportion of four to one, as already noticed, appears to me a wise provision of Nature to save the species from extinction. At the close of the breeding-season the Fantails, principally in the immature plumage, are excessively abundant; by the end of the year their numbers have been considerably thinned, owing to the joint ravages of the wild cat, the Bush-Hawk, and Morepork, to all of which this defenceless little creature falls an easy prey. The reproduction by each pair of eight young ones every season seems, therefore, almost necessary to preserve the very existence of this species in the balance of life.
Long may the Pied Fantail thrive and prosper, in the face of cats, owls, naturalists, and the whole race of depredators; for without it our woods would lack one of their prettiest attractions, and our fauna its gentlest representative!
Muscicapa fuliginosa, Sparrm. Mus. Carls. pl. 47 (1787).
Muscicapa deserti, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 949 (1788, ex Sparrm.).
Rhipidura melanura, Gray, in Dieff. Trav., ii. App. p. 191 (1843).
Leucocerca melanura, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 324 (1850).
Rhipidura tristis, Hombr. et Jacq. Voy. Pôe Sud, Ois. iii. p. 76, pl. xi. fig. 5 (1853).
Rhipidura sombre, iid. op. cit., Atlas, pl. xi. fig. 4 (1853).
Ad. nigricans, dorso alisque brunneo tinctis: maculaâ postauriculari parvâ albâ: subtù dilutiùs brunneus: rostro nigro, mandibulâ versùs basin albicante: pedibus nigricanti-brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Entire plumage black, tinged on the back and wings with rusty brown, and on the under surface with paler brown; behind each ear a small spot of white. Irides black; bill black, white at the base of the lower mandible; tarsi and toes blackish brown. Total length 6·5 inches; extent of wings 8; wing, from flexure, 2·75; tail 4; bill, along the ridge ·3, along the edge of lower mandible ·4; tarsus 7; middle toe and claw ·6; hind toe and claw ·5.
Female. Similar to the male, but with the white spots behind the ears much reduced.
Obs. In the full-phimaged male the white mark described above usually consists of twelve diminutive feathers. In an example which came under my notice at Kaiapoi this feature was exaggerated, the white spreading entirely over the ear-coverts and surrounding feathers. In some it is scarcely visible, while in others (probably young birds) it is altogether wanting.
This dark-coloured species is, generally speaking, restricted to the South Island, where it is far more common than the preceding one.
Its life-history differs in no respect from that of its congener, as described in the foregoing pages. The stomachs of two which I dissected contained, in addition to the remains of small dipterous insects, the minute seeds of some wild berry.
Mr. Rhipidura flabellifera) flew off from the shore, and after making a circuit of our little steamer, apparently to satisfy its curiosity, returned to the land.
Ten years later another specimen was killed near a streamlet in the Pirongia Ranges, Waikato; and a third was obtained by my son in a shrubbery near Wellington on the 2nd April, 1876. Again, a pair of these Black Fantails visited my garden on Wellington Terrace on the 15th of the same
Several more instances of its occurrence in the North Island, in the year following, have come to my knowledge. Major Mair recorded a second example from the Pirongia ranges in the Waikato; another was seen by Mrs. Howard Jackson in the shrubbery at Major Marshall’s, near Rangitikei; and another was reported from Auckland. Of the last-mentioned Mr.
Mr. Colenso, F.R.S., informs me that he met with one, in February 1882, at Napier; and to Mr. Mr. Hamilton writes:—“I obtained a specimen of this bird in the Pohue Bush, about 20 miles north of Napier, July 7, 1885. I have seen it occasionally nearer Napier. In 1876 I got two or three in the Horokiwi district, near Wellington.” (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xviii. p. 125.)
A very interesting phase of character exhibited by this species is that, in its wild state, it associates and interbreeds with the Pied Fantail (Rhipidura flabellifera), as represented in the Plate.
There is a nest of this sort in the Canterbury Museum, containing three eggs. It was taken, in October 1870, by Mr. Potts, who informed me that the female was a dark bird and the male a pied one Writing of another, exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society in November 1884, he says:—“Before I removed it, I saw both parent birds undertake the duties of incubation in turn, velieving each other at brief intervals. The cock bird was R. fuliginosa, with the aural plumes very small but quite distinct; the hen, R. flabellifera, occupied the nest till gently pushed off with the finger.”R. flabellifera: the eggs proved to be fertile, and the young assumed the plumage of the female parent.
On the nesting-habits generally he has furnished me with the following interesting note:—“To my view, the most remarkable feature in the breeding-habits of our Flycatchers is the situation usually selected for rearing their young. Security does not appear to be the first consideration; security by concealment seems the leading feature which guides most arboreal birds in choosing the site of their home, and it is one in which the most admirable displays of instinct may be frequently observed. The Flycatchers rather appear to be led by the same consideration which actuates many sea-birds in selecting the position of their breeding-place—proximity to the food supply. Stroll carefully along the rocky bed of a creek which rambles through some bushy gully, and you may perchance see the beautiful nest perched on some slender bough, in so delicate a manner that it appears scarcely so much to be fixed as to rest balanced there, and without any attempt at concealment.”
The eggs of this species are of similar size and shape to those of the Pied Fantail, but I have remarked that they usually have a darker zone of purple and brown spots.
Hirundo nigricans, Vieill. N. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. xiv. p. 523 (1817).
Dun-rumped Swallow, Lath. Gen. Hist. of B. vii. p. 309 (1823).
Hirundo pyrrhonota, Vig. & Horsf. Trans. Linn. Soc. xv. p. 190 (1826).
Herse nigricans, Less. Compl. Buff. viii. p. 497 (1837).
Herse pyrrhonota, id. tom. cit. p. 497 (1837).
Cecropis nigricans, Boie, Isis, 1844, p. 175.
Collocalia arborea, Gould, B. of Austr. ii. pl. 14 (c. 1845).
Chelidon arborea, id. op. cit. i. Intr. p. xxix (1848).
Petrochelidon nigricans, Cab. Mus. Hein. i. p. 47 (1850).
Hylochelidon nigricans, Gould, Handb. B. of Austr. i. p. 111 (1865); Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 141 (1873).
Ad. suprà purpurascenti-niger: fronte conspicuâ ferrugineâ indistinctè nigro maculatâ: uropygio rufescenti-fulvo, scapis plumarum brunneo indicatis: supracaudalibus brunneis uropygii colore lavatis, scapis eodem modo indicatis: tectricibus alarum minimis dorso concoloribus, majoribus et remigibus brunneis, concoloribus: caudâ brunneâ, rectrice extimâ pogonio interno albo notatâ: remigum rectricumque scapis suprà brunneis, subtùs albidis: loris cum regione oculari et paroticâ nigricantibus: genis et colli lateribus sordidè fulvis brunnescente variis: subtùs fulvescens, corporis lateribus et subalaribus ferrugineis: gutture lineis longitu-dinalibus parvissimis, pectore et hypochondriis lineis angustioribus et longioribus striatis: rostro brunneo: pedibus brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Juv. similis adulto, sed suprà magis brunnescens: uropygio fulvescenti-albido: subtùs albicans, corporis lateralibus vix rufescente tinctis.
Adult male. Forehead chestnut-brown; crown of the head, hind neck, the whole of the back, and the small wing-coverts glossy steel-blue; rump and inferior upper tail-coverts yellowish buff mixed with pale rufous, each feather with a narrow shaft-line of dark brown; longer upper tail-coverts dark brown with paler edges; throat, fore part and sides of neck, and all the under surface pale yellowish buff, marked on the throat with numerous touches of brown, stained on the sides of the body, inner linings of wings, and under tail-coverts with chestnut-brown; quills and tail-feathers dark brown, with paler shafts, greyish on their under surface and slightly glossed above. Irides black; bill, tarsi, and toes light brown. Total length 5·25 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·5; tail, to extremity of lateral feathers, 2·25 (middle feathers ·4 shorter); bill, along the ridge ·25, along the edge of lower mandible ·5, breadth at the gape ·4; tarsus ·4; middle toe and claw ·55; hind toe and claw ·45.
Female. Slightly smaller than the male, with the colours somewhat duller and the markings on the throat less distinct; but, as a matter of fact, the sexes are scarcely distinguishable from each other.
Young. Plumage of the upper parts duller, the head and back being dark umber-brown with only a slight steel gloss; the rump and tail-coverts yellowish brown, with darker shafts; the underparts altogether lighter, the abdomen and under tail-coverts being fulvous white, and the throat more distinctly spotted with brown.
The Tree-Swallow, which is a native of Australia, was first admitted into our list of birds on the authority of a specimen shot by Mr. Lea at Taupata, near Cape Farewell, on the 14th of March, 1856, and still preserved in the Otago Museum.
In the summer of 1851, Mr. Trans. New-Zealand Instit. vol. vii. p. 510.
At a later period, again, the bird appeared at Blenheim, in the provincial district of Marlborough, the fact being announced to me in a letterOp. cit. vol. xi. p. 360.
“On Sunday, the 9th instant, about two miles from Blenheim, on the bank of the Opawa river, I saw the first Martin I have met with in New Zealand. The bird was hawking after insects close to the ground in a ploughed field. I was accompanied by two residents in the town of Blenheim, and we watched it closely for some time. It passed us at one time within a few yards. There was no mistaking either the appearance or the flight of the bird. It seemed to me more like the English House-Martin than the common Australian Martin. It seemed, however, dingier in the black than the English bird, and rather smaller—more like the Sand-Martin, in fact. Unfortunately I was absent from the district for some days after seeing it, but since returning I have carefully watched for its reappearance. I have not again seen the bird, so presume it has shifted its quarters.”
I had a further communication from Mr. Cook on August 23rd in which he said:—“I saw what I believe to be the same bird, about half a mile from where I saw it before, a month after its first appearance.”
In April of the following year I had the pleasure of receiving from him a freshly skinned specimen of this bird, accompanied by the following letter:—
“Since writing to you last winter, reporting the occurrence here of the Australian Swallow, I did not again notice the bird until the 16th of February last, when I saw another hawking over one of my stubble paddocks. I watched it for some time, and had good opportunities of remarking its plumage. The bird appeared to me either immature or weary, the flight being weak and uncertain. I found, too, that the white on the rump was dingy, and the chestnut on the breast faded-looking. There was a stiffish nor’-west breeze blowing at the time, and the bird tried in vain to get past a belt of willow and poplar so long as I was watching.
“On the 20th of last month (March) when duck-shooting, I mentioned the occurrence to a party of sportsmen, when one remarked ‘Oh! there have been some birds answering to your description flying about Grovetown for some time back.’ Grovetown, I may remark, is situated about four miles from this, and nearly in the centre of the Wairau valley. After a little talk on the subject it struck me that possibly the birds had been bred there. I said—‘The next time you see them, shoot one and send to me.’ Yesterday morning one was handed in, but unfortunately I did not see the man who brought it. Fearing that the weather might not allow me to send it to you in the flesh, I have skinned the bird and now send it to you.”
Mr. Cook having very thoughtfully sent me also the body, preserved in spirit, I was able to dissect it. It proved to be an adult female, and the stomach contained four large blue-bottle flies, almost uninjured, and the remains of others in black comminuted matter.
As bearing on this point, he remarks:—“Certainly the condition of the specimen is not that of one which has lately made a long aerial trip. In skinning it, although I freely used cotton wool and kept the pepper-castor going, I could not help getting the plumage saturated with oil, owing to the excessive fatness of the body.”
Writing to me again, under date of June 11th, Mr. Cook says:—
“Since I wrote I have seen no further specimens, but note a paragraph in the ‘Kaikoura Star’ newspaper, stating that two Swallows had been seen at Kaikoura about the same time as the birds appeared here.
“I have since seen Mr. Cheeseman, who shot the specimen I sent. He tells me there were some six or seven birds in all; that they had been hanging about Grovetown for some weeks before he shot the one; and that he fancied they were young birds, or, at least, that some of them were. He could not, however, say that the party consisted of a pair of old birds with their brood…… The one interesting question possibly may be why the first notice of occurrence of the Swallow is on our east coast. If the ‘drift’ (from Australia or Tasmania) is to and through Cook Straits, I can understand it. Otherwise we should expect notice of arrivals on the west coasts of both islands.” Commenting on the fact that this bird appears in our country only at long intervals and as a stray migrant from a warmer clime, he makes the following very pertinent remarks:—“Is our New-Zealand winter too rigorous for this family of birds? I scarcely fancy so. Even here there are few winter days when an occasional blink of sunshine does not fetch out dancing myriads of Ephemeridœ on the river-banks. In olden days I fancy this was not so much the case. The rapid growth of willows now overhanging the water must afford protection to delicate new-born insects such as mosquito and other gnats which the old fringe of flax and toetoe never could have given. The temperature of the water in which the larvæ reach their fullest development is scarcely affected by the season. Indeed, in many snow-fed rivers the temperature, far from the source, when the water is at its lowest, must often be higher in winter than in summer, when the melting snows are in full swing and the river body too great to be affected materially by sun-heat. I hope you will agree with me that the natural acclimatization of the Australian Swallow is not impossible.”
Mr.
On another occasion (as reported in the ‘Otago Daily News’) a flight of five was seen at Moeraki, still further south, by Mr. Bills, who was then engaged catching native birds for the Acclimatization Society, and got near enough to the Swallows to be sure of their identification.
There can be no doubt that these occasional visitants are stragglers from the Australian continent, and that to reach our country they perform a pilgrimage on the wing of upwards of a thousand miles!
In its own country it is a migratory species, visiting the southern portions of Australia and Tasmania, arriving in August and retiring northwards as autumn advances.
It visits the towns, in company with the Common Swallow (Hirundo frontalis); and I remember seeing it comparatively numerous in and about Sydney, during a visit there in August 1871.
Mr.
According to Gould it breeds during the month of October, nesting in the holes of trees, and depositing its eggs (three to five in number) on the soft, pulverized wood. The eggs are pinky white, freckled at the larger end with five spots of light reddish brown, and measure eight lines in length by six in breadth.
Coerulean Warbler, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. ii. p. 169 (1801).
Zosterops coerulescens, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. p. xxxviii (1801).
Sylvia lateralis, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. p. lv (1801, nec Sund.).
Zosterops dorsalis, Vig. & Horsf. Trans. Linn. Soc. xv. p. 235 (1826).
Zosterops lateralis, Reich. Handb. Meropinae, p. 94, t. cccclxiii. (1852).
Zosterops coerulescens, Gould, Handb. B. of Austr. i. p. 587 (1865).
Zosterops lateralis, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 80 (1873).
Tau-hou, Whiorangi, Hiraka, Motingitingi, Kanohi-mowhiti, Karu-patene, Karu-ringi, Karu-hiriwha, Poporohe, and Iringatau.
Ad. pileo et facie laterali, dorso postico et uropygio, cum tectricibus alarum laetè flavicanti-olivaceis: interscapulio scapularibusque sordidè cinereis: remigibus et rectricibus brunneis, extùs dorsi colore limbatis: regione orbitali anticâ nigricante, annulo ophthalmico albo: gulâ albidâ vix flavicante tinctâ: gutture imo cinereo: abdomine medio et subcaudalibus albidis, his flavicante lavatis: corporis lateribus conspicuè badiis: rostro saturatè brunneo, mandibulâ ad basin albicante: pedibus et iride pallidè brunneis.
Adult. Crown, sides of the head, nape, upper surface of wings, rump, and upper tail-coverts bright yellowish olive; back and scapularies cinereous tinged with green; eyes surrounded by a narrow circlet of silvery-white feathers, with a line of black in front and below; quills and tail-feathers dusky brown, margined with yellowish olive; throat, fore neck, and breast greyish white, tinged more or less with yellow towards the angle of the lower mandible; abdomen and under tail-coverts fulvous white; sides pale chocolate-brown; lining of wings white, the edges tinged with yellow. Bill dark brown; under mandible whitish at the base; irides clear reddish brown; tarsi and toes light brown. Total length 5 inches; extent of wings 7·5; wing, from flexure, 2·5; tail 2; tarsus ·6; middle toe and claw ·6; hind toe and claw ·5; bill, along the ridge ·4, along the edge of lower mandible ·5.
Fledgling. Colours paler than in the adult; the throat and breast pale cinereous grey; the sides of the body fulvous brown; the white eye-circle absent, the orbits being still destitute of feathers; irides hazel-brown; tarsi and toes light flesh-colour; bill pale brown; rictal membrane yellow.
Obs. The sexes are precisely alike, the plumage of the female being in no way inferior to that of the male. Although I have examined a great number, I have only detected very slight variation in the adult birds. But. Archdeacon Stock, of Wellington, who is a good practical ornithologist, has favoured me with the following note on this subject:—“I saw on Friday last, November 11, at Wilkinson’s ‘tea-gardens’ (Wellington), what appeared to be a new variety of the Blight-bird. The white circle around the eye was not so distinct; and the head and throat were orange-coloured.”
The substance of the above article on The story of the irregular appearance of this little bird in New Zealand has for many years past been a fruitful topic of discussion among those who take an interest in our local natural history. Whether it came over to us originally from Australia, or whether it is only a species from the extreme south of New Zealand, which has of late years perceptibly increased, and has migrated northwards, is still
Zosterops was read by the author before a meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society on November 12th, 1870, and led to a discussion, in the course of which Dr. Hector made the following remarks:—“He said that on the south-west coast of Otago the bird was numerous, and there was very good evidence to show that this region was its native habitat. While exploring there, some years ago, he had remarked that the whole country was covered with forest, which extended down to the sea, and that the whole of the vegetation, both trees and shrubs, especially those near the sea-shore, seemed to have a coating of scaly insects, the entire bush being, in fact, covered with blight. He therefore thought it probable that as these birds increased from the superabundance of their particular food, they in course of time sent out migratory flocks, which worked their way up the coast, and at length spread over the country.”—Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1870, vol. iii. p. 79.Schizoneura lanigera). They remained with us for three months, and then departed as suddenly as they had come. They left before the orchard-fruits, of which they are also fond, had ripened; and having proved themselves real benefactors they earned the gratitude of the settlers, while all the local newspapers sounded their well-deserved praises.
During the two years that followed, the Zosterops was never heard of again in any part of the North Island; but in the winter of 1858 it again crossed the strait, and appeared in Wellington and its environs in greater numbers than before. During the four succeeding years it regularly wintered with us, recrossing the strait on the approach of spring. Since the year 1862, when it commenced to breed with us, it has been a permanent resident in the North Island, and from that time it continued to advance northwards. Mr. Colenso, of Napier, reports that it was first seen at Ahuriri in 1862. On his journey to Te Wairoa, in that year, he saw it at Aropauanui, and found its nest containing four fledglings. The natives of that place told him that it was a new bird to them, they having first observed it there in the preceding year, 1861. The Hon. Major Atkinson, on the occasion of a visit, as Defence Minister, to the native tribes of the Upper Wanganui, in April 1864,
Zosterops had appeared in their district for the first time in 1863.
As far as I can ascertain, they penetrated to Waikato in the following year, and pushed their way as far as Auckland in 1865. Major Mair, R.M., writing to me from Taupo in 1866, said:—“It is now to be seen, in flocks of from 10 to 30, all over the Taupo and Rotoiti districts; and all the natives agree that it is a recent arrival in these parts.” Professor Hutton reports that in the winter of 1867 they had spread all over the province, as far north as the Bay of Islands, and in 1868 he writes:—“They are now in the most northerly parts of this island.” That they have continued to move on still further northward would appear to be the case from the following suggestive notes by Mr. G. B. Owen:—“On my passage from Tahiti to Auckland, per brig ‘Rita,’ about 300 miles north of the North Cape of New Zealand, I saw one morning several little birds flying about the ship. From their twittering and manner of flying I concluded that they were land-birds, and they were easily caught. They were of a brownish-grey and yellowish colour, with a little white mark round the eye. I saw several pass over the ship during the day, travelling northwards. I arrived in Auckland a few days afterwards, on the 20th of May, when the so-called Blight-birds appeared here in such numbers, and I at once recognized them as the same.” Mr. Seed, the Inspector of Customs, has furnished me with the following interesting particulars bearing on the same point. When on an official visit to the lighthouse on Dog Island, situated about seven miles eastward of the Bluff, he was informed by the keeper that on one occasion a great number of these birds had killed themselves by striking against the lighthouse, either during the night or before the lights were put out in the morning, as he found them in scores lying dead in the gallery The fact that they continue their flight at night is very curious. I may mention that on a dark evening in August, about 8 p.m., I observed what seemed to be a large moth fluttering against the glass of a lamp-post on Wellington Terrace. Apparently stunned, or wearied out, it fell to the ground, and on picking it up I found it to be a Zosterops, which had evidently been attracted by the gas-light. Its poor condition indicated that it was a migrant, doubtless a straggler from one of the flocks, large numbers of these birds having about that time made their appearance on the northern side of Cook’s Strait.
This tendency of migration northwards appears to me quite inconsistent with the idea of the species having come to us from Australia.
Now let us ascertain something of its recorded history in the South Island. Mr. Potts, says, in a letter to me:—“I first observed it (in Canterbury) after some rough weather, July 28, 1856. I saw about half a dozen specimens on some isolated black birch trees in the Rockwood valley in the Malvern Hills.” In the Auckland Museum there is a specimen of this bird, sent from Nelson by Mr. St. John (an industrious bird-collector) in 1856. The skin was labelled “Stranger,” and in the letter accompanying it Mr. St. John states that these birds had made their first appearance in Nelson that winter (the same in which they crossed to the North Island), and that “no one, not even the natives, had ever seen them before.”
On a visit to Nelson in the winter of 1860, I saw numerous flights of them in the gardens and shrubberies. The result of very careful inquiries on the spot satisfied me that since their first appearance there, in 1856, they had continued to visit Nelson every year, arriving at the commencement of winter, and vanishing on the approach of warmer days as suddenly as they had come. On every hand the settlers bore testimony to their good services in destroying the cabbage-blight and other insect pests.
About the middle of June 1861, I met with small flocks of this bird on the Canterbury Plains, evidently on their passage northward. I first observed them in the low scrub on the broad shinglebeds
During a visit to Dunedin, in the summer of 1860, the Rev. Mr. Stack observed numerous flocks in the gardens and thickets in the environs of the town. At this season they had disappeared from the Province of Canterbury and all the country further north. In the following summer (1861) I met with numerous stragglers in the northern parts of the Canterbury Province, and I understand from Mr. Potts that since that time it has been a permanent resident there, increasing in numbers every year. Mr. Buchanan, late artist to the Geological Survey Department, informs me that he observed the Zosterops at Otago, on his first arrival there in 1851, five years previous to its appearance in the North Island; and the following letters from correspondents go still further to prove that the species is an indigenous one there, and is only new to the country lying further north.
Mr. Newton Watt, R.M., of Campbell Town (Southland), writes as follows:—“Paitu, a chief here, and I believe the oldest man in the tribe, says it was always here. Howell says that he first noticed them on the west coast, about Milford Sound, in the year 1832, in flocks of thirty or forty, but never noticed them here (Riverton) till about 1863, when he saw them inland and in smaller flocks. On my way back from Riverton, I was mentioning it at the Club at Invercargill, and a gentleman present told me he had first noticed them, about eighty miles inland, about the year 1861, and that his attention was first called to them from the circumstance that they were gregarious,—a habit not common with New-Zealand birds. At Campbell Town it appeared to be more scarce, being seen only in small flocks, varying in number from six to twelve. In 1866 my sons noticed numbers of them among my cabbages, and observed that the cats caught many of them; and, further, that whilst my cabbages in the three preceding years were infested with blight, in that year there was little or no blight upon them till very late in the season. They appear to migrate from this locality in the winter, or at any rate to be scarce.”
Mr. James P. Maitland, R.M., of Molyneux, writes:—“From what I hear from old settlers of seventeen or eighteen years’ standing (whom I can trust as men of observation), I am convinced we have had the birds here for that time at any rate, although all agree that they have become much more numerous everywhere during the last seven years; and this year (1867) in particular I observe them in larger flocks than ever. I confess I do not recollect noticing the bird until about six years ago; but the smallness of their number at that time, and the smallness of the bird itself, may easily account for its being unnoticed in the bush. The gardéns seem to be the great attraction here, and they are the best hands I know at picking a cherry- or plum-stone clean!”
All my own personal inquiries at Otago, during my first visit there in February 1865, led me to the same conclusion.
Referring again to the migration of Zosterops from the South Island in 1856, it may, I think, be assumed that the large flights which came across Cook’s Strait made the island of Kapiti in their passage, and tarried there for a time before they reached the North Island. It will be remembered that the flocks which afterwards spread over the province appeared first at Waikanae and Paeka-kariki, on the lee shore from that island. I found Zosterops excessively abundant at Kapiti during a visit there in April 1875. Every bush swarmed with them, and sometimes fifty or more would crowd together in the leafy top of a stunted karaka, warbling and piping in chorus, producing sylvan music of a very sweet description. They appeared to be feeding on a species of Coccus that afflicts that tree.
The large numbers of these birds that appeared in flocks at Waikanae and Otaki in the early
Six years later, about the month of July, there was another irruption of the kind, the gardens and shrubberies in and around Wellington swarming with them, many hundreds often consorting together in one flock. On this occasion, they freely visited the poultry enclosures and back-yards in their search for food, and I have counted as many as thirty at one time exploring a drain-trap or clustering together on a discarded bone at the dog-kennel, and eagerly tearing off the particles of meat adhering to it. As a rule, they seemed to be unusually tame, as if weary after their long flight; and some of them, emboldened by hunger, entered the houses and outbuildings, whilst numbers fell victims to the remorseless cat.
The bird whose history has been so fully recorded in these pages being once fairly established among us, it has continued to increase and multiply, and now it disputes possession of our gardens and hedgerows with the introduced Sparrows and Finches, and indeed swarms all over the country. On my last visit to the Hot Lakes I found it extremely abundant everywhere; even amid the noxious fumes at Sulphur Point I met with small flocks flitting about in the stunted manuka scrub, and apparently quite at home in sulphuretted hydrogen! In the Bay of Plenty district it is particularly plentiful, so much so as to form an article of food to the natives. They are in season in the months of March and April, and are then collected in large numbers, singed on a bush fire to take the feathers off, and forthwith converted into huahua and potted in calabashes. The catching is effected in a very primitive way. The birds have their favourite trees upon which they are accustomed to congregate. Selecting one of these, the bird-catcher clears an open space in the boughs and puts up several straight horizontal perches, under which he sits with a long supple wand in his hand. He emits a low twittering note in imitation of the birds’, and, responding to the call, they cluster on the perches, filling them from end to end. The wand is switched along the perch, bringing dozens down together, and a boy on the ground below picks up the stunned birds as they fall. Captain Mair, when visiting Ruatahuna on one occasion, had brought to him, by two Urewera lads, a basket containing some five or six hundred of these little birds which had been killed in the manner described.
In front of the Rev. Mr. Spencer’s house at Tarawera, in a hedge of Laurustinus, scarcely six yards from the door, upwards of twenty nests of Zosterops were found at one time, each containing from three to five eggs (generally the former) of a lovely blue colour. Usually, however, these birds do not breed in communities, but scatter themselves in the nesting-season.
My son discovered a nest, containing three eggs, attached to a fern-stalk at the very edge of a boiling and steaming fumarole, near the White Terrace of Rotomahana, and suspended as it were in the midst of a perpetual vapour-bath.
In the selection of its breeding-home, this bird has manifested with us somewhat erratic tendencies: thus, for the first three or four years after its permanent location in the North Island, it wintered in the low lands and the districts bordering on the sea-coast, and retired in summer to the higher forest-lands of the interior to breed and rear its young. In the summer of 1865 a few stragglers were observed to remain behind all through the season, and in the following year they sojourned in flocks and freely built their nests in our shrubberies and thickets, and even among the stunted fern and tea-tree (Leptospermum) near the sea-shore. From that time to the present it has ranked as one of our commonest birds all the year round; and, what is even more remarkable, it has very perceptibly increased in numbers, whilst most of our other insectivorous birds are rapidly declining, and threaten ere long to be extinct.
To the philosophical naturalist the history of the Zosterops in New Zealand is pregnant with interest, and I feel that no apology is needed for my having thus minutely recorded it.
The natives distinguish the bird as Tau-hou (which means a stranger), or Kanohi-mowhiti (which may be interpreted spectacle-eye or ring-eye). It is also called Poporohe and Iringatau, names suggested by its accidental or periodical occurrence.
By the settlers it has been variously designated as Ring-eye, Wax-eye, White-eye, or Silver-eye, in allusion to the beautiful circlet of satiny-white feathers which surrounds the eyes; and quite as commonly the “Blight-bird,” or “Winter-migrant.”
I have frequently watched the habits of this little bird, and with much interest. As already stated, it is gregarious, flying and consorting in flocks, except in the breeding-season, when they are to be observed singly or in pairs. As soon as a flock of them alights on a tree, or clump of brushwood, they immediately disperse in quest of food; and, on a cautious approach, may be seen prosecuting a very diligent search among the leaves and flowers, and in the crevices of the bark, for the small insects and aphides on which they principally subsist. I have opened many specimens, at all seasons, and I have invariably found their stomachs crammed with minute insects and their larvæ. In some I have found the large pulpy scale-insect (Coccus, sp.), of a dull green colour, which is commonly found adhering to the leaves of the ramarama (Myrtus bullata); also small caterpillars, grasshoppers, and coleoptera, and occasionally the small fruity seeds of Rubus australis and other native plants. In our orchards and gardens it regales itself freely on plums, cherries, figs, gooseberries, and other soft fruits; but it far more than compensates for this petty pilfering by the wholesale war it carries on against the various species of insects that affect our fruit-trees and vegetables. It feeds on that disgusting little aphis known as American blight, which so rapidly covers with a fatal cloak of white the stems and branches of our best apple-trees; it clears our early cabbages of a pestilent little insect that, left unchecked, would utterly destroy the crop; it visits our gardens and devours another swarming parasite that covers our roses and other flowering plants, to say nothing of its general services as an insectivorous bird. Surely, in return for these important benefits, to both orchard and garden, the flocks of
It is very pretty to see a pair of them feeding together on a single berry of the poroporo ( Solanum nigrum) or diligently scooping out the centre of a ripe fig, their ever-changing positions being very artistic.
A favourite resort of this bird in the early part of November is the kohia creeper (Passiflora tetandra), which covers much of the low scrub on the outskirts of the forest, and is at this time a mass of white bloom. The little bell-shaped flowers, which diffuse so much fragrance through the woods, being full of nectar, attract the little golden butterfly (Chrysophanus enysi) and swarms of gaily-coloured diptera. Here the Zosterops, in addition to the sip of honey, finds an abundance of its favourite insect food. When thus engaged, it emits a soft plaintive cry, repeated at short intervals; but on the wing, and especially when consorting in a flock, it utters a rapid twittering note. During the breeding-season the male indulges in a low musical strain of exquisite sweetness, but very subdued, as if singing to himself or performing for the exclusive benefit of his partner. This song is something like the subdued strain of the Korimako (Anthornis melanura), but much softer.
I have already mentioned the circumstance of a flock of these birds being generally attended by two or more sentinels or call-birds, who take their station on the topmost twigs, as a post of observation, and whose sharp signal-note instantly brings the whole fraternity together. On one occasion, while out pheasant-shooting at Wangaehu, the sound of my companion’s whistle, although more than 200 yards away, attracted the notice of a flock of Zosterops consorting together in the top of a lofty kahikatea tree. The call-birds gave the alarm, and the whole flock, amidst much clamour, ascended high in the air and disappeared behind a neighbouring hill. The sentinels appear to be always on the alert; and I have seen the same effect produced on a flock of these birds by the cry of a hawk, or any other suspicious sound, although there was no appearance of immediate danger.
If shot at and wounded it generally manages to escape capture by scrambling nimbly off into
At the period when they were most plentiful at Wellington, an unaccountable mortality manifested itself; and in one particular locality, near Te Aro, sometimes as many as twenty dead ones were found in the morning under the Eucalyptus tree in which the flock had roosted for the night.
Mr. Colenso observes that “when they retire to roost they sleep in pairs, cuddling quite close together, like love-parrots; and before they fold their heads under their wings they bill and preen each other’s head and neck most lovingly, uttering at the same time a gentle twittering note.”
Mr. Potts informs me that, in Canterbury, this species begins nesting early in October. In one instance, within his own observation, the birds commenced incubation on October 16, the young were hatched on October 25, and left the nest on November 4. In the North Island the breeding-season is somewhat later. As late as the 24th of December I met with a nest in the Taupo-Patea country, containing two perfectly fresh eggs. The nest is a slight cup-shaped structure, with a rather large cavity for the size of the bird, and is generally found suspended by side-fastenings to hanging vines, or to the slender twigs of Leptospermum, Olearia, and other shrubs, and sometimes to the common fern (Pteris aquilina). The eggs are generally three in number (sometimes four), ovoido-conical in form, measuring ·7 of an inch in length by ·5 in breadth, and of a beautiful, uniform pale blue colour.
Nests of this species exhibit some variety, both as to structure and the materials of which they are composed. Of three specimens now before me, one is of slight construction and shallow in its cavity, composed externally of green-coloured lichen, spiders’ nests, the downy seed-vessels of the pikiarero (or flowering clematis), and a few dry leaves, lined internally with long horse-hair disposed in a circular form; another is of smaller size, more compact, composed externally of crisp dry moss, and internally of grass-bents with a few long hairs interlaced; while the third has the exterior walls constructed entirely of spiders’ nests and stiff fibrous mosses, the former predominating, and the interior lining composed wholly of long horse-hair.
At Akitio (in the North Island), where wild pigs are very plentiful, the Blight-birds habitually
A specimen which I found suspended in a clump of creeping kohia was composed externally of the pale green and rust-coloured lichen so abundant on the branches of dead timber, intermixed with spiders’ webs, and lined inside with dry fibrous grasses, the whole being laced together with hair, the long straggling ends of which projected from every part of the nest; and another, which was obtained from the low brushwood bordering on the sea-shore, was built of sheep’s wool, spiders’ nests, pellets of cow-hair, and fine seaweed firmly bound together with long thread-like fibres, apparently the rootlets of some aquatic plant, and lined internally with fine grass-bents and soft feathers. Sometimes the nest is constructed wholly of bents and dry grass.
I have lately had an opportunity of examining a beautiful series of the nests of this species, and I remarked that through all the varieties of individual form and structure they presented these two essential features—the large cup-like cavity with thin walls, and the admixture of long hairs in the lining material. In one of the nests forming this series the proximity to civilization was proclaimed by a lining consisting of the flaxen hair from a child’s doll!
Zosterops is not, strictly speaking, a suctorial bird; but it is closely allied to the Tubilingues. The tongue has no brush, but ends in two short filaments; and, as shown by Dr. Gadow, in his ‘Account of the Suctorial Apparatus of the Tenuirostres,’ is far from being the complicated and elaborate organ generally exhibited in the tubular tongues of the Nectariniidæ and Meliphagidæ.
The genus has an extensive range, for, according to the British Museum Catalogue, its members are spread all over South Africa south of the Sahara, Madagascar and the Comoro Islands, the entire Indian Peninsula and Ceylon, Burmese countries, the whole of China (extending into Amoor Land), Japan, Formosa, Hainan, Malay Peninsula, all the Indo-Malayan islands, Moluccas, New Guinea and the adjacent Papuan group, and (with few exceptions) throughout the islands of the great Pacific Ocean.
Mr. Gould states that Zosterops cœrulescens “is stationary in all parts of Tasmania, New South Wales, and South Australia, where it is not only to be met with in the forests and thickets, but also in nearly every garden.”
At the Chatham Islands, where it is now very abundant, it is said to have made its first appearance shortly after the great fire in Australia known as Black Thursday.
Mocking-Creeper, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. p. 735 (1782).
Certhia melanura, Sparrm. Mus. Carls. pl. v. (1786).
Certhia sannio, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 471 (1788).
Philedon dumerilii, Less. Voy. Coq. Zool. i. p. 644, t. 21. fig. 2 (1826).
Anthomiza cœruleocephala, Swains. Classif. of B. ii. p. 327 (1837).
Philedon sannio, Less. Compl. Buff. xi. p. 165 (1838).
Anthornis melanura, Gray, List of Gen. of B. p. 15 (1840).
Certhia olivacea, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 79 (1844).
Anthornis ruficeps, Von Pelz. Verh. zool.-bot. Gesellsch. Wien, 1867, p. 316.
Mako, Makomako, Komako, Kokomako, Korimako, Kohimako, Kokorimako, Kohorimako, Titimako, and Kopara. Of the above names, Korimako is most generally used by the northern and Makomako by the southern tribes. The Ngatiawa call this bird Rearea; and the natives of the Bay of Plenty distinguish the male and female as Kokorohimako and Titapu.
♂ suprà flavicanti-olivaceus, uropygio vix lætiore: pileo undique metallicè violaceo nitente: loris et mento ipso nigricantibus: tectricibus alarum nigricantibus dorsi colore lavatis: remigibus nigricantibus vix sub certâ luce indigotico nitentibus, extùs angustè olivaceo limbatis, scapis suprà nigricantibus, subtùs brunnescentibus: caudâ nigrâ, subtùs pallidiore, rectricibus extùs sordidè indigotico lavatis: subtùs flavicanti-olivaceus, hypochondriis imis paullò lætioribus: crisso et subcaudalibus flavicanti-albis, olivaceo-brunneo variis: subalaribus cinerascentibus, olivaceo lavatis: fasciis axillaribus flavidis: rostro nigro: pedibus plumbeis, unguibus brunneis: iride rubrâ.
♀ mari similis, sed magis olivaceo-brunnescens, et ubique sordidior: pileo dorso concolore, metallicè viridi obscurè nitente: alis et caudâ brunnescentibus, secundariis fulvo terminatis et rectricibus olivaceo-viridi limbatis: fasciâ mystacali parvâ: albidâ: subtùs brunnescens, pectore pallidè ferrugineo lavato, abdomine magis olivascente: subalaribus et fasciis axillaribus sordidè flavidis.
♂ juv. similis mari adulto, sed pallidior: fasciâ mystacali indistinctâ.
Adult male. The whole of the plumage olive-green, changing to yellowish-olive on the sides of the body and abdomen; beneath plumbeous; forehead, crown, and sides of the head glossed with deep purple; primary quills and tail-feathers dusky black, darker and having a steel gloss on the outer webs; the secondary quills narrowly margined outwardly with olive-green, which colour spreads on the inner ones till it nearly covers the entire web; inner lining of wings, as well as the soft ventral feathers and under tail-coverts, pale fulvous yellow. Irides cherry-red; bill black; tarsi and toes dark leaden grey; the claws brown. Total length 7·75 inches; wing, from flexure, 3·4; tail, to the extremity of lateral feathers, 3·6; bill, along the ridge ·6, along the edge of lower mandible ·75; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw ·6; hind toe and claw ·75.
Adult female. Smaller than the male, with little or no purple gloss on the head, and readily distinguished by a
Young male. Plumage lighter than in the adult bird, with a narrow indistinct line of yellowish white from the angles of the mouth.
Nestling. Plumage fluffy and colours dull. The membrane at the corners of the mouth strongly developed and of a bright yellow colour.
Trans. New-Zealand Inst. 1868, vol. i. p. 108.Obs. The bird described by Herr von Pelzeln (l. c.) under the name of Anthornis ruficeps was, what I had always contended forA. ruficeps. The red colour on the face is caused by external influences; for my friend Von Pelzeln has washed the type in the Vienna Museum, and the red tinge has partially disappeared.” But, even as far back as 1782, Latham mentions (l. c.) the existence of a red stain in some specimens, and ascribes it to the true cause, adding “this in time rubs off, and the colour of the head appears the same as the rest of the plumage.”
Varieties. On the 10th October, 1874, a partial albino was brought to the Canterbury Museum, and I had an opportunity of examining it in the flesh. Although I had seen probably some thousands of this species, this was the first instance I could remember of any departure from the normal colour, unless it were an occasional very slight tendency to melanism. This specimen, which is still in the collection, is a fine male bird, with the body-plumage as in ordinary specimens, but having the whole of the quills and tail-feathers ashy white, the edges of the outer webs slightly tinged with yellow. The shafts of the quills are dark brown, those of the tail-feathers white in their greater portion, becoming brown towards the base; the bastard-quills and tertiary coverts are ashy white; the large secondary coverts dark grey tipped with whitish and margined with dull olive; the axillary tufts, lower part of abdomen, flanks, and under tail-coverts pale lemon-yellow. Irides, bill, and feet as in ordinary examples.
Much more recently, however (in April 1885), a more perfect albino was brought to the Museum from Akaroa. The whole plumage is white, washed with pale yellow on the back, upper surface of wings, rump, and underparts, the basal portion of each feather being pale plumbeous; under surface of wings and tail-feathers pale slaty grey; bill and feet as in the normal condition.
Queen Charlotte’s Sound.The praises of the Bell-bird were sung, a hundred years ago, by the illustrious navigator Cook, whose ‘Voyages’ contain the following record:—“The ship lay at the distance of somewhat less than a quarter of a mile from the shore
This species, formerly very plentiful in every part of the country, appears to be rapidly dying out. From some districts, where a few years ago it was the commonest bird, it has now entirely vanished. In the Waikato it is comparatively scarce, on the East Coast it is only rarely met with,
The above remarks were intended to refer principally to the North Island; but even in the South, as I have elsewhere pointed out Trans. New-Zealand Instit. vol. ix. p. 330.
My observations as to the extreme rarity of this species in the North Island, where in former years it was the commonest of the perchers, are confirmed by Captain Captain Mair informs me also that on the small island of Motiti, in the Bay of Plenty, the Bell-bird is very numerous, although it is never seen or heard on the mainland opposite. He adds:—“On Whale Island also, although there are no Tuis, Korimakos are very plentiful. It was really delightful to see and hear them again. They abound in numbers in the shrubbery, and hearing them sing at daylight carried me back in spirit to my boyhood, at the North, thirty years ago!” My son having gone to this island, to indulge in deep-sea fishing, had to camp there for the night. He and his party found shelter in a little rocky cavern, and being the last day of the old year, the new year’s morn was ushered in by a delightful chorus from the Bell-birds in the pohutukawa trees above them.
In 1868, Professor Hutton found the Korimako abundant on Great Barrier Island, although even then scarce on the mainland Ten years later, Reischek could not find one on the Great Barrier, although the bird was still to be heard and seen on the Little Barrier.
Although I travelled a good deal through the forests of the interior during the ten years after my return from Europe in 1874, on one occasion only did I ever meet with this species on the mainland, and then only with a solitary bird; but during a storm-bound visit to the island of Kapiti (Cook’s Strait) in April 1877, I was charmed immediately on landing to hear the musical notes of the Bell-bird again, and to meet with it in every direction among the stunted karaka groves that clothe the western slopes of that island. In the course of an afternoon I saw a score or more of them within a very limited area, and on a second and more extended visit on the following day I found them equally numerous. I met with another bird also, which has likewise become well-nigh extinct on the mainland (Miro australis), although not in such numbers as the former.
Several years later I met with the Korimako again, in sufficient abundance, on a wooded islet called Motu-taiko in the very centre of the Taupo Lake, having put in there for shelter.
The facts I have mentioned are interesting, as furnishing another illustration of the observed natural law, that expiring races of animals and plants linger longest and find their last refuge on seagirt islands of limited extent.
The cause of the rapid disappearance in New Zealand of some species of birds, and absolute extinction of others, is a very interesting question, and I have already called attention to it in various published papers. In a newly colonized country, where the old fauna and flora are being invaded by a host of foreign immigrants, various natural agencies are brought into play to check the progress of the indigenous species, and to supplant them by new and more enduring forms, more especially in the case of insular areas of comparatively small extent. These agencies are often too subtle in their operation to arrest the notice of the ordinary observer; and it is only the ultimate results that command his attention and wonder. But in New Zealand some special cause, apart from this general law, must be assigned for the alarmingly rapid decrease of many of the indigenous birds: in the course of a very few years, species formerly common in every grove have become so scarce throughout the country as to threaten to become extinct at no very distant date.
Various reasons have been suggested to account for this. The natives believe that the imported bee, which has become naturalized in the woods, is displacing the Korimako, Tui, and other honey-eating birds. One of the oldest settlers in the Hokianga district (the late Judge Maning), speaking to me on this subject, said:—“I remember the time, not very long ago, when the Maori lads would come out of the woods with hundreds of Korimakos hung around them in strings; now one scarcely ever hears the bird: formerly they swarmed in the northern woods by thousands; now they are well nigh extinct.” On asking him his opinion as to the cause of this, he told me that he agreed with the Maoris, that the bee, having taken possession of the woods, had driven the honey-eating birds away from the flowers, and practically starved them out; and he referred to the scarcity of the Tui, another honey-eater, in support of this view In this connection it is worth mentioning that on the Great Barrier and Island of Kawau, from both of which the Korimako has now disappeared, bees are plentiful; whereas on the Little Barrier and the Chickens, where the bird still lingers, there are no bees. In a letter which I had the pleasure of receiving from the Rev. Herr F. von Fischer (Zool. Gart. 1872, p. 125) calculates that a single pair of these rats might have, after ten years, a progeny of 48, 319, 698, 843, 030, 344, 720 individuals. Mr. Miro australis) and other species which do not sip flowers are becoming equally scarce. It appears to me that the honey-bee theory is quite insufficient to meet the case, and that we must look further for the real cause. As the result of long observation, I have come to the conclusion that, apart from the effects produced by a gradual change in the physical conditions of the country, the chief agent in this rapid destruction of certain species of native birds is the introduced rat. This cosmopolitan pest swarms through every part of the country, and nothing escapes its voracitykinaki (relish) for their vegetable suppers.”Rhipidura, Zosterops, Gerygone, and other small birds, whose delicate nests are secured to slender twigs or suspended among vines and creepers. And the Ground-Lark, again, which nests in open grass or fern land, where the Harrier keeps the rat well under control, has of late years sensibly increased, being now very common. As a matter of fact, I have known a case in which half a dozen nests of the Tui, within a radius of a hundred yards, were robbed by rats of both eggs and youngFagus forests by the Woodhen (Ocydromus), and the bee is limited in its range to the cultivated districts. But the cause of the disappearance of this bird is mere matter of speculation, and I have only cited the case in order to show how little we really know of the circumstances which may govern or limit the distribution of any particular species.” (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1882, vol. xv. p. 182.)
But to resume our history of the “Bell-bird”—so-called from the fanciful resemblance of one of its notes to the distant tolling of a bell. Its ordinary song is not unlike that of the Tui or Parson-bird, but is more mellifluous. Its notes though simple are varied and sweetly chimed; and as the bird is of social habits, the morning anthem, in which scores of these sylvan choristers perform together, is a concert of eccentric parts, producing a wild but pleasing melody. When singing it arches its back and puffs out the feathers of the body. I have occasionally heard a solitary Bell-bird pouring forth its liquid notes after the darkness of advancing night had silenced all the other denizens of the grove. It ought to be mentioned, moreover, that both sexes sing. When alarmed or excited they utter a strain of notes which I can only compare to the sound produced by a policeman’s rattle quickly revolved. This cry, or the bird-catcher’s imitation of it, never fails to attract to the spot all the Bell-birds within hearing. The Maoris are accustomed to snare them by means of a tuke baited with the crimson flowers of the climbing Metrosideros. The same device is adopted for catching the Tui.
This snare, of which a figure is here given, is formed of a carefully selected piece of kareao vine, having the necessary curve upwards. The lower part of this is fastened to the thick end of a bush-rod, eight or ten feet in length, through a small hole in which a looped flax line is passed, a crook, to serve as a support, being placed on the opposite side. At the upper extremity of the artificial perch thus produced a circular flower-holder, made of split vine, is fixed, and a string connects it with the stem of the tuke, whilst the attachment of the lower end to the support is concealed by a covering of soft moss, carefully tied round with a strip of green flax, every precaution being taken to give it a natural appearance. Having baited and set his snare, the bird-catcher hitches it by the crook to a branch in some favourable position and prepares for action. Concealing himself in a shelter of fronds, torn from a tree-fern and hastily stuck into the ground with the tops overlapping, he imitates the alarmcry of the bird by means of a nikau leaf placed between his lips. The call is soon responded to, and birds from far and near hurry to the tatal spot. The artful Maori then stops calling, and the birds, as soon as their excitement has subsided, begin to look about them and are attracted by the flowers. The instant one touches the treacherous perch, a pull on the string, bringing the loop home, secures it firmly by the leg. The tuke is then gently unhitched and lowered from the branch, cleared of its victim, and quickly reset.
In former times, when this species was abundant throughout the whole country, certain forestranges were famed as Korimako preserves, and were highly prized on that account by the natives owning them. At the present day, in the investigation of native titles to land, the “snaring of Korimakos” by their ancestors is an act of ownership frequently pleaded in support of the tribal claim.
The flight of this bird is undulating, but very rapid, the wings and tail being alternately opened to their full extent and sharply closed. It sometimes mounts to a considerable height in the air, and I have occasionally observed large parties of them indulging in a playful flight far above the tree-tops.
Its food consists of minute flies and insects, as well as small berries, such as those of the karamu ( Coprosma lucida) and other shrubs, and the honey of various kinds of bush-flowers. When feeding on the latter, it may be seen hanging by the feet in all positions from the slight flower-bearing twigs, while the slender bill, with the pencilled tongue protruded, is thrust into the corolla of each flower in quick succession.
In the gardens of the South Island it is still daily to be seen, moving actively about and collecting honey from various flowers. It is specially fond of the common black wattle; and it is a pretty sight to watch the bird clinging to the flower-stems in the manner described and assuming every variety of attitude as it sips the nectar from the golden tassels that cover the tree in such thick profusion Forty years ago literally thousands of these birds annually frequented the groves of wattle around the old mission-station at Tangiteroria (on the northern Wairoa). The wattles still are there, grown to the size of forest trees, with many generations of younger ones; but, alas! the “chime of silver bells” is no longer to be heard: the Korimakos have gone, and the groves are silent!
When the korari ( Phormium tenax) is in full bloom, the horn-shaped flowers are filled with delicious nectar, which the natives are accustomed to collect in calabashes, to be used as a drinkingbeverage for visitors. The Bell-bird, too, loves to regale itself on this saccharine production; and while the season lasts its forehead is often stained red from the colouring-matter that adheres to the feathers. When the bird, with the change of season again, is feasting itself from the smaller cups of the pretty native fuchsia (
Its ordinary chime consists of the following four notes (as set by Dr. Shortland):—
No one who has not actually listened to the melody can form any idea of the effect produced by these high notes coming from a hundred throats independently, and blending together in the richest harmony of song.
The Bell-bird commences breeding towards the end of September or early in October, and sometimes even as late as November and December. I have met with a brood of fully-fledged young birds as early as October 28; while, on the other hand, Mr. Potts informs me that he has observed it building its nest at the end of January or beginning of February. It seems probable, therefore, that this species rears two broods in the year. Its nest may be looked for in deep wooded gullies and in the low brushwood along the outskirts of the forest. It is usually placed in the fork of a low branch, and the bird in selecting a site seems generally to prefer those bushes over which the native bramble ( Rubus australis) has thrown a protecting mantle. It is a common thing to find four or five old nests of former years in the immediate vicinity of the occupied one, as if the birds formed an attachment for a locality once chosen as a breeding-place. The nest is a rather loose structure, composed externally of small dry twigs, sometimes interlaced with the wiry stems of the bush convolvulus, over
My son’s collection contains a beautiful series of thirteen, presenting a considerable amount of individual variation, not only in the surface tint, but in the extent and character of the markings. In some the reddish spots coalesce at the large end, forming a sort of cap, in others they present distinct blots and smudges; some have a polar zone of confluent freckles, while others are studded with roundish rust-spots; in some the markings are sharp and distinct, in others smeared or blurred; one is of a pinkish cream-colour, clouded over its major portion with reddish brown, and another is perfectly white, with a cluster of reddish dots on its larger pole and a few scattered specks below. In form, too, they vary from the perfect ovoid to the types mentioned above.
In the selection of feathers for the lining of its nest this bird shows an extraordinary love of decoration, the preference being given to those of striking colours. The scarlet feathers of the Kaka, the bright green of the Parrakeet, and the ultramarine of the Kingfisher are sometimes found intermixed; the shining breast-feathers of the Wood-Pigeon are invariably used; and in the vicinity of habitations (as a correspondent informs me) the nest is occasionally found supplied from a neighbouring poultry-yard, the spotted plumes of the Guinea-fowl being most conspicuous This statement in my former edition having been questioned by Prof. Hutton (‘Ibis,’ 1874, p. 36), I may quote the following observations since recorded by Mr. Potts (‘Journal of Science,’ vol. ii. p. 278):—“Keeping several kinds of choice poultry not far from the bush afforded me special opportunities of observing this fact. I noticed nests lined with coloured feathers as follows: red from the Kakas, green from the Parrakeets, black from the Norfolk Turkeys, buff, from Cochin fowls, speckled from the Pintadocs, and white from the Geese. I have not seen a red- or green-lined nest for years, as the destruction of the woods about here (Ohinitahi) has made both Kakas and Parrakeets rare visitors.”
A nest from the Little Barrier is composed entirely of small black twigs carefully worked together and deeply lined with dark Pigeon’s feathers, the cup being very wide, having a diameter at its rim of 3·25 inches. It was found at an elevation of thirty feet from the ground, under shelter of a clump of parasitic Astelia, and contained four young birds.
During the breeding-season the parent birds evince much tender solicitude for the safety of their offspring. On leaving the nest, the young have the rictal membrane (at the angles of the mouth) very large and of a bright yellow colour. The old birds hunt for them with untiring industry; and the young brood may be seen perched side by side on a branch patiently waiting for their food, and on the approach of their parents, quivering their wings with excitement, and eagerly gaping their throats, all of them together, to receive the coveted morsel.
I have made frequent attempts to rear the young, but have never succeeded. I have known instances of the adult birds being caged with success; but, like the Tui, they are liable to sudden convulsive fits, and seldom survive their confinement very long.
The Korimako from the south-west region appears to be a somewhat larger race. An egg of this bird taken at Preservation Inlet, in the month of January, is ovoido-conical, measuring ·9 of an inch in length by ·7 in breadth. It is of a delicate pinky white, with irregular stained markings of reddish brown, chiefly towards the larger end, and particularly on one side of the egg, without any appearance of a zone; the other end towards the pole being quite free from markings of any kind.
Anthornis melanocephala, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 188 (1843).
Anthornis auriocula, Buller, Essay on the Orn. of N. Z. p. 8 (1865).
♂ similis A. melanurœ, sed conspicuè major: pileo undique chalybeo, indigotico vel purpureo nitente.
♀ juv. similis adulto, sed pallidior: abdomine imo cum crisso et hypochondriis imis fulvescentibus: fronte vix chalybeo nitente: filamentis pilei gulaeque chalybeo-nigris: fasciâ mystacali indistinctâ, pallidè flavâ: tectricibus alarum, remigibus et rectricibus brunnescenti-nigris, paullò chalybeo lavatis, extùs angustè flavicanti-olivaceo limbatis: rostro nigro: pedibus brunneis, plantis pallidioribus, unguibus saturatè brunneis: iride aureâ.
Adult male. The whole of the plumage olive-green, lighter on the sides of the body and lower part of abdomen; beneath dark plumbeous, this being observable only on raising the feathers; forehead and crown steel-blue, changing to a purplish-blue gloss on the sides of the head, nape, throat, and fore part of the breast, these parts appearing shot with purple and blue in certain lights; quills dusky brown, with yellowish-brown shafts, margined on the outer webs with yellow; the small wing-coverts steel-blue, margined with olivegreen; tail-feathers dusky black, with steel-black margins; the soft ventral feathers and under tail-coverts fulvous yellow, the latter with an olivaceous tinge. Irides golden yellow (?); bill black; tarsi, toes, and claws dark brown. Total length 10 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·25; tail 4·5; bill, along the ridge ·7, along the edge of lower mandible ·9; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·05; hind toe and claw 1·15.
Female. Although, since the publication of my former edition, I have received four or five examples of this bird from the Chatham Islands, I have never yet had an opportunity of comparing the female. Prof. Hutton says that “it is similar to the female of A. melanura except as to size.”
Young. An examination of the type of Anthornis melanocephala in the British Museum satisfied me that the bird named by me (I. c.) was only the young of this species. The following is a description of this specimen, which is now in the Colonial Museum at Wellington:—The whole of the plumage yellowish olive, paler on the underparts, and tinged with fulvous on the abdomen, flanks, and under tail-coverts; faint steel gloss on the forehead; produced filaments on the crown, sides of the head, and throat steel-black; from the angle of the mouth a narrow indistinct streak of pale yellow; wing-feathers and their coverts, also tail-feathers, blackish brown, with a faint steel gloss, their outer webs narrowly margined with yellowish olive; inner lining of wings pale yellow. Irides golden yellow; bill black; tarsi and toes brown, with paler soles; claws umber-brown. Total length 9·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·4; tail 4·5; tarsus 1·5. (On a close inspection of this specimen two minute feathers of steel-blue on the side of the head give indication of a change of plumage.)
Obs. Gray’s type was obtained by Dr. Dieffenbach, the naturalist to the New-Zealand Company, who visited the Chatham Islands in 1839. I may mention that it is not in the fully-matured plumage. Three of the tailfeathers on one side are dusky black, deepening to glossy steel-black on the outer webs; the rest are, like the wing-feathers, dusky brown, margined with olivaceous green. In the adult male the primaries and secondaries, as well as the tail, assume the dark colour.
This species, which is a native of the Chatham Islands, is very similar to the well-known Anthornis melanura; but, as will be seen on referring to the measurements given above, it is considerably
During a visit to the Chatham Islands in 1855, I observed this Anthornis in the woods near Waitangi, and procured a specimen, although, as already mentioned, I was unable at the time to identify it. In giving it a provisional name, I selected the beautiful golden irides as presenting a good distinguishable feature, those of A. melanura being bright cherry-red. I observed that its habits were precisely similar to those of the common Bell-bird, but that its notes appeared to be louder and somewhat less musical. Its gregarious instincts are the same; for, on imitating the alarm-cry, I was immediately surrounded by a number of these birds in a high state of excitement.
Mr. Henry Travers, from whom I have received several specimens, states that he found it in great numbers on Mangare, less frequent on the main island, and rare on Pitt Island. It had commenced to breed in October, and its nest, which he describes as being “composed of grass and feathers, large and coarsely constructed,” contained as a rule three eggs. He considers its song richer and fuller than that of its New-Zealand congener. It seemed to me very much the same, but louder.
It is said that of late years this bird has deserted the neighbourhood of the native villages and settlers’ homesteads, and retired to the southern portion of Wharekauri (as the main island is called), where the woods have not yet been destroyed Zoologist, 1885, vol. xliii. p. 422.
It is a remarkable fact that whereas the New-Zealand bird is common enough at the Chatham Islands, this larger form has never been found in any part of New Zealand. The two species subsist on the same kind of food; and it is difficult to account for this peculiarity of range on any principle of geographical distribution. Where species are representative of each other in neighbouring islands, as is the case with several birds inhabiting the North and South Islands respectively, this differentiation of character, with the necessary lapse of time, is intelligible enough; but the present case is entirely different. If the long-continued separation had affected the New-Zealand bird to any appreciable degree, the same result must presumably have happened to the same bird in the Chatham Islands, four hundred miles distant; we find, however, the same type common to both places, which in itself would occasion no surprise but for the singular fact that the larger and stronger form, associated with it, is confined strictly to the smaller area, and preserves its distinctive character.
It seems to me probable that in former times both species inhabited New Zealand, and that, as Anthornis melanura is now rapidly disappearing from the mainland, so in like manner the other species may have died out before we became acquainted with the country. In that case, however, it would be necessary to discover some other factor than the Norwegian rat, which, as explained on a former page, is suspected of the principal mischief now. The survival of the extirpated race in the Chatham Islands is consistent with this supposition, because it is an observed law of nature that expiring races of animals and plants linger to the last in such insular areas.
The nest of this species is very much larger than that of the Anthornis melanura. A specimen in the Canterbury Museum measures in its largest diameter about 8 inches by 7 inches. It is composed chiefly of dry narrow flags or grasses bent in a circular form, the outer wall being strengthened with an admixture of fibrous twigs. The cavity, which is rather loosely formed, as compared with that of the latter, is roughly lined with sheep’s wool, with a few small feathers intermixed. It contained two eggs, which differ somewhat from each other, both in form and colour. One of them is of a warm salmon-pink, thickly blotched at the larger end, and spotted at irregular intervals on the general surface with reddish brown, ovoido-elliptical in form, and measuring 1·05 inch by ·75 inch. The other egg is more oval in form, paler in colour, and less marked with reddish brown, the spots being much smaller and more scattered over the surface.
New-Zealand Creeper, Brown, Illustr. Zool. pl. ix. (1776).
Poë Bee-eater, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. p. 682 (1782).
Merops novoe seelandioe, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 464 (1788, ex Lath.).
Merops cincinnatus, Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 275 (1790).
La Cravate Frisée, Levaill. Ois. d’Afr. ii. pl. 92 (1800).
Sturnus crispicollis, Daud. Traité d’Orn. ii. p. 314 (1800, ex Levaill.).
Philemon cincinnatus, Bonn, et Vieill. Enc. Méth. p. 613 (1823).
Prosthemadera concinnata, Gray, List Gen. of B. 1840, p. 3.
Certhia cincinnata, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 78 (1844).
Prosthemadera circinata, Reich. Handb. Merop. p. 127, t. ccccxcii. fig. 3466 (1852).
Meliphaga novoe zealandioe, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7466.
Tui and Koko; the young bird distinguished as Pi-tui or Pikari.
♂ pileo toto metallicè viridi, collo postico, uropygio et supracaudalibus purpurascentibus: collo undique filamentis albis ornato: dorso reliquo et scapularibus cuprescenti-brunneis: alâ supernè metallicè viridi, tectricibus alarum paullò purpurascentibus, medianis albo terminatis, fasciam alarem distinctam formantibus: remigibus nigris, extùs viridi metallico lavatis, secundariis latiùs: caudâ nigrâ, suprâ purpurascenti-viridi nitente: subtùs metallicè viridis, versus pectus imum purpurascens: abdomine toto cuprescenti-brunneo: hypochondriis elongatis laetè brunneis: gutture imo fasciculis duobus albis globosis ornato: subalaribus nigris: subcaudalibus metallicè viridibus: rostro et pedibus nigricanti-brunneis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
♀ mari similis, sed paullò minor: coloribus sordidioribus: hypochondriis fulvescentioribus.
Juv. schistaceo-niger: tectricibus alarum medianis ut in adultis albis: collo plus minusve albicante: rictu flavo: iride nigrâ.
Male. General plumage shining metallic green, with bluish-purple reflections on the shoulders, rump, and upper tail-coverts; the hind neck ornamented with a collar of soft filamentous plumes, curving outwards and with a white line down the centre; the middle of the back and the scapulars bronzy brown, the latter with blue reflections; the greater wing-coverts are metallic green, those near the arm of the wing shining blackish purple, and the intermediate ones white in their apical portion, forming a conspicuous alar bar; the remiges are black, the primaries having an outer margin of metallic green in their basal portion, this colour spreading on the secondaries till it covers the whole of the web; tail-feathers metallic green on their upper surface, with purplish reflections; lower part of breast metallic green changing into purplish blue; sides and abdomen blackish brown, the long flank-feathers shading into pale brown; under surface of wings and tail black; the under tail-coverts metallic green. The throat is ornamented with two tufts of white filamentous feathers, which curl in upon each other in a globose form. Irides dark brown; bill and feet blackish brown. Total length 12·75 inches; extent of wings 18·5; wing from flexure 6; tail 5; culmen 1; tarsus 1·35; middle toe and claw 1·55; hind toe and claw 1·25.
Female. The female is somewhat smaller than the male; but the plumage differs in no essential respect. The
Young. Uniform slaty black, with a broad undefined patch or circlet of greyish white on the throat, varying in extent, more conspicuous in the female, and sometimes spreading all round the neck; median wing-coverts white, as in the adult; irides black; rictal membrane yellow.
Obs. In the young bird the plumage is soft and fluffy, and entirely wants the metallic lustre. In the adult state examples vary in the brilliancy of their tints, and some have a bright coppery bronze on their upper parts.
Progress towards maturity. About the first week of November I obtained from the nest a fledgling, in which the membrane at the angles of the mouth was very conspicuous and the plumage partly undeveloped; by the second week in December it had assumed the full juvenile dress, with a faint greyish collar, the rictal membrane had disappeared, and the throat-tufts had commenced to sprout; at the end of another month the lappets had formed but were very small; two weeks later, the new metallic plumage had begun to supplant the adolescent growth, appearing at first in tracts, or irregular strips, on the breast and sides of the body, and then spreading outwards; and by the end of February the bird had acquired the full adult livery, although the tints of the plumage were not so brilliant as in the more matured condition.
Varieties. Uniform brown-coloured varieties have been occasionally met with; and it is not an unusual thing to find specimens with a single white quill or tail-feather, or marked about the throat and face with scattered white feathers. In the Christchurch Acclimatization Gardens I observed a caged one with a broad patch of white covering the outer webs of the secondaries on both wings. A beautiful albino was obtained some years ago in the Wanganui district, and now forms part of my collection in the Colonial Museum: the general plumage is pure white; a shining black band fills the lores, crosses the forehead, and spreads down each side of the neck in an irregular patch of sooty black; lower part of back, rump, and thighs sooty black, with white feathers interspersed; wings pure white, excepting the outer secondaries and the long primary coverts, which are glossy black; bill white; tarsi and toes yellowish white.
There is another abnormally coloured bird in the Colonial Museum: head, neck all round, breast, and fore part of abdomen smoky brown; the rest of the plumage pale creamy brown, darker on the quills and tail-feathers. The throat-tufts are as in ordinary examples, and there is a broad bar of white across the smaller wing-coverts; the frilled collar is rather inconspicuous, although the central line of white is present, and there is a narrow streak of the same from the angles of the mouth; the feathers of the breast have likewise fine white shaft-lines; bill and feet white horn-colour.
Sir
THis bird is one of our most common species, and on that account generally receives less attention in its own country than its singular beauty merits. It was described and figured, as early as the year 1776, in Brown’s Illustrations of Zoology,’ and has since been mentioned by nearly every writer on general ornithology. In 1840 Mr.
The early colonists named it the “Parson bird,” in allusion to the peculiar tufts of white feathers that adorn its throat, and their fancied resemblance to the clerical bands. To those who are familiar with the bird in its native woods, this name is certainly appropriate; for when indulging in its strain of wild notes it displays these “bands,” and gesticulates in a manner forcibly suggestive of the declamatory style of preaching, or, as Dr. Thompson graphically expresses it, “sitting on the branch of a tree, as a pro tempore pulpit, he shakes his head, bending to one side and then to another, as if he remarked to this one and to that one; and once and again, with pent-up vehemence, contracting his muscles and drawing himself together, his voice waxes loud, in a manner to waken sleepers to their senses!”
Owing to its excellent powers of mimicry, and the facility of rearing it in confinement, it is a favourite cage-bird, both with the natives and the colonists. Although of very delicate constitution, it has been known to live in confinement for upwards of ten years. More frequently, however, it becomes subject, after the first year, to convulsive fits, under which it ultimately succumbs. Cleanliness, a well-regulated diet, and protection from extremes of temperature are the proper safeguards. I had as many as ten of them caged at one time; but they died off one by one, and invariably in the manner indicated. Naturally of a sprightly disposition, it is cheerful and playful in captivity, incessantly flitting about in its cage and mimicking every sound within hearing. It will learn to articulate sentences of several words with clearness, to crow like a cock, and to imitate the barking of a dog to perfection. One, which I had kept caged in the same room with a Parrakeet ( The Tui, as a caged bird, is apt to become excessively fat, through overfeeding and the want of proper muscular exercise; and this may account for its tendency to fits. The intelligent bird mentioned above, without any apparent cause, began to mope and refused its food. After a day or two it became subject to epileptic fits, falling suddenly from its perch, screaming in its convulsions, and then lying perfectly inert for several minutes. These fits continued to increase in frequency and severity, till finally it succumbed to one of them, and died in my hand. On dissecting it, I found the cavity of the stomach choked up with an accumulation of yellow fat, and the vital organs completely enveloped in fat. This excessive fatness had no doubt interfered with the performance of life’s regular functions and had caused the fits, which in the end proved fatal.Platycercus auriceps), acquired the rapid chattering note of that species; and another, in the possession of a friend, could whistle several bars of a familiar tune in excellent time. Another, which I kept for two years, although a female bird, proved to be a good mimic. I first taught it to imitate the soft whistling note of the Huia, in repetition. When perfect in that, I gave it lessons in the long plaintive whistling-cry of the Shining Cuckoo, thrice repeated; and, strange to say, after the bird had acquired that, and was accustomed to practise it a hundred times over during the day, I taught it to add, or interject, the sharp four-times-repeated note which precedes the final strain. The bird learnt all this to perfection, and never mixed the parts, exhibiting in this respect a remarkable exercise of memory
It has several times been brought alive to this country; and there is now to be seen in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, at Regent’s Park, a very healthy one which I succeeded in bringing to England last year, and had the pleasure of presenting to the Society. It was one of three scarcely-fledged nestlings brought to me by a Maori shortly before I embarked on my trip home; and although all of them survived the sea-voyage, the others soon succumbed to the severity of the English climate.
The Maoris fully appreciate the mocking-powers of this bird, and often devote much time and patience to its instruction. There are some wonderful stories current among them of the proficiency it sometimes acquires; and I may mention an amusing incident that came under my own notice at Rangitikei some years ago. I had been addressing a large meeting of natives in the Whare-runanga, or Council-house, on a matter of considerable political importance, and had been urging my views with all the earnestness that the subject demanded: immediately on the conclusion of my speech, and before the old chief, to whom my arguments were chiefly addressed, had time to reply, a Tui, whose netted cage hung to a rafter overhead, responded, in a clear emphatic way, “Tito!” (false). The circumstance naturally caused much merriment among my audience, and quite upset the gravity of the venerable old chief Nepia Taratoa. “Friend,” said he, laughing, “your arguments are very good; but my mokai is a very wise bird, and he is not yet convinced!”
In a state of nature the Tui is even more lively and active than in captivity. It is incessantly on the move, pausing only to utter its joyous notes. The early morning is the period devoted to melody, and the Tuis then perform in concert, gladdening the woods with their wild ecstacy. Besides their chime of five notes (always preceded by a key-note of preparation), they indulge in a peculiar outburst which has been facetiously described as “a cough, a laugh, and a sneeze,” and a variety of other notes, fully entitling it to be ranked as a songster.
When engaged in song, the Tui puffs out the feathers of his body, distends his throat, opens wide his beak, with the tongue raised and slightly protruded, and gesticulates with his head, as he pours forth the wild harmony of his soul. A pair may often be observed, scarcely a foot apart, on the same branch, performing in concert, for (as with the Korimako also) both sexes sing. The notes are rich and varied—now resembling the striking together of hollow metallic rods, then a long-drawn sigh, a warble, and a sob, followed by a note of great sweetness, like a touch on the high key of an organ. The last time I listened to the wild music of this bird, in all its depth and richness, was from the pew of a little country chapel, where a Maori deacon of the Church of England was delivering a sensible discourse and drawing his illustrations from surrounding objects. The chapel was overshadowed by tall Eucalyptus trees, amongst the flowers of which the Tuis were regaling themselves on their viscid nectar, and stopping at intervals to pour forth their full volume of song, thus giving emphasis to the preacher’s appeal to nature.
One of its finest notes is a clear, silvery toll, followed by a pause and then another toll, the performance lasting sometimes an hour or more. This is generally heard at the close of the day, or just before the bird betakes itself to its roost for the night. I have, however, on one or two occasions, heard the Tui’s sweet toll long after the shadow of darkness had settled down upon the forests and all other sounds were hushed.
At other times it may be heard uttering a sweet warbling note, followed by a sneeze, after that a pause, then a sharp cry of The compass and variety of the Tui’s song may be judged by the following Maori paraphrase, as reduced to writing by Sir George Grey (‘Poetry of the New-Zealanders’):—
tu-whit, tu-whit, o-o-o, a pause again, and then its warbling note with variations, very soft and liquid, but ending abruptly in a sound like the breaking of a pane of glass. It has indeed such an endless variety of notes that it is impossible to convey in writing any adequate idea of its vocal powers
Its flight is rapid, graceful, and slightly undulating, the rustling of the wings as they are alternately opened and closed being distinctly audible. Layard mentions (‘Ibis,’ 1863, p. 243) the peculiar habit which this bird has of mounting high in the air during fine weather, in parties of six or more, and performing wide aërial circles or indulging in a sportive flight, “turning, twisting, throwing somersaults, dropping from a height with expanded wings and tails, and performing other antics, till, as if guided by some preconcerted signal, they suddenly dive into the forest and are lost to view.” High in the air it may sometimes be seen closing its wings and supporting its body for a few moments by a rapid perpendicular movement of the expanded tail; and slowly descending in this
It is a pretty sight to watch a pair of them mount together in playful flight, high above the tree-tops; then, by a simultaneous movement, they descend in company and alight on the topmost twigs of some tall forest tree, where they puff out their plumage, giving a very exaggerated appearance to their bodies, and gesticulate as if in angry altercation with each other; and then, as if by mutual agreement, they rise together in the air, and disappear in opposite directions.
There is, I believe, a popular notion in the Colony that the plumage of the Tui is black, and even some old settlers, familiar enough with the bird, considered the plate in my first edition too highly coloured. But this is entirely a mistake, as may be easily proved by holding the bird against the light, at the angle of incidence. It will then be seen that the plumage presents beautiful steel-blue and purple colours, with high metallic reflections, particularly on the breast, wings, rump, and upper tail-coverts. On the shoulders and mantle, also, there are bronze reflections which no artist could ever do justice to. In the sunny glades of the forest the glancing of the light on its burnished plumage and the gleaming of its pure white epaulettes renders the Tui a very attractive object, as it glides rapidly from one tree to another, or darts into the sunshine to capture a vagrant butterfly.
The food of the Tui consists of ripe berries of various kinds, flies and other insects, and the honey of certain wild flowers. To enable it to collect the latter, the tongue is furnished at its termination with a brush of extreme fineness—a characteristic common to all the true honey-eaters—the nectar ascending to the tubular portion of the tongue, apparently by capillary attraction Dr. Gadow, after describing fully the muscular apparatus in Prosthemadera, thus explains the suctorial process:—“The contraction of the mylo- and serpi-hyoid muscles presses the whole tongue and larynx upwards against the palatal roof of the mouth-cavity. The mouth is thus wholly filled up. Through the contraction of the genio-hyoid muscles the tongue will be protruded from the mouth. Now, if the serpi-hyoid muscles relax, and the tracheo-laryngeus and tracheo-hyoideus, on the other hand, by their contraction depress the larynx and at the same time depress the posterior part of the tongue, a vacuum will be produced between tongue and palate. This space, again, is in connexion with the tubes of the tongue, and therefore will be filled by the fluid into which the tips of these tubes may be inserted. In the birds in question the fluid is honey or nectar. Consequently sucking is accomplished automatically through the mere protrusion of the tongue.” (Proe. Z.S. 1883, pp. 68, 69.) Freycinetia banksii). In the months of October and November, when the kowhai (
On these occasions the best-conditioned birds are preserved in their own fat, and potted in calabashes, “hua-hua koko” being esteemed a great delicacy. At the periodical festivals one or two of these pots, decorated with Pigeons’ feathers, are placed on top of the great pile of food which is presented to the visitors at these ceremonials. Calabashes of kaka, titi, and kereru are plentiful enough, but one of “tui” gives the finishing touch to the menu at a Maori feast of the kind I have indicated.
Among introduced trees, the Tui is particularly partial to the Australian blue-gum (Eucalyptus globosa) and the common black-wattle. When these trees are in full bloom, this bird holds high carnival among the flowers, making playful sallies into the air from time to time, and uttering its melifluous notes, as if in the highest ecstasy.
At certain seasons of the year, when its favourite berries have fully ripened, the Tui becomes
The Tui is still very plentiful over both Islands. It has apparently been driven away from some districts where formerly it was abundant; but this is hardly to be wondered at when I state that (in spite of the wise protective legislation) I was assured by a dealer in Wellington that he had sent as many as five hundred skins to London for the ornamentation of ladies’ hats!
It is easily approached and shot; but I have often remarked its extreme tenacity of life, reminding one of Mr. Gosse’s charming account of Conurus flaviventer in his ‘Birds of Jamaica.’ Sometimes, when mortally wounded, the grasp of the feet by which the bird was clinging to the twigs or vines becomes convulsively tightened, and the falling body is seen suspended, head downward, for several minutes, the wings now and then giving an ineffectual flutter, till at last one foot relaxes its hold and then the other, and the quivering body falls heavily to the ground.
There can be little doubt that the Tui breeds twice in the year. I have found birds nesting as early as August, the young being abroad in October and November; and I have received from the Maoris nestlings, not more than ten days old, as late as May 12th, although young birds can always be obtained in March and April.
Under the head of “progress towards maturity,” I have described (at page 95), from personal observation, the successive development of plumage in a young bird, taken from the nest in November, and presenting an adult appearance at the end of February. As late as the 23rd October, I saw a young bird at Atiamuri, on the Waikato river, in which this change had scarcely been completed, much of the body-plumage being adolescent, with only vestiges of the frill and lappets. This fact tends strongly to support the view of there being two broods in the year.
The nest of this species is usually placed in the fork of a bushy shrub, only a few feet from the ground; but I have also found it at a considerable elevation, hidden among the leafy top of a forest tree. It is a rather large structure, composed chiefly of sprays or dry twigs, intermixed with coarse green moss, the cavity being lined with fibrous grasses, very carefully bent and adjusted. Sometimes the interior is composed of the black hair-like substance from the young shoots of the tree-fern, the cavity being sparingly lined with dry bents. One which I examined at Rangitikei was composed almost entirely of dry Leptospermum twigs, with a little green moss intermixed, the ends of the twigs projecting more or less, so that the exterior of the nest measured nearly 12 inches across; the twigs were largest at the foundation and got smaller upwards; the cavity was large, but somewhat shallow or saucer-shaped, and the interior thickly lined with brown fern-hair, with a few long grass-leaves carefully interlaced; thus giving the nest a neatly finished appearance.
The eggs are generally three or four in number and present some variety both in form and colour. There are some good examples in the Nelson Museum: the eggs (numbering three) in one of the nests are of a pyriform character, being blunt and rounded at the large end and tapering upwards to a point, measuring 1·3 inch in length by ·75 in their widest part; they are white, with a faint rosy blush, stained and mottled at the larger end and lightly freckled or dusted all over with pale reddish brown. Those contained in another nest (also numbering three) are ovoido-conical, measuring 1·05 in length by ·75; these are of a delicate rosy tint, obscurely freckled, darker and more or less speckled with brown at the large end. A third nest contains two almost pure white eggs, intermediate in form between those described above, stained and freckled, at the larger end only, with brick-red. There is likewise an interesting series of these eggs in the Canterbury Museum, varying in character from the true ovato-pyriform to a fusiform outline, something like a skittle-head.
The newly-hatched Tui is almost entirely bare, there being mere indications of linear tracts on the upper surface, with light woolly filaments adhering. The feathers, however, soon begin to appear, and the growth of the nestling is rapid; but the gradation in size of the three or four occupants of the same nest is very noticeable. Till about three weeks old, they have a very feeble cheep; but it is curious to see them, in their eagerness to be fed, stretch up their bodies and necks, four inches or more above the nest, with widely-gaping mouths bordered with a membrane of vivid yellow. As their development proceeds, their cry strengthens; and when they are fully fledged it becomes an almost incessant plaintive note, which changes to an impatient scream on the approach of the parent bird with food, all the nestlings craning their necks together for the first attention. After it quits the nest, and before it has attempted any song, it acquires the peculiar alarm-cry, ke-e-e-e, so familiar to the ear.
Meliphaga cincta, Dubus, Bull. Acad. Sc. Brux. vi. pt. 1, p. 295 (1839).
Ptilotis auritus, Lafr. Rev. Zool. 1839, p. 257.
Ptilotis cincta, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 4 (1844).
Pogonornis cincta, Gray, Gen. of B. i. p. 123 (1846).
Hihi, Tihe, Kotihe, Kotihewera, Tiora, and Tiheora; male and female sometimes distinguished as Hihi-paka and Hihi-matakiore or Tihe-kiore.
♂ suprà nigerrimus: fasciis duabus conspicuis postocularibus albis: dorso imo et uropygio cinerascenti-brunneis, vix olivaceo tinctis: dorsi plumis quibusdam lateralibus læte aurantiaco terminatis: rectricibus alarum minimis lætè aurantiacis, plagam magnam formantibus, majoribus nigris, extùs aurantiaco margiuatis: alæ spuriæ plumis ad basin albis speculum exhibentibus: remigibus nigris, primariis versus apicem albido, secundariis aurantiaco marginatis: tectricibus alarum majoribus intimis et secundariis dorsalibus purè albis, plagam distinctam formantibus, dorso proximis medialiter nigris: gutture toto et collo laterali nigerrimis: torque pectorali angustâ aurantiacâ: corpore reliquo subtùs cinerascente, hypochondriis et subcaudalibus saturatioribus, illis brunneo striatis: subalaribus cinerascentibus, margine alarum aurantiaco: rostro brunnescenti-nigro: pedibus brunneis: setis rictalibus nigris: iride nigrâ.
♀ mari omninò dissimilis: suprà brunnea olivaceo lavata, pileo obscuriore: maculâ parvâ postoculari albâ: tectricibus alarum olivaceo-fulvo lavatis, minimis aurantiaco nitentibus, majoribus intimis et secundariis dorsalibus albis, brunneo medialiter lineatis et marginatis plagam magnam albam formantibus: remigibus et rectricibus cinerascenti-brunneis, extùs latè fulvescente lavatis, primariis ad basin pogonii interni albis: subtùs obscurè brunnea, pectore et abdomine fulvescentibus, obscurè brunneo striatis.
Adult male. Head, neck, and upper part of the back velvety black; on each side of the head there is a tuft of snow-white feathers which the bird has the power of erecting. A band of rich canary-yellow encircles the breast, contrasting finely with the dark plumage immediately above it; narrow in the centre, it widens on both sides and expands on the wings, covering the small coverts and the margins of the scapularies, and becomes very conspicuous when the wings are spread. Underparts light greyish brown, inclining to olivaceous brown on the sides of the body. Primaries and tail-feathers black, margined outwardly with olivaceous brown; the secondaries in their basal portion and their coverts white; the upper tail-coverts olivaceous brown. Irides and rictal bristles black; bill brownish black; tarsi and toes pale brown. Total length 8 inches; extent of wings 12·5; wing, from flexure, 4; tail 3; bill, along the ridge ·60, along the edge of the lower mandible ·75; tarsus l; middle toe and claw 1; hind toe and claw ·75.
Female. Obscure olivaceous brown, darker on the upper parts, and changing to pale brown on the abdomen and under tail-coverts. The primaries and outer tail-feathers have their external webs narrowly margined with very pale brown; the rest of the quills and tail-feathers are dusky black, edged externally with olivaceous brown. There is a large spot of white on the secondaries corresponding to that in the male, with faint indications of yellow towards the root of the wing; but this is only apparent when the wings are spread. There are a few minute touches of white on each side of the head, corresponding in position to the tufts in the male bird; but these adornments are wanting in this sex. Total length 7·25 inches; wing, from flexure, 3·75; tail 2·75; culmen ·55; tarsus 1.
Young male. In the Auckland Museum there is a young male, in transitional plumage, which is very interesting, as showing that in the young state both sexes have the colours of the female. At the first moult the male bird puts on the adult livery, although the tints of the plumage are less bright than in the fully matured bird. In the present example the plumage of the head, neck all round, and shoulders is changing from dull olive-brown to black, the new feathers being very conspicuous and predominating. The white tufts on the head have appeared, but have not attained their full development, being only about one third of the usual size; the canary-yellow band on the upper edge of the wings is well defined, but the pectoral zone is narrow and indistinct; on the breast the old plumage has almost entirely disappeared, being replaced by the black, but there are enough remnants to show what it was originally; the rest of the body-plumage the same as in ordinary examples, being alike in both sexes.
Young female. The specimen in the Auckland Museum has no appearance of the white marks on the head; the spots covering the base of the secondaries are yellowish white or very pale fawn-colour, becoming pure white at the roots of the feathers; the small feathers at the carpal flexure are pale yellow; quills blackish brown, the primaries very narrowly, and the secondaries broadly, margined with pale olive; tail-feathers blackish brown margined on their outer webs with dull olive.
Obs. In some examples of the male the colours are brighter, the pectoral zone being wider and deepening to a clear orange-yellow, while the quills and larger wing-coverts have a narrow external margin of yellowish olive.
Remarks. This species is furnished with hair-like bristles at the angles of the mouth measuring half an inch in length. The tongue has a pencilled or brush-like termination; the hind claw is almost twice the length of those of the fore toes, which are about equal, measuring ·25 of an inch in their curvature; the tail is of medium length and slightly cuneiform. The plumage, especially that of the female, is soft to the touch, and, in the adult, has a peculiar silky gloss.
This New-Zealand form approaches closely to a numerous group of Australian birds comprehended under the generic name of Ptilotis, among which it originally was placed. It has since, however, been recognized as the type of a distinct genus.
In my former edition of this work I wrote thus:—” This handsome species has only a limited range. It is comparatively common in the southern parts of the North Island, and may be met with as far north as the wooded ranges between Waikato Heads and Raglan, beyond which it is extremely rare. It is never found in the country north of Auckland, with the exception of one locality, the Barrier Islands, where Captain Hutton records it ‘not uncommon’ in December 1868. I have never heard of its occurrence anywhere in the South Island. It affects deep wooded gullies, and is seldom found on the summits of the ranges. In the dense timber covering old river-bottoms or lowlying flats it may be sought for; but it rarely frequents the light open bush or the outskirts of the forest. It is, moreover, a very shy bird; and being most active in all its movements, it is not easily shot. Its food consists of insects, the honey of various bush-flowers, and the smaller kinds of berries. It often frequents the topmost branches of the high timber, where it may be seen flitting about in search of insects. If disturbed by the report of a gun, it will fly off to a neighbouring tree with a light and graceful movement of the wings; but when descending to a lower station, it adopts a different manner of flight, elevating the tail almost to a right angle with the body, and scarcely moving the wings at all. The male bird erects the tail and spreads the ear-tufts when excited or alarmed; but the female habitually carries the tail perfectly erect and the wings drooping. The sexes vary so much in appearance that many of the natives regard them as distinct species, and call them by different names. The male bird utters at short intervals and with startling energy a melodious whistling call of three notes. At other times he produces a sharp clicking sound like the striking of two quartz stones together: the sound has a fanciful resemblance to the word ‘stitch,’
Although only fifteen years have elapsed since the above was penned, the Hihi has become the rarest of our existing native birds. To show how rapidly it has disappeared, I may mention that after my return to the colony, in 1874, I met with it only twice—the first time in a sunny glade in the Forty-mile Bush, near Eketahuna, and two years later in a strip of forest at Tarawera, midway between Napier and Taupo. I know of one other instance of its being seen of late years on the mainland. Mr. Tone, a Government Surveyor who has been working for many years past in the bush, and is familiar with all the native birds, met with it in February 1883 on the summit of one of the wooded spurs of the Tararua range, leading down into the Wairarapa valley. He saw the bird several times during the day, heard its note and carefully observed its habits.
The Maoris allege that it still lingers in the Kauwhanga range, above the famous gorge of the Manawatu, but the report lacks confirmation. A more likely refuge is another they assign to it on the Island of Kapiti, where Korimako, Popokatea, and Toutouwai (all absent from the mainland) are still to be found.
In 1880, the indefatigable Austrian collector, Herr Reischek, determined to visit the Little Barrier in quest of this bird Mr. Reischek has communicated to the New-Zealand Institute (Trans, vol. xviii. pp. 84, 87) a short account of his expedition in search of Pogonornis cincta; but I prefer to give, in my own words, the more detailed information obtained from him immediately after his return. On the general habits of this species he says :—“I have only once seen these birds sitting still and that was near the nest. They appear always on the move, carrying their heads proudly, their wings drooped, and their tails spread and raised; and, at each successive movement, they utter that peculiar whistle from which the natives have named them Tiora. The female has a different note, sounding like toc, toc, toc, repeated several times.”Pogonornis. A beautiful male bird was disporting himself in the sunlight, erecting his snow-white tufts and hopping about in a very excited manner. Suddenly the bird disappeared as by magic; and the discovery immediately afterwards of an unfinished nest explained the singular performance he had witnessed. This structure was composed of small twigs, partially lined with fine native grasses, and was placed in a bunch of mangimangi creeper hanging from a low tree, about eight feet from the ground. Frequently after this he heard the sharp call of the male bird in the vicinity of the nest and at length, on November 8, succeeded in shooting both male and female. He had now discovered that the favourite haunt of the Stitch-bird was a deep ravine near the top of the range, where the rocks formed steep precipices and the low scrub was covered over with a mass of creeping mangimangi so rank and thick in its growth as to be almost impenetrable. Some idea of the inaccessible nature of the place may be gathered from the fact that it took Reischek two whole days tramping, climbing, and scaling precipices to get back to his landing-place; but he had visited the last home of the Hihi and had obtained, besides several specimens of the male bird, a female in perfect plumage.
The nature of the ground often prevented his using his gun, even with dust-shot, but he was able to make some interesting observations on the habits of the bird.
He often observed it using its brush tongue among the wild flowers, and in the stomachs of those he skinned he found some minute seeds as well as insect-remains.
On one occasion he noticed a female perforating very singular antics, hopping round and round within a restricted circle, with her wings drooped and the tail slightly elevated. She kept up this
It is somewhat curious that whereas the male bird never descended to the ground, his mate seemed to delight in doing so, hopping about with outstretched wings, and uttering every now and then her peculiar note. On the slightest alarm, however, she would hide herself and remain perfectly quiet. The male appeared to be always on the alert, keeping a strict guard, and giving the signal at the least sign of danger. The instinct of caution must be strongly developed in this bird, to manifest itself thus in the most secluded part of a lonely island, where probably the face of man had never appeared before.
I have already remarked upon the shy and retired habits of the female. Twenty years ago, when the bird was comparatively common in the valley of the Hutt, and at Makara, near Wellington, although frequently out with the gun I never succeeded in shooting more than two of this sex; and whilst the bright-plumaged male bird was being constantly brought in to the local birdstuffers I never saw a female in their hands. One of those shot by me was too much shattered to be of any use; the other is in my old type collection in the Colonial Museum at Wellington. There is a specimen from the Little Barrier in the Auckland Museum; but this sex is a desideratum in all the other local museums. There is one old and dingy skin in the British Museum (obtained by
My own private collection was equally deficient till I induced Mr. Reischek, in 1884, to make another visit to the Little Barrier in quest of it. In this further search he succeeded, although the rarity of the bird may be inferred from the fact that he was fifteen days on the island and did not even hear the Hihi till within the last three days of his stay. As already stated, the bird frequents the deep wooded ravines in the highest part of the Barrier, and to reach this ground he had to perform a toilsome journey of two days, on foot, being accompanied all through by his trusty dog, who had in places to be hoisted up with a rope. In the end his efforts were rewarded by his finding a family party of five—an adult male and female with three birds of the year, curiously enough, all males. At first the male birds alone were visible. They seemed much interested in the movements of the dog, and hopped about in the branches above him, peering down in a very inquisitive manner. The female bird had secreted herself on the ground and kept perfectly silent. Once or twice she left her place of concealment, and darted off uttering on the wing her peculiar rapid snapping note. For two hours this watch was continued before there was an opportunity of shooting her.
The Maoris state that formerly this bird was very plentiful in the Rotorua district, where it was known under the name of Kotihe; and that, at a certain season of the year, it was accustomed to come out of the woods to feast on the berries of the tupakihi ( Coriaria sarmentosa), on which occasions numbers were killed for the oven, sometimes as many as a hundred being taken in a day. They were caught in the same manner as the Korimako, by means of a tuke or pewa, baited with flowers, as described at page 89. If the birds proved to be
The fine old Wanganui chief, Topine Te Mamaku, who was almost a centenarian when I last saw him, told me that in his young days this bird was very plentiful in the Upper Wanganui district—so much so that one of the chiefs of that period always appeared on public occasions in a gorgeous feather robe which was largely ornamented with the canary-yellow feathers from the wing of the Hihi. Considering how very minute these feathers are, it may be imagined how many were sacrificed in order to make this colour conspicuous in the historic mantle, which Topine called, by way of distinction, the These Hawaiian robes are made with the beautiful red feathers of the Hehiwi (kahu-hihi.
Phormium-fibre, soft and silky, which is woven and plaited into a thick fabric, over which the feathers are tastefully laid, with the webs overlapping, the shaft of each being doubled back and tied, thus imparting strength and durability to the garment. The pattern varies according to the kind of feather used, and sometimes much artistic skill is displayed in the grouping and arrangement of the colours. The kahu-kereru is composed of the bronzy-green feathers of the Wood-Pigeon, quite resplendent in the sunshine, and relieved with stars and stripes of snow-white tufts taken from the breast of that bird; the kahu-kaka is a mass of scarlet of different shades, from under the wings of Nestor meridionalis; the kahu-kakariki displays the brilliant green plumage of the Parrakeet, with which is usually mixed the feathers of the Tui and other birds, in squares or crosses or other fanciful designs; but far more valuable than any of these is the kahu-kiwi, covered entirely with the soft back-feathers of the Apteryx, and having a peculiarly rich effect when held against the light. One of special beauty, for which some forty adult birds were placed under contribution, was presented many years ago by the loyal Wanganui tribes to Her Majesty the Queen. There is a very fine one in the ethnological collection at the British Museum, and another in my own collection, in both of which there is a broad margin of bright Tui and Pigeon feathers, to heighten the effect. Far and away more precious than any of these must have been that mantle of golden yellow of which old Topine had so vivid a recollection; and one can only compare it, in imagination, with that gorgeous coronation-robe of costly yellow plumes worn by the kings and queens of Hawaii, of which mention is made by the early writers on PolynesiaVestaria coceinea) mixed with the goldenyellow plumes of a rare species of Nectarinia. “A cloak of yellow feathers could only be worn by the king” (see Lord Byron’s ‘Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde’ in 1826). “A feathered cloak which in point of beauty and magnificence is perhaps nearly equal to that of any nation in the world” (Cook’s ‘Third Voyage,’ 1783, p. 127). Mr. Fernander states that such cloaks, “irrespective of their value as insignia of the highest nobility in the land,” represent, in feathers alone, at their present price, apart from the cost of manufacture, from five to ten thousand dollars each (‘Polynesia,’ vol. ii. p. 186).
Mr. F. H. Meinertzhagen informs me that in the spring of 1871 he observed a pair of Hihi nesting in a clump of blue-gums at Waimarama, near his own pretty homestead (Paparewa) about thirty miles from Napier. He at first mistook the female bird for a Green Linnet; but discovered his error the moment he saw the male and observed its peculiar flight. Hoping to retain these rare visitants, he allowed them to hatch out and rear their brood without molestation; but he never saw anything of them afterwards. The nest, which Mrs. Meinertzhagen fortunately preserved, is now in the Canterbury Museum.
A nest was discovered many years ago in the bush above the Kai-warawara stream, in the vicinity of Wellington, and is still preserved in the Colonial Museum. It is a shallow structure, with thin walls, and measures 4·75 inches across the top, with a cavity of 2·35 by 1·35. It is built of sprays, above which are laid fibres and dry rootlets of tree-fern; and the cavity is formed of fine grass, lined with cow-hair. This nest contained a single egg, of a narrow ovoid form, measuring ·75 inch in length by ·6 in breadth, of a yellowish-white colour, thickly spotted and clouded with pale rufous.
The assumption of the female plumage by the young of both sexes, as described above, is very singular, being the only instance of the kind we have among the Passeres in New Zealand. According to Reischek’s observations on the Little Barrier, the brood generally numbers three, and the young birds keep together till the change of plumage has been effected. He met with four broods’ in all, and out of those shot, no less than five young males were in transitional plumage. He generally shot the adult male first, then attracted the female by imitating the cry of the young birds, and after securing her, the rest of the family fell an easy prey to this insatiable collector.
Merops carunculatus, Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 276 (1790).
Pie à pendeloques, Daud. Orn. ii. p. 246, pl. 16 (1800).
Corvus paradoxus, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. p. 26 (1801).
Wattled Crow, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. ii. p. 119 (1801).
Wattled Bee-eater, Lath. ibid. p. 150 (1801).
Corvus carunculatus, Shaw, Gen. Zool. vii. p. 378 (1809).
Creadion carunculatus, Bonn, et Vieill. Encycl. Méth. ii. p. 874 (1823); Vieill. Gal. Ois. i. pl. 94 (1826); Lesson, Traité d’Orn. i. p. 359 (1831).
Anthochœra lewini, Vig. & Horsf. Trans. Linn. Soc. xv. p. 322 (1827), note.
Anthochœra carunculata, Gould, Birds of Australia, iv. pi. 55 (1848).
Anthochœra bulleri, Finsch, Journ. f. Orn. 1867, p. 342.
Anthochœra carunculata, Buller, Trans. N.-Z. Instit. vol. xvi. p. 313 (1884).
Acanthochœra carunculata, Gadow, Cat. Birds Brit. Mua. vol. ix. p. 263 (1884).
Descr. exempt, ex N. Z. Brunnea, plumis omnibus longitudinaliter albo striatis: supracaudalibus brunneis latè albo marginatis: tectricibus alarum magis nigricantibus, albo marginatis, minimis et medianis albo medialiter lineatis: remigibus et rectricibus nigricantibus cinerascenti-brunneo marginatis et albo angustiùs fimbriatis, primariis et rectricibus laté albo terminatis: pileo nigricaute, vix albido lineato: collo postico dorso concolore et in eodem modo lineato: loris quoque nigricantibus: fasciâ latâ suboculari argentescenti-albâ: regione parotica auriculari nigricante, albo minuté lineatâ plagâ pone regionem paroticam fulvescente: genis nigricanti-brimneis, vix albo minuté striatis: gutture et præpectore brunneia albo lineatis: pectore albido, brunneo striato, plumis lateraliter brunneo marginatis: pectore imo et abdomine flavis: corporis lateribus albidis, brunneis marginatis, vix flavo lavatis: tibiis brunneis albo striatis: subcaudalibus albidis, medialiter brunneis: subalaribus et axillaribus nigricanti-brunneis, albo latè marginatis: remigibus infrà nigricantibus, intùs versus basin rufescentibus: rostro nigricante: pedibus pallidè brunneis.
New-Zealand example. Crown and hind-head glossy brownish black, the feathers of the nape with narrow shaftlines of white; upper surface generally blackish brown, the feathers of the hind neck and shoulders with a broad central streak of greyish white; quills and tail-feathers darker brown; the primaries and all the rectrices, except the two middle ones, largely tipped with white; the secondaries and the two middle tail-feathers largely margined with grey, and the latter minutely tipped with white; all the wing-coverts and the upper tail-corerts broadly margined with fulvous white; all the primaries except the first largely margined on their inner vanes with pale rufous. From the angle of the mouth a widening patch of short silvery-white feathers, speckled with brown, extends below the eye and is bounded by a small bare space, below which is a minute caruncle (now dried and colourless); on the sides of the neck, behind the ear-coverts, a broad rounded patch of pale fulvous; sides of the head, behind the eyes, conspicuously speckled with silvery white; fore neck and upper part of the breast dark fulvous brown with a more or less distinct streak of white down the shafts; lower part of breast greyish brown, each feather largely centred and also margined with fulvous white; the whole of the abdomen canary-yellow, with a silky sheen, the underpart of the plumage plumbeous; sides of the body faintly washed with yellow; vent yellowish white; under tailcoverts fulvous white, the centre of each feather, except the shaft, dull brown; thighs darker brown with light shaft-lines. Bill brownish black; legs pale reddish brown. Total length 15 inches; wing, from
Obs. Mr. Gould, describing the freshly killed bird in Australia, states that the oblong naked spot on the sides of the head is flesh-coloured, the pendulous wattle is of a pinky blood-red colour, the irides hazel-red, and the inside of the mouth yellow.
Dr. Curiously enough, when hunting up the synonymy and bibliography of this species, I found that it had been described by M. Daudin (In my ‘Essay on the Ornithology of New Zealand,’ 1865, I included the above species among our birds, on the authority of a specimen in the Auckland Museum, preserved by Mr. St. John, and said to have been obtained at Matakana, to the north of Auckland. The bird was retained in our lists for many years, but no fresh examples having been heard of, and St. John’s specimen being of doubtful authenticity, its name was ultimately expungedl. c.) proposed to distinguish the example described by me, as a new species, under the name of Anthochœra bulleri; but it is well known that this bird is subject to a considerable amount of variation, and I do not consider the differences relied upon as having any specific value. The same remarks apply to the form described by Messrs. Vigors and Horsfield (l. c.) under the distinctive name of A. lewini.l. c.) as far back as 1800, as a New-Zealand bird. His words are:—“
After a lapse of nearly twenty years I had again the pleasure of recording it (l. c.) as a New-Zealand bird.
During a visit to Marton, I was invited by Mr. Avery, the local bird-stuffer, to examine his novelties. Among these was a bird which he had himself obtained when serving with the volunteers in Mr. Bryce’s expedition against Parihaka; he met with it in some high scrub at the rear of the camp at Rahotu, when on fatigue-duty, and was fortunate enough to shoot it. The bird was new to him and he therefore skinned it, performing the operation very successfully. The skin was in a fresh condition when it came into my hands, and proved on examination to be a well-plumaged example of Acanthochœra carunculata.
This specimen, which Mr. Avery was generous enough to give me, is now in my collection; and the claim of this species to a place in the New-Zealand avifauna is undoubted. Its occurrence in our country, as a straggler from Australia, may only happen at long intervals; but the rule in such cases is to admit every species of which even a single individual has been met with in a wild state, unless there is a suspicion of its having been introduced by man.
Its habits are thus described in Gould’s ‘Birds of Australia’:—
“It is a showy, active bird, constantly engaged in flying from tree to tree and searching among the flowers for its food, which consists of honey, insects, and occasionally berries. In disposition it is generally shy and wary, but at times is confident and bold. It is usually seen in pairs, and the males are very pugnacious.
“It breeds in September and October. The nests’ observed by myself in the Upper Hunter district were placed on the horizontal branches of the Angophorœ, and were of a large rounded form, composed of small sticks, and lined with fine grasses; those found by Gilbert in Western Australia were formed of dried sticks, without any kind of lining, and were placed in the open bushes. The eggs are two or three in number, one inch and three lines long by ten lines and a half broad; their ground-colour is reddish buff, very thickly dotted with distinct markings of deep chestnut, umber, and reddish brown, interspersed with a number of indistinct marks of blackish grey, which appear as if beneath the surface of the shell. Eggs taken in New South Wales are somewhat larger than those from Western Australia, and have markings of a blotched rather than of a dotted form, and principally at the larger end.”
Strictly speaking Acanthidosittidæ is the right name for this family, Acanthidositta being an older genus than Xenicus, but I am unwilling to disturb a name that has already obtained currency.
Long-legged Warbler, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 2, p. 465 (1783).
Motacilla longipes, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 979 (1788, ex Lath.).
Sylvia longipes, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 529 (1790).
Acanthisitta longipes, Gray, List of Gen. of Birds, App. p. 6 (1841).
Xenicus longipes, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 218.
Xenicus stokesii, id. tom. cit. p. 219.
Matuhituhi, Piwauwau, Puano, and Huru-pounamu.
♂ pileo umbrino: dorso toto viridi, uropygio lætiore: supercilio distincto albo: plumis anteocularibus nigris: regione paroticâ brunneâ vix viridi lavatâ: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, vix flavido tinctis: alâ spuriâ nigrâ: remigibus brunneis, extùs olivaceo-viridi lavatis: caudâ suprà olivaceo-viridi, subtùs flavicante: mento albido: corpore reliquo subtùs pulchrè cinereo, pectore vix argenteo-nitente: abdomine imo et subcaudalibus viridibus, hypochondriis olivaceo-flavis: cruribus brunneis: subalaribus et margine alari pallidè citrinis: rostro saturatè brunneo: pedibus flavicantibus.
♀ dissimilis: suprà ferrugineo-brunnea: uropygio vix olivaceo tincto: supercilio lato albo: subtùs pallidè chocolatina, hypochondriis et abdomine imo sordidè flavis.
Adult male. Upper parts dark green, tinged with yellow, shading into dark brown on the forehead and crown; sides of the head black, with a broad superciliary streak of white extending beyond the ears, and then changing to yellow; sides, thighs, and rump bright greenish yellow; fore neck, breast, and abdomen cinereous grey, with a beautiful gloss (sometimes tinged with cobalt), and softening into greyish white on the throat; lining of wings pale yellow; quills, on their outer webs, and the tail-feathers olivaceous green. Irides and bill brownish black; tarsi and toes pale brown. Extreme length 4 inches; wing, from flexure, 2·26; tail 1 (more than half of it concealed by the soft coverts); bill, along the ridge ·5, along the edge of lower mandible ·7; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw ·9; hind toe and claw ·8.
Adult female. Upper parts umber-brown, tinged with yellowish green, especially on the rump; crown shaded with purplish brown; superciliary streak white; throat, sides of the neck, breast, and upper part of abdomen delicate vinous brown; sides of the body, flanks, and thighs dull lemon-yellow; inner lining of wings pure yellow.
Young male. Plumage generally as in the adult, but with the green tints of the upper parts paler, and the silky grey of the breast tinged with purple; crown of the head and hind part of neck chocolate-brown, blending into the olvaceons green of the upper parts; superciliary streak broad and conspicuous.
Obs. The figure of X. longipes in the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror,’ which represents a bird with a white eye-circlet and an upturned bill like that of Acanthidositta, is copied from a rough half-finished drawing of Forster’s (1777) and is strikingly incorrect. Professor Hutton, whose views are entitled to respect, wrote
X, stokesii which he wrongly determined as X. longipes; in fact all the specimens of X. longipes in his collection were X. stokesii; these he compared with X. stokesii in the British Museum, and naturally found them identical. But until it is explained how it is that the figure and description of X. longipes in the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror’ differ so much from specimens of X. stokesii, I must continue to regard them as two species” (‘Ibis,’ 1874, p. 37). A specimen, however, labelled by Prof. Hutton “Xenicus stokesii, female,” and sent to Dr. Finsch for examination, was referred by this naturalist, without hesitation, to X. longipes, Gmelin. It is perfectly clear that X. stokes has no existence as a species.
This species is confined to the Fagus-forests which clothe the sides of our subalpine ranges in the South Island, never being met with in the low country. In many parts of the Nelson provincial district it is quite abundant, but only in the dense bush. In the dark forest lying between Wallis-head and Tophouse, also along the wooded banks of the Pelorous river, it is said to be very plentiful, and even in the Fagus-covered hills in the vicinity of Nelson it is a comparatively common bird, although less numerous now than formerly. Mr. Travers found it numerous in the Spencer ranges (Nelson) at an elevation of 3000 feet; Sir J. Hector obtained specimens in the high wooded lands of Otago, where, as he informs me, it was a very rare bird; Sir J. von Haast met with it frequently during his exploration of the interior of the Canterbury district; and I observed it in the high wooded ranges forming the inland boundary of Westland. The localities I have enumerated are all in the South Island. There are specimens, however, in the British Museum which are said to have been obtained by Captain Stokes in the Rimutaka ranges (in the provincial district of Wellington); and although I never met with the species in that district, or, indeed, in any part of the North Island, an intelligent Maori, to whom I showed a coloured drawing of the bird, appeared at once to recognize it. He said that he had often seen it in the Ruahine mountains, and that during severe winters it sometimes appeared in the low country; and he further spoke of the plumage as being “like silk,” an expression so aptly descriptive of its peculiar softness, that I believe the man was quite familiar with the bird.
The Maoris have a saying that if you kill this bird “ka panga te huka” (or, “snow will fall”).
It is generally met with singly or in pairs, but sometimes several are associated, attracting notice by the sprightliness of their movements. They run along the boles and branches of the trees with restless activity, peering into every crevice and searching the bark for the small insects, chrysalids, and larvæ on which they feed. It is generally arboreal in its habits, seldom being seem on the ground, in which respect it differs conspicuously from the closely allied species, Xenicus gilviventris. It has a weak but lively note, the sexes always calling to each other with a subdued trill, and its powers of flight are very limited.
On comparing my specimens of this bird with the type of Mr. Xenicus stokesii in the British Museum, I feel satisfied that they are referable to one and the same species, the difference of plumage being only sexual.
In June 1882 the late Mr. The following is extracted from the paper referred to:— “The subjoined drawings of the syrinx of “The lateral position of the single syringeal muscle is that characteristic of all the Mesomyodian Passeres, though in most of these it terminates on one of the bronchial rings, and not, as in the birds under consideration, on the sides of the trachea. This may easily be seen by comparing the accompanying flgures of Xenicus and Acanthisitta (rectius Acanthidositta), hitherto supposed to be allied to Certhia and Sitta, were in reality mesomyodian forms, the discovery of such low types among the Passerine birds in New Zealand being a fact of considerable interest in zoo-geographic distribution. The characters pointed out by this able investigatorXenicus—with which in all points Acanthisitta appears to agree in every essential respect—will show that it has none of the complex nature of that organ in the Oscines, the thin lateral tracheal muscle terminating on the upper edge of a somewhat osseous box formed by the consolidation of the last few tracheal rings, and there being uo other intrinsic syringeal muscle whatsoever. The box has a well-developed antero-posterior pessular piece. The bronchial rings are throughout of quite simple form, and are separated by but narrow intervals. None are modified in form to serve for the insertion of a vocal muscle, as the latter terminates higher up, as already described, on the tracheal box, and therefore quite out of the region of the bronchi.Xenicus with the beautiful series given by Johannes Müller of the syrinx of many of the Neotropical Mesomyodi, with those of Garrod of Pitta, or my own of Eurylamms, Oymbirhynchus, and Philepitta. In fact it resembles rather that of Todus, as lately described and figured by myself. Externally the non-oscine nature of Xenicus and Acanthisitta is at once proclaimed by the structure of their wings, which have a ‘first’ (tenth) primary nearly as long as the preceding one, and by the non-bilaminate tarsus. The latter is covered almost completely by a single large scute, with only some very obsolete traces of transverse division below, whilst behind its edges are contiguous for the greater length of the tarsus, leaving only small areas at each end of that bone, which are covered by very small scutellæ of irregular form. The digits are slender and compressed, the foot being slightly syndactyle by the union of the fourth toe to the third for the greater part of its two most basal joints. The tail is short and weak; and there are only ten rectrices in each of my specimens. [This is the normal number.] In all other points, Xenicus and Acanthisitta conform to the general Passerine type. There is no trace of a plantar vinculum. The tendor patagii brevis has the peculiar arrangement characterizing the Passeres, only slightly masked by the muscular fibres somewhat concealing the two superimposed tendons, as is frequently the case in the short-and-rounded-winged forms of the group. The gluteus primus is well-developed. The tongue is lanceolate and horny, with its apex somewhat frayed out and its base spiny. The main artery of the leg is the sciatic. The sternum has a single pair of posterior notches and a bifld manubrium. In the skull the nostrils are holorhinal, the vomer broad and deeply emarginate anteriorly, the maxillo-palatines slender and recurved.” (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1882, pp. 569–571.)
The nest (of which there is a specimen in the Canterbury Museum) is usually placed among the upturned roots of a fallen tree, or in the fork of a double trunk, at a low elevation from the ground. It is a compact structure, composed entirely of green moss, oval in form, measuring about eight inches in length by about five inches in breadth, with a small entrance on the side not far from the top, and so small as scarcely to admit the tip of the finger One which was found in a birch-forest far up the Havelock, in the month of December, was so admirably hidden amongst the surrounding moss that its detection was quite accidental. It was situated beneath the moss-covered roots of a ribbon-wood tree, and was pouch-shaped in form, with the opening near the top, and composed almost entirely of minute fern-roots, carefully interwoven, especially at the entrance. It measured about 3·6 inches in height by 3 in breadth; and the cavity, which was profusely lined with feathers, extended to a depth of 2·6 inches, with an opening one inch and a half across. (‘Journal of Science,’ vol. ii. p. 281.)
Mr.
Xenicus gilviventris, Von Pelz. Verh. k.-k. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien, 1867, p. 316.
Xenicus haasti, Buller, Ibis, 1869, p. 37.
Acanthisitta gilviventris, Gray, Hand-l. of B. i. p. 183 (1869).
Acanthisitta haastii, id. tom. cit. p. 183 (1869).
♂ staturâ X. longipedis, sed hallucis ungue maximo distinguendus: suprà pallidè viridis, pileo et dorso superiore brunnescentioribus concoloribus: supercilio albo, haud flavo tincto: subtùs dilutè chocolatino-brunneus, crisso cum cruribus viridescentibus, hypochondriis lætè flavis: subalaribus pallidè flavis.
♀ feminæ X. longipedis dissimilis et hujus mari magis assimilata: suprà ochrascenti-brunnea, uropygio vix viri-descente: tectricibus alarum conspicuè nigris: remigibus brunneis, extùs dorsi colore lavatis: subtùs pallidè isabellina, hypochondriis viridescentibus.
Adult male. Upper parts dull olive-brown, with a greyish gloss, darker on the forehead and crown, and tinged on the back, wing-coverts, and rump with yellowish green; sides of the head dark brown, with a narrow superciliary streak of fulvous white, widening above the ears; underparts delicate purplish brown, with a silky appearance, and fading into fulvous white at the base of the lower mandible; the sides of the body lemon-yellow; wing-feathers brown, the primaries margined on their outér webs with dull olive, the secondaries with an apical spot of fulvous on their outer webs; tertials and the lesser wing-coverts black, forming a conspicuous triangular spot; inner lining of wings pale yellow; tail-feathers dull olive. Irides and bill blackish brown; tarsi and toes pale brown; claws darker. Total length 3·75 inches; wing, from flexure, 2·1; tail ·75 (nearly two thirds of it being concealed by the coverts); bill, along the ridge ·4, along the edge of lower mandible ·6; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw ·9; hind toe and claw ·9.
Adult female. Differs from the male in having the plumage of the upper parts dull yellowish brown, shaded with umber on the crown, and tinged with yellowish olive on the wings and rump; the superciliary streak less distinct; and the underparts pale fulvous, stained on the sides of the body with lemon-yellow.
Obs. It will be necessary to obtain a larger series of specimens than is at present available, and to make a closer investigation of the subject, before the differences supposed to be characteristic of the sexes (both of this and the preceding species) can be considered finally determined. It is probable that the colours undergo some change in the progress of the bird towards maturity; and there is likewise reason to suspect that a seasonal change takes place in the plumage of the male.
My first specimens of this bird were received from Dr. (now Sir Julius von) Haast, F.R.S., who discovered it in the Southern Alps, during a topographical survey of the Canterbury Province. In a notice which I communicated to ‘The Ibis’ (I. c.), I described the species as new, and named it Xenicus haasti, in compliment to the discoverer. This name, however, must, in obedience to the inflexible law of priority, give place to
Another correspondent says that “they move about so nimbly that to procure specimens was like shooting at mice.”
This species is confined to the South Island, being met with in the mountains, at an elevation of 3000 feet and upwards, their range appearing to commence with the snow-line, below which I have never heard of their being found.
Mr. Brough, who sent me a specimen from Nelson, says it was one of five which he met with in February on the very summit of a barren mountain. “They were dodging about among the angular rocks right on the top of the peaks, where there was no vegetation except the so-called ‘vegetable sheep’ (Raoulia eximia), which grows freely enough among the débris or shale.” These birds were, at that time, catching a bright-coloured alpine butterfly, which I have since identified as Phaos huttoni.
Mr. Reischek writes that he found it very plentiful on the top of Mount Alexander, near Lake Brunner, also on Mount Alcidus, near Rakaia forks, “hopping about among the débris grown over with alpine vegetation.” On the heights overlooking Dusky Sound, he found it extremely rare, a circumstance which he attributes to the thousands of rats infesting that region.
Sir J. Hector found it frequenting the stunted vegetation growing on the mountain-sides in the Otago Province; and Mr.
It is worthy of remark that in this species the claw of the hind toe is considerably more developed than in the tree-frequenting X. longipes—even exceeding the toe in length—a modification of structure specially adapted to the peculiar habits of the bird, which differ from those of the former species consistently with its habitat. They hunt much on the ground, particularly in wet weather; and will freely visit the explorer’s camp, hopping about on the ground, picking at mutton-fat or any thing of the kind lying outside. The young are fed on insects; and it is amusing to see the old birds coming to the nest, sometimes with a dragon-fly almost as large as its captor, and dividing it among the brood.
Mr.
The nest, which is a more finished construction than that of the Bush-Wren, is placed in a sheltered crevice among the loose rocks or débris of the mountain. One found under these circumstances by Mr. Brough in the Nelson district, on Sept. 24, contained five eggs. This nest, which is now in my collection, is of a rounded form, laterally compressed, and measuring five inches in its widest diameter. It is composed externally of wiry rootlets, intermixed with very small twigs and dry leaves. The entrance is on the side, being a perfectly round aperture about an inch in diameter. The interior of the nest is lined with soft feathers.
The egg (of which I have a single damaged specimen) is ovoido-elliptical in form, measuring ·7 of an inch in length by ·5 in breadth, and is perfectly white, with a slightly polished surface.
This has hitherto been written Acanthisitta; but Professor Newton has drawn my attention to the fact of its being erroneous. I have therefore adopted the more classic form of Acanthidositta, the etymology of which is ακανθτδ- (acanthid-), crude form of ακανθτs=Carduleis, and sτττα=sitta.
Citrine Warbler, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 2, p. 464 (1783).
Sitta chloris, Sparrm. Mus. Carls. pl. 33 (1787).
Motacilla citrina, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 979 (1788, ex Lath.).
Sylvia citrina, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 529 (1790).
Sitta punctata, Quoy et Gaim. Voy. de l’Astrol. i. p. 221, pl. 18. fig. 1 (1830).
Acanthiza tenuirostris, Lafr. Rev. Zool. 1841, p. 242.
Acanthisitta tenuirostris, Lafr. Mag. de Zool. 1842, pl. 27.
Motacilla citrinella, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 89 (1844).
Acanthisitta tenuirostris, Ellman, Zoologist, 1861, p. 7466.
Acanthisitta punctata, Ellman, tom. cit. p. 7466.
Tititipounamu, Kikimutu, Kikirimutu, Pihipihi, Piripiri, Tokepiripiri, and Moutuutu.
♂ ad. suprà, viridis, uropygio lætiore, pileo brunneo lavato: tectricibus alarum nigris, extùs viridi lavatis: alâ spuriâ nigrâ, extùs albicante: remigibus nigricanti-brunneis, extùs viridi (ad basin pennarum lætiore) lim-batis, secundariis dorsalibus pogonio externo albo conspicuè maculatis: caudâ nigrâ, ad apicem albo viridi lavato maculatâ: loris, supercilio et facie laterali albidis, strigâ per oculum eunte fuscâ: subtùs albus, vix fulvo tinctus, corporis lateribus flavo lavatis: rostro saturatè brunneo: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
♀ mari omninò similis, sed saturatior: pileo magis brunnescente.
Juv. suprà cinerascenti-brunneus, plumis utrinque nigro marginatis, uropygio olivascente: alâ ut in adultis coloratâ, sed extùs ad basin secundariorum conspicuè flavâ: facie laterali cinerascente, nigricante variâ: subtùs albescens, hypochondriis flavicantibus, gutture et pectore superiore maculis triquetris nigricantibus notatis.
Male. Upper parts dull green, tinged with yellow on the wings and rump; throat, breast, and underparts generally fulvous white, with a tinge of yellow on the sides of the body and abdomen; a streak over and beyond the eyes and a lower-eyelid fringe of fulvous white; wing-feathers black, edged on their outer webs with green, and crossed with a band of dull yellow immediately below the coverts, which are black; the first tertial white on its outer web; tail-feathers black, tipped with fuscous. Irides and bill dark brown; legs and feet paler brown, changing to yellow on the under surface of the toes. Total length 3 inches; extent of wings 5·25; wing, from flexure, 1·5; tail ·25; bill, along the ridge ·4, along the edge of lower mandible ·55; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw ·6; hind toe and claw ·55.
Female. Crown, hind neck, and upper part of back olivaceous yellow, each feather margined with brown; lower part of back and rump olivaceous yellow, tinged with green; tail-coverts dull green; underparts buffy
Young. Plumage generally duller and suffused with yellowish brown; marked on the breast with numerous small longitudinal spots of brown.
Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1874, vol. vii. p. 227.Obs. As will be seen above, the plumage of A. chloris differs in the male, female, and young. Examples vary in the tone of their colouring; and a specimen in my collection (received from the South Island) has the rump and upper tail-coverts almost orange-coloured, without any mixture of green. I do not believe in the existence of Acanthidositta citrina, Gmelin, although recognized as a distinct species by Dr. Finsch
The Rifleman is the smallest of our New-Zealand birds. It is very generally distributed over the middle and southern portions of the North Island, in all suitable localities, and throughout the whole extent of the South Island. It is to be met with generally on the sides and summits of the wooded ranges, seldom or never in the low gullies. Professor Hutton found it on the Great Barrier, and was assured by the native residents of that island that it was a migratory bird, coming and going with the Cuckoo! Mr. Reischek met with it also on the Little Barrier, but not on the other islands in the Hauraki Gulf.
In the hilly pine-forests at the head of the Wairarapa valley I found this bird comparatively plentiful in the summer of 1883. This was the more noticeable on account of the general absence of bird-life in these dark woods at all seasons of the year. On the outskirts small flocks of Zosterops consort together in the underwood, and a few Flycatchers and White-heads share the solitude with the sober Tomtit; but as we enter the woods the stillness becomes oppressive, unbroken even by the chirp of a cricket or the drumming of a locust, and, apart from the active little Rifleman, which seems perfectly at home under all conditions, the only sign of animation is an occasional night-moth lazily flapping its wings in the gloomy shade of the forest.
In its habits it is lively and active, being incessantly on the move, uttering a low feeble cheep (like the cry of a young bird), accompanied by a constant quivering of the wings. I have noticed that this cry becomes louder and more continuous towards evening. It is generally to be seen running up the boles of the larger trees, often ascending spirally, prying into every chink and crevice, and moving about with such celerity that it is rather difficult for the collector to obtain a shot. Its powers of flight are very feeble, and it simply uses its wings for short passages from one tree to another. Its tail is extremely short, and is hardly visible when the bird is in motion.
The stomachs of all that I have opened contained numerous remains of minute Coleptera and other insects, sometimes mixed with finely comminuted vegetable matter.
It is naturally a shy bird, but of so excitable a nature that, during the breeding-season, it may be decoyed into the open hand by rapidly twirling a leaf, so as to simulate the fluttering of a bird, accompanied by an imitation of its simple note.
A bird-collector at Wellington showed me a brood of three young ones which he had taken from a nest in the cavity of a hinau, at an elevation of 20 feet or more from the ground. Finding the aperture too small to admit his hand, he cut into the tree about a foot below it, and thus disclosed the nest, which he described as being composed entirely of fern-hair, about 10 inches in length, and bottle-shaped, with a long vertical tube forming the entrance to it. In the Canterbury Museum there is a nest of this species, which appears to have been torn out of some natural cavity. It is pear-shaped, with the entrance on the side and near the bottom, and is very loosely constructed, the
Captain Mair discovered a nest under the thatched eaves of a Maori hut; and Mr. E. Pharazyn sent me an egg taken from another nest found concealed among the dry roots of a fallen tree. Mr. Potts has found the nest “very cleverly built, in a roll of bark that hung suspended in a thicket of climbing convolvulus,” and, at another time, in a small hole in the trunk of a black birch. More than once he has known the bird to occupy the mortice-hole of a stock-yard post; also to utilize the skull of a horse, and to build between the slabs of a bush hut, adapting the form of its nest to the immediate surroundings.
The Rifleman has been found breeding as early in the year as the month of August; and in a specimen which I killed in the Ruahine ranges on the 23rd of December the ovary contained an undeveloped egg of the size of buck-shot, while the bareness of the underparts bore indication that the bird had already been sitting. From these facts we may, I think, reasonably infer that this species produces two broods in the season. The companion male bird on this occasion also had the abdomen bare, thus affording presumptive evidence that the sexes share the labour of incubation. The eggs vary in number from three to five; they are very fragile, broadly ovoid, or inclined to a spherical form, measuring ·6 of an inch in length by ·5 in breadth, and perfectly white, with a slightly glossy surface.
Before leaving the great Order of Passeres and passing on to the next, the Picariæ, it may be useful to note that most of the Passerine genera found in New Zealand are strictly endemic or peculiar to the country. Without of course taking into account the undoubted stragglers from abroad, the only exceptions to this rule are Sphenœacus, which occurs also in Australia; Gerygone and Rhipidura, of which there are representatives in Australia, Tasmania, Norfolk Island, New Guinea, and many of the Indo-Malayan Islands; Zosterops, whose range extends over the entire southern hemisphere; and Anthus, which occurs in most parts of the world.
I have already explained in my account of Xenicus why it became necessary to remove that form and Acanthidositta from their old position among the Certhiidæ and to place them in a new family at the end of the Passeres. Both these forms are, in fact, dwarf Pittas of a degenerate type. They have no relations in New Zealand, and their nearest allies in Australia are the true Pittidæ, a highly specialized group extending to New Guinea and, through the entire Malay Archipelago, to India and China. One species occurs in West Africa; but in all the other zoological regions of the earth, so far as we at present know, this type is absent.
Hirundo pacifica, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. ii. p. lviii (1801).
New-Holland Swallow, Lath. Syn. Suppl. ii. p. 259 (1801).
Cypselus pacificus, Steph. Cont. of Shaw’s Gen. Zool. vol. x. p. 132 (1817).
Hirundo apus, var. β, Pall. Zool. Ross.-Asiat. tom. i. p. 540 (1831).
Cypselus australis, Gould in Proc. Zool. Soc. part vii. 1839, p. 141.
Cypselus vittata, Jard. Ill. Orn. ser. 2, pl. 39 (1840).
Micropus australis, Boie, Isis, 1844, p. 165.
Micropus vittata, id. tom. cit.
Cypselus australis, Gould, Birds of Austr. fol. vol. ii. pl. xi. (1848).
Cypselus pacificus, Gould, Handb. Birds of Austr. vol. i. p. 105 (1865).
Descr. exempl. ex N. Z. Suprà nigricanti-brunneus: dorso metallicè nitente: uropygio albo: subtùs intensè fusco: gutture cinerascenti-albo: plumis pectoris abdominisque angustè albo marginatis: remigibus caudâque nigricantibus: rostro nigro: pedibus nigris.
New-Zealand example. Crown of the head and general upper surface blackish brown, with a metallic lustre on the back and upper surface of wings and tail; rump pure white; throat and upper part of fore neck greyish white; the rest of the under surface blackish brown, but paler on the lower fore neck and under tail-coverts; the feathers of the breast and abdomen narrowly tipped with white; quills and tail-feathers brownish black, the shafts greyish towards the base on their under aspect; the inferior primaries, the whole of the secondaries, and the inner lining of the wings minutely margined with greyish white. Bill and feet black. Total length 7·75 inches; wing, from flexure, 7·2; tail 3; bill, along the ridge ·3, along the edge of lower mandible ·8; tarsus ·5; middle toe and claw ·55.
Young (Australian specimen in British Museum). Has the plumage of the head, shoulders, and back very narrowly margined with paler brown; in front of each eye an angular spot of black and above that a line of greyish white; throat greyish white, with indistinct shaft-lines of brown; the plumage of the under-parts conspicuously marked in crescents, each feather becoming black in its apical portion and then broadly tipped with greyish white; the lining of wings uniform dark brown; the whole of the rump white with fine black shaft-lines; under tail-coverts broadly tipped with white.
Obs. The only sexual difference is that the female has somewhat duller plumage than the male. The amount of white on the throat is very variable, being reduced in some specimens to a mere wash of fulvous-white. The extent of white also on the uropygium varies much in individual examples, sometimes spreading down to the thighs.
One of the most recent cases, and perhaps the most interesting, of the occurrence of common Australian forms in New Zealand is that of the Swift, which made its appearance for the first time, so far as we know, in the history of the colony, in December 1884.
On seeing the newspaper accounts of the flight which had visited the White Cliffs (near the town of New Plymouth) I naturally concluded that this was another instance of the Tree-Swallow visitant from Australia, with which we had already become familiar.
Fortunately, however, one of the birds had been shot, and the skin having been forwarded to me in a fresh condition, I saw at a glance that we had now to add another bird to our list of species.
Major
“Respecting the Swift I shot here, I am glad to be able to furnish you with particulars. One evening, at about 6 P.M., four strange birds were flying about the camp, evidently in pursuit of insects. Their flight so reminded me of that of the Swift, that to make sure I shot one and took it to the office of the ‘Taranaki Herald.’ I believed it to be an English Swift, but from what I have since heard, I conclude that it is an Australian bird. I did not know until I received your letter that Swallows had ever been seen in New Zealand.”
In bringing this Australian bird before the Zoological Society in October 1839, Mr. Gould wrote:—“This species is about the size of Cypselus murarius. I first met with it on the 8th March, 1839. They were in considerable abundance, but flying very high. I succeeded in killing one, which was immediately pronounced by Mr. Coxen to be new to the colony. On the 22nd I again saw a number of these birds hawking over a piece of cleared land at Yarrondi, on the Upper Hunter; upon this occasion I obtained six specimens, but have not met with it since.”
In his account of the species in his ‘Birds of Australia’ he adds:—“Those I then observed were flying high in the air, and performing immense sweeps and circles, while engaged in the capture of insects. I succeeded in killing six or eight individuals, among which were adult examples of both sexes; but I was unable to obtain any particulars as to their habits and economy. It would be highly interesting to know whether this bird, like the Swallow, returns annually to spend the months of summer in Australia. I think it likely that this may be the case, and that it may have been frequently confounded with Acanthylis caudacuta, as I have more than once seen the two species united in flocks, hawking together in the cloudless skies, like the Martins and Swallows of England. It is considered by some ornithologists that this bird and the Swift with crescentic markings of white on the breast, which inhabits China and Amoorland, are the same. If this supposition be correct, this species ranges very widely over the surface of the globe.”
The British-Museum collection contains specimens from N. S. Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Cape York, Formosa, Penang, Tenasserim, Assam, Japan, China, and Siberia.
I have carefully examined all these examples and can find nothing whatever to justify specific separation, although as a rule the birds from India and China have a larger and therefore more conspicuous patch of white on the throat.
The specimen from Japan differs from typical examples in having black shaft-lines on the throat; but there is an exactly similar one from Cape York obtained during the voyage of H.M.S. ‘Rattle-snake.’
There is, however, a bird in immature plumage from the Hume Collection, marked “Cypselus pacificus, ♂, Bankasoon,” which may prove to be distinct. It is of appreciably smaller size, the wing from the flexure being fully half an inch shorter; the throat-patch is covered with linear brown markings, and the whole of the uropygium is greyish white with dark shaft-lines.
Coracias pacifica, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. ii. p. xxvii (1801).
Pacific Roller, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. ii. p. 371 (1801).
Galgulus pacificus, Vieill. Encycl. Méth. tom. ii. p. 870 (1823).
Eurystomus australis, Swains. Anim. in Menag. p. 326 (1838).
Eurystomus pacificus,
Eurystomus australis, Gould, Birds of Austr. fol. vol. ii. pl. 17 (1848).
Eurystomus pacificus, Id. Handb. Birds of Austr. vol. i. p. 119 (1865).
Eurystomus pacificus, Buller, Manual of Birds of N. Z. p. 7 (1882).
Descr. exempl. ex N. Z. Suprà pallidè viridi-griseus: tectricibus alarum minoribus dorso concoloribus, medianis et majoribus lætiùs cyaneo-viridibus: alâ spurâ, tectricibus primariorum remigibusque nigris, extùs purpureo-cæruleis, cyaneo marginatis, primariis basin versus plagâ magnâ pallidè argentescenti-cyaneâ notatis: secundariis intimis viridioribus: caudâ nigrâ, basaliter viridi, medialiter purpurascenti-cyaneâ: pileo toto brunneo, versus interscapulium brunnescente pallidè viridi-cyaneo lavato: loris nigricantibus: regione paroticâ brunneâ: gulâ cyanescente, plumis medialiter argentescenti-cyaneo angustè lineatis: mento et gulæ lateribus brunneis: corpore reliquo subtùs pallidè viridi-cyaneo, pectore summo obscuriore: subcaudalibus et subalaribus pallidè viridi-cyaneis: alis subtùs purpureis, versus apicem nigris, plagâ basali magnâ argentescenti-cyaneâ.
New-Zealand specimen. Head and hind neck dark brown; shoulders, back, and scapulars dull brownish green, becoming brighter on the rump and upper tail-coverts and tinged with blue in certain lights; upper surface of wings greenish blue, brighter on the large primary-coverts; lores black; throat dark purplish blue, each feather with a central streak of lighter blue; under surface generally dull greenish blue, paler on the lining of the wings and under tail-coverts, and suffused with brown on the breast and sides of the body; quills black on their upper surface, the first primary margined externally with indigo-blue and having on its inner web towards the base a broad bar of pale silvery blue, which increases on the four succeeding primaries and occupies both webs, forming in the open wing a conspicuous rounded patch, the shafts brown, and the outer webs beyond indigo-blue shading into black; the secondaries and tertials bright indigo on their outer webs changing in the former to bluish green towards the base; tail-feathers on their upper surface bluish green at the base, changing to bright indigo in their central portion and becoming entirely black beyond; under surface of wing- and tail-feathers with a bright blue lustre, shot with green and purple in certain lights. Irides dark brown; bill orange-red, shading into black at the tip of upper mandible, and becoming yellow towards the base of under mandible; legs and feet pale reddish brown. Total length 10·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 7·75; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 1, along the edge of lower mandible 1·25; tarsus ·6; middle toe and claw 1·25.
Young (Australian specimen in British Museum). General plumage dull brownish grey, paler on the underparts; crown of the head, hind neck, and shoulders dark brown; lores black; the whole of the fore neck dull brown, faintly washed on the throat with metallic green; the whole of the wing-coverts pale bluish green; primaries and secondaries black, the former in their basal portion and the latter in their whole extent broadly edged on their outer webs with dark blue, fading into green; the primaries crossed in their middle portion by a band of pale silvery blue, fading into white on their inner webs; tail-feathers green towards the base, blue in the middle, and black in their apical portion. Bill brownish black; legs and feet yellowish brown.
Obs. “The sexes are alike in plumage. Irides dark brown; eyelash, bill, and feet red; inside of the mouth yellow.” (Gould.)
Trans. N.-Z. Instit. vol. xiii. p. 454. “In addition to Mr. F. E. Clarke’s note, it may be mentioned that an old Australian, then living at Okarito, was certain that he had seen the bird in the Queen Charlotte’s Sound district.” (Journ. of Science, ii. p. 275.)The first occurrence of this bird in New Zealand was recorded by Mr. F. E. Clarke in a communication to the Westland Institute, on the 18th February, 1881Hirundolanius. His description of the form left no doubt on my mind that the bird was the common Australian Roller, and the subsequent receipt of the specimen itself at the Colonial Museum confirmed that view. Another example (now in my collection) was shortly afterwards obtained at Parihaka, a few miles from New Plymouth. There is a specimen in the Auckland Museum Cf. Cheeseman, op. cit. vol. xiv. pp. 264–265.
Thus the bird has occurred almost simultaneously at no less than four places, far apart from one another, but all on the west coast; and, although of course only a visitant from Australia, the species has fully established its right to a place in the New-Zealand avifauna.
Mr. Caley, writing of this Roller in New South Wales, says Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xv. p. 202.
Mr. Gould gives us the following account of its habits:—
“In Australia the Roller would appear to be a very local species, for I have never seen it from any other part of the country than New South Wales; but the late Mr. Elsey informed me that he found it very common in the Victoria basin, and that it became very numerous about the head of the Lynd. It arrives early in spring, and, having brought forth its progeny, retires northwards on the approach of winter. It appeared to be most active about sunrise and sunset; in sultry weather it was generally perched upon some dead branch in a state of quietude. It is a very bold bird at all times, but particularly so during the breeding-season, when it attacks with the utmost fury any intruder that may venture to approach the hole in the tree in which its eggs are deposited.
“When intent upon the capture of insects it usually perches upon the dead upright branch of a tree growing beside and overhanging water, where it sits very erect, until a passing insect attracts its notice, when it suddenly darts off, secures its victim, and returns to the same branch; at other times it may constantly be seen on the wing, mostly in pairs, flying just above the tops of the trees, diving and rising again with many rapid turns. During flight the silvery-white spot on the centre of each wing shows very distinctly, and hence the name of Dollar Bird bestowed upon it by the Colonists.
“It is a very noisy bird, particularly in dull weather, when it often emits its peculiar chattering note during flight.
“It is said to take the young Parrots from their holes and kill them, but this I never witnessed; the stomachs of the many I dissected contained the remains of Coleoptera only.
“The breeding-season lasts from September to December; and the eggs, which are three and sometimes four in number, are deposited in the hole of a tree, without any nest; they are of a
Sir T. M. Mitchell states that on dissecting a specimen obtained in N.E. Australia he found the stomach crammed with wasps and coleopterous insects.
Dr. Ramsay writes Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. W. vol. vii. p. 46.Dacelo gigas, and I have seen them take the young of this bird and throw them out of the nest. The eggs are two or three in number, of a dull white, rather glossy, and sometimes variable in form, some being oval and pointed, others almost round.”
This species occurs on Lord Howe’s Island, where there is a perceptible blending of Australian and New-Zealand forms. It also abounds in some parts of New Guinea; and Mr. Macleay is of opinion that the birds which spend the summer in Australia pass on to the southern coast of New Guinea for the winter.
I have examined a large series of specimens collected by Mr.
Another specimen of the young (obtained by Mr. Wallace from Matabello Island) differs in having the general plumage lighter, with a small patch of purple mixed with grey on the throat, each feather having a central streak of cobalt-blue. In this example the feathers of the head and shoulders are narrowly, and those of the breast broadly, margined with grey; bill blackish brown, the outer edge of lower mandible dull yellow.
Eurystomus orientalis, Vig. & Horsf., although generally regarded as merely a local race, appears to me to be a good species, readily distinguishable from E. pacificus by its brighter plumage and decidedly darker head and neck; but after carefully comparing Mr. Wallace’s Javan specimen of E. cyanicollis, Wagl., with the former, I can find nothing to justify their separation.
Eurystomus crassirostris, Sclater, is appreciably larger and brighter than E. orientalis, although the colouring is the same, and its bill is conspicuously broader and more robust. This species, which comes from the Solomon group and New Guinea, is said to have dark red eyes.
Eurystomus azureus,
Alcedo sacra, var. D, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. p. 114 (1790).
Alcedo sacra, var. ∊, Bonn. et Vieill. Enc. Méth. i. p. 295 (1823).
Alcedo vagans, Less. Voy. Coq. i. p. 694 (1826).
Alcedo Chlorocephala, var. γ, Less. Traité d’Orn. p. 546 (1831).
Halcyon vagans, Gray, Voy. Ereb. & Terror, p. 3, pl. 1 (1844).
Alcedo cyanea, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 76 (1844).
Todirhamphus vagans, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 157 (1850).
Dacelo sancta (pt.), Schl. Cat. Mus. Pays-Bas, Alced. p. 37 (1863).
Halcyon sanctus, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 246; Hutton, Cat. Birds N. Z. p. 3 (1871).
Kotare and Kotaretare; “Kingfisher” of the colonists.
Ad. suprà sordidè viridis, pileo laterali et dorso postico uropygioque cyanescentibus: Ioris et supercilio antico fulvis: genis, cum regione paroticâ utrâque circâ collum posticum conjunctâ, nigris vix viridi tinctis: maculâ nuchali et collo toto albidis, torquem collarem latam formantibus: tectricibus alarum cyanescenti-viridibus: remigibus nigricantibus, primariis ad basin et secundariis extùs læte cyanescentibus: caudâ suprâ cyanescente, subtùs griseâ: corpore subtùs toto lætè fulvescente, gutture albicante: rostro nigro, ad basin mandibulæ albo: pedibus saturatè brunneis: iride nigricanti-brunneâ.
Juv. similis adultis, sed sordidior: tectricibus alarum fulvo marginatis: pectoris et colli postici plumis brunneo marginatis.
Adult male. Crown, shoulders, and scapulars deep sea-green, with an olive tinge; back, tail-coverts, and upper surface of wings ultramarine, changing to green in certain lights; quills and tail-feathers washed with cobalt on their outer webs. A spot of bright fulvous fills the lores, a dash of ultramarine blue, bordered above the eyes and on the occiput with white, surrounds the crown; and a broad band of black, proceeding from the angles of the mouth, completely encircles the hind head. Throat, breast, and a broad nuchal collar buffy white; the rest of the under surface delicate fawn-colour, with deepening tints. Irides black; bill black, with the basal portion of the lower mandible white; feet dark brown, with paler soles. Extreme length 9·75 inches; extent of wings 13·6; wing, from flexure, 4; tail 2·6; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2·1; tarsus ·6; middle toe and claw 1·05; hind toe and claw ·6.
Female. Tints of the plumage generally duller.
Young. In the young bird the throat is pure white; the underparts fulvous-white, tinged on the sides with fawn-colour; feathers of the breast broadly margined with dusky brown, forming an irregular pectoral zone; loral spots and nuchal collar rufous, with markings of the same colour on the fore part of the crown; nuchal collar indistinct and largely marked with brown; plumage of the upper parts darker than in the adult; the wing-coverts margined with yellow, in the form of narrow crescentic bands.
Progress towards maturity. Tints of the plumage brighter; the loral spots bright fulvous; the sides, flanks, lining of wings, and under tail-coverts bright fawn-colour; pectoral zone indistinct, the dark margins being
Obs. Mr. Reischek brought from the Little Barrier a brightly coloured specimen, which comes very near to Halcyon sancta. He saw a pair of them together on the south-west side of the island. They appeared to be exactly alike in plumage, and the one he shot proved to be a female. In this specimen the nuchal collar is half an inch wide, quite regular, creamy white, and margined on both sides with black; throat white; underparts and flanks plain fawn-colour; hind head, wings, and rump very bright blue; mantle largely tinged with verditer-green. Extreme length 9·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 4; tail 3; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible 2; tarsus ·5; middle toe and claw 1. The bill differs from that of ordinary examples, the lower mandible having a more upward curve, and the upper, viewed vertically, being much compressed laterally, especially towards the point. Although I have thought it right to record these differences, I do not propose at present, at any rate, to separate this bird from H. vagans, which as a species is not very far removed from the Australian form.
Much difference of opinion has existed as to whether this bird is really distinct from the Halcyon sancta of Australia. Mr. H. sancta; but in a letter which I afterwards received from the latter of these experienced ornithologists he admits that the species is quite distinct, adding that his former conclusions were based on two specimens only, and not on the good series of skins since obtained. I have always contended for the recognition of Halcyon vagans; and the question may now be considered fairly set at rest.
In habits the two species are very much alike. The New-Zealand bird is very generally dispersed, being met with in all suitable localities. It frequents alike the sea-shore, the open country, forest-clearings, and the banks of freshwater streams. It is, moreover, one of those birds that seem instinctively to resort to the habitations of man; and instead of, like many other indigenous species, decreasing, it thrives and multiplies under the altered physical conditions resulting from the colonization of the country. It seeks out the new home of the settler, and becomes the familiar companion of his solitude. During the winter months especially, it resorts to cultivated grounds in quest of grubs and worms, which at this season constitute its principal food. In the early morn it may be seen perched on the fences, gateways, and out-buildings of the farmyard, sitting upright with contracted neck, looking stiff and rigid in the cold frosty air; and as the day advances, it enlivens the landscape by its darting flight, while it attracts notice by its shrill, quickly repeated call, which is not unlike the note of the European Kestrel. In the pairing-season this species becomes very noisy and lively, the mated birds chasing each other, in amorous play, from tree to tree or from post to post, with loud unmusical cries, something like the syllables cree-cree-cree uttered in quick succession. Its ordinary call-note is more like chiu-chiu-chiu, with a clear accent. When wounded or caught in a trap it utters a peculiar rasping cry, exactly like that of the Indian Mynah when alarmed or excited, only louder.
They breed late in the year; the brood numbers five or six; and for several weeks after quitting the nest the young family keep together. This will probably account for the abundance of Kingfishers in the autumn months, which has been regarded by some as indicating a seasonal migration.
The flight of this species is short, rapid, and direct, being performed by a quick vibration of the wings. It flies with considerable velocity; and I have known several instances of its dashing headlong through a pane of glass. On one occasion this occurred in the church at Raglan during divine service; and the Kingfisher, after recovering from the shock, remained to the last perched on the end of a pew, looking more devout, says our correspondent, than the Jackdaw of Rheims! Another
Its food consists of lizards, small fish, grubs, earthworms, locusts, insects of all kinds, and even mice. On examining a young Kingfisher just taken from the nest, I observed the tail of a half-grown mouse protruding from its bill; and on taking hold of it I drew the unmutilated carcass of the rodent from the throat of the bird. I was not previously aware that mice formed part of the Kingfisher’s bill of fare “It may not be generally known that Kingfishers are excellent vermin destroyers, and on this account are well worthy of protection. Yesterday a number of gentlemen in the neighbourhood of the Park Hotel, Wellesley Street, observed a curious scene. A Kingfisher which was perched on one of the newly-planted trees was observed to make a sudden dart towards the high bank at the side of the street, and he speedily returned to his perch on the fence which protects the tree. It was then seen that the bird had a mouse, which was alive and struggling, in his beak. The attention of those present became concentrated on the movements of the bird, and they saw him repeatedly strike the mouse’s head against the rail. As the latter became stunned, the bird removed its hold from the centre of the animal’s back to his hind quarters and tail, and while so holding it beat the mouse to death against the rail, and flew off to devour its prey.”—New Zealand Herald.Mocoa zealandica and M. ornata) are very common in all the open glades. I have seen it seize the nimble little reptile by the tail, and after battering its head against a stone or the branch of a tree, to destroy life, swallow the captive, head foremost. It has been known to attack and kill chickens in the poultry-yard. On one occasion, at Otaki, I saw one of these birds dart down into the midst of a very young clutch; but the old barn-door hen proved too active, and with one rapid stroke of her bill put the assailant hors de combat. The bird was picked up stunned with the blow, but soon after, recovering itself, escaped from the hands of its captor. In Wanganui it provoked the hostility of the Acclimatization Society by preying on the young of the House-Sparrow (Passer domesticus), which had been introduced at much expense; and the committee encouraged a crusade against the offenders by offerring a premium for Kingfishers’ heads. But in the present attitude of the public towards the ubiquitous Sparrow, which has become a nuisance, it would be scarcely prudent to repeat such an offer. According to the Report of the Auckland Acclimatization Society for 1868–69, it has proved very troublesome in destroying birds, and has even attacked and killed a Californian Quail. In Otago it has been accused of purloining the speckled trout; and in Canterbury it was found necessary to protect the newly hatched fish by stretching wire netting over the shallow artificial streams. A valued correspondent, and very careful observer, informs me that on one occasion he killed a blackfish about twelve feet long in Whangarei harbour, and dragged it ashore; and on visiting the place a few days later he observed an unusual number of Kingfishers present. On watching them, he found that they were preying on the swarms of flies attracted by the dead cetacean, darting after them with the swiftness of an arrow, and capturing them on the wing.
In light rainy weather the Kingfisher is in his element in the meadows. The moisture brings the grubs, earthworms, and other small animal life to the surface. From his post of observation on the fence he drops nimbly to the ground, swallows his captive and remounts to his perch, repeating the operation every few minutes, and for more than an hour at a time. It is evident, therefore, that this bird is of use to the agriculturist, and deserves protection rather than persecution.
When engaged in fishing, it does not plunge into the stream, like the common British Kingfisher, but dips into it lightly as it skims the surface of the water or darts downwards from its post of observation on a rock or overhanging branch As the fact of our Kingfisher being piscivorous has been challenged, it may be well to reprint here a note which I sent to the Wellington Philosophical Society in 1878 (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xi. p. 369):—. “On driving round Porirua harbour on the 19th July last, I noticed an unusual number of Kingfishers perched on the rocks along the beach, and on the telegraph wires stretched across the numerous little bays. They were evidently attracted by the shoals of little fish that were frequenting the shallow water at the time; and at one spot I had an ocular demonstration of my argument with Captain Hutton, which I should like him to have witnessed. Ten little Kingfishers sitting in a row were in possession of a short span of telegraph wire overhanging the water, and, one after the other, they were dipping into the shallow sea-water in pursuit of fish. Sometimes two or even three of them would dip at the same moment, raising a tiny splash all round, and then mount again to the wire or fly off to the shore with their finny prey. In further illustration of the piscivorous habits of the bird it may be mentioned that Mr. Brandon, of this city, has an indictment to file against the Kingfisher for robbing the fountain in his garden of goldfish.” I have frequently observed these birds fishing from the scaffolding under Queen Street Wharf, in Auckland Harbour, at a distance of fully two hundred yards from the shore; and my son, on one occasion, saw a Kingfisher capture a sea-minnow about four inches long and devour it. The custodian of the trout-ponds at Hastings, near Napier, informed me, on my last visit there, that the Kingfisher had proved very destructive to the young trout, often attacking even good-sized fish in the ponds and picking out their eyes! The following communication from Capt. Mair ( “The Kingfisher is found in all the mountain streams of the Urewera and Bay of Plenty districts. It subsists largely on small freshwater fish (mohiwai of the natives), also on flies, moths, and beetles.” Mr. Potts says, in his interesting little volume ‘Out in the Open’ (p. 150):—“It remains for me to state that these Kingfishers really do fish at times. We have watched with great pleasure and interest displays of their remarkable skill and activity. In the lovely island of Kawau, these birds are very numerous; and well they merit the protection extended to them for their useful labours in clearing off many of the crickets that are to be seen there in abundance. At ebb-tide we have noticed Kingfishers settled on the twisted trunks of pohutukawa trees that spread out their crooked limbs over wave-washed and shelly beaches. From such convenient perches the birds plunge boldly into the sea, often wholly immersed, sprinkling round showers of spray. They swiftly emerge, rarely failing to bear back with them to their standing places their finny spoil.”l. c. vol. x. p. 202) bears on the same point:—
On the feeding-habits of this species, Mr. Henry
“Knowing the interest you take in our New-Zealand birds, I have thought you might like to be informed of the following trait in the habits of the Kotare, which I think is not generally known. About a week before Christmas my children reported to me that in what they took to be a rat’s hole in the pumice bank of the stream, just behind my garden, there was something which growled at them whenever they passed the hole or looked into it. On the matter being mentioned a second or third time the hole was examined, and proved to be a Kotare’s nest, containing four young ones about half-fledged. The old birds, of course, manifested a strong objection to the nest being touched, flying round, screaming, and darting at us whenever we went close to it. I desired the children not to meddle with the young birds, but told them that if they sat a little way off and watched they would see the old ones catch fish, lizards, and insects, and bring them to the nest for the young ones to eat. The children were very pleased to do this, but quickly discovered that very few fish, and apparently very little animal food of any kind, was brought to the nest, and the young brood were being reared on the cherries out of our garden. I at first thought the children were mistaken, but as they assured me they saw the birds fly to the trees, and bring back the cherries in their bills, I examined the nest, and from the quantity of cherry stones that it contained saw that the youngsters’ eyes had not deceived them. It was evident, in fact, that, up to the time they left the nest, fruit formed the chief food of the young birds. It has occurred to me that possibly the Kingfisher, from its habits, consumes a large quantity of fluid with its food, and that the juice of the fruit supplies moisture necessary to the proper growth of the young birds. At all events it is clear that young fruit forms an important article in their diet, though I never saw them eating it, or heard of their doing so at a later stage of their existence.
“I accidentally got corroborative information as to the frugivorous habits of the Kotare lately. I met Mr. Enderby, who mentioned that he had been greatly annoyed by these birds this autumn.
I am not aware that the Kingfisher is ever nocturnal in its habits; but on one occasion, when travelling by coach along the banks of the Manawatu river, about 2.30 a.m., it being a cloudy night and quite dark, I heard the loud call-notes of this bird with startling distinctness. Probably it was a sleeper disturbed by the passing of the coach; although under these circumstances birds, as a rule, betake themselves off in silence to another roosting-place.
The New-Zealand Kingfisher commences to breed towards the end of November or early in December, usually selecting for its nesting-operations a tree denuded of its bark and decayed at heart, standing near the margin of the forest or in an old Maori clearing. By means of its powerful bill it cuts a round passage through the hard exterior surface, and then scoops out a deep cavity, proceeding in a horizontal direction for several inches, and then downwards to an extent of ten inches or more. The bird thus instinctively protects its chamber from the inclemencies of the weather. There is no further attempt at forming a nest, the eggs being deposited on a layer of pulverized decayed wood, the shavings and sawdust, so to speak, of the borer’s operations in finishing the cavity.
The labour of boring a cavity is often greatly augmented by natural impediments. If, after drilling through the hard external surface, the bird finds the inner wood too hard for its tools, it at once abandons the spot and sounds the tree in another place. I have counted half a dozen or more of these abortive borings on a single tree, in addition to the finished one, affording evidence of indomitable perseverance on the part of the bird, and a determination not to forsake a tree which it had instinctively selected as a suitable one for its operations. In two instances, however, I have known the Kingfisher to adopt an existing hollow in a partially decayed kahikatea tree, dispensing altogether with the labour of boring and forming it.
The nestling of this species is a very curious object. On bursting from the shell it presents the following appearance: the abdomen, as in most young birds, is perfectly bare; on the other parts each feather is encased in a sharp-pointed sheath of a greyish colour, closely studded, and bristling like the quills of a porcupine. Before the young birds quit the nest, the sheathings gradually burst, exposing the true feathers in all their brilliancy; vestiges, however, of this spiny condition adhere to the fore part of the head for several days after the birds have quitted their cell.
On being alarmed or excited, the young Kingfisher utters a prolonged rasping cry, sounding very harsh to the ear. The parent birds are very fierce when their nest is molested, darting into the face of the intruder, and flying off again, with a loud, quickly repeated note of alarm.
Mr. Robertson, of Waireka, near Wanganui, informs me that he once saw a cat killed by a pair of these birds. The unfortunate puss had been treed by a dog and was hanging on to the bole, spread-eagle fashion, when she was fiercely attacked by a pair of Kingfishers who appeared to consider their nest in danger. After receiving repeated thrusts from the bills of her assailants the cat fell to the ground and shortly afterwards expired.
In the Canterbury district, where timber is scarce, it more frequently burrows a hole in a bank, and often near the sea-beach. On examining one of these holes, Mr. Potts observed that the bottom inclined slightly upwards from the entrance, and that the eggs were deposited on a
“Referring to your interesting account of its nesting-habits in the ‘Birds of New Zealand’ (1st ed.), I may mention that I have found three or four pairs building in close association in a clay bank, and that on one occasion I counted ten pairs boring in the standing trunk of a dead and decaying rimu. I have never found more than five eggs in a nest.”— “The Kingfisher makes its nest in our neighbourhood (Oamaru) by digging out a hole in a clay bank. A tunnel is driven horizontally into the bank for twelve inches; at the end of this a round hole, five inches in diameter and two in depth, is formed, and here the beautiful white eggs are deposited. There are usually four or five in a nest, and the incubation takes nineteen days. After the young are hatched out, a strong stench is experienced at the mouth of the nest, owing to the nature of the food supplied to them, consisting of small fish, lizards, &c. On one occasion I caught an adult bird in the vinery, where it appeared to be testing the quality of the grapes. It bit my hand savagely when captured, and uttered a loud discordant scream.”— W. W. “On a Kingfisher’s nest and its contents:—October 10th, first egg laid in a nest on a cliff; second egg laid on the 12th before 10 Gilbert Matr.Smith.a.m.; third egg laid on the 14th; fourth egg on the 15th; fifth egg on the 16th; sixth and last egg on the 17th. Subsequently the nesting-place was measured and gave the following dimensions: entrance rather over two inches in diameter; tunnel sixteen inches in length; egg-chamber of ovoid form, 7 inches in length, 5 ½ in width, with a height from the bottom of 4 inches. The size of the nest may create surprise when one thinks of the small space occupied by the eggs, but a roomy house is necessary, for, like those of most troglodytal breeders, the young remain in their hole till their wings are well grown.”— T. H. Potts.
The eggs are generally five in number, sometimes six, broadly oval in form, and measuring 1·2 inch by ·95. They are of the purest white, with a smooth or polished surface, and very fragile in texture; sometimes the shell is marked by minute limy excrescences at the larger end.
In the British Museum collection there is a specimen from Norfolk Island (marked Halcyon sancta, ♂) which is undoubtedly referable to H. vagans.
In ‘The Ibis’ (1880, p. 459) Mr. Layard described a new Kingfisher from the Solomon Islands, under the name of Halcyon tristrami, stating that it was distinguishable from H. juliœ, H. chloris, and H. sancta by the well-marked supercilium and the rich colour of the underparts, in which respects, he said, it exactly accords with H. vagans from New Zealand. Dr. Ramsay has already pointed out (Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. W. vol. vi. p. 833) that Layard’s description does not altogether agree with the coloured figure which accompanied it. Canon Tristram states (Ibis, 1882, p. 609) that the type of H. tristrami has “no occipital patch whatever” and seems to be “further removed from H. vagans than from any other of the group.” In reference to this Mr. Sharpe remarks (Gould’s ‘Birds of New Guinea’):—“We cannot understand why Canon Tristram should object to the close resemblance of H. tristrami and H. vagans.” He expresses a doubt whether the bird exists at all in the Solomon group, all the examples in the British Museum having come from New Britain; and he adds that in all of these the nape-patch is present, being plainly discernible even in the nestling.
I have examined all these specimens and I do not hesitate to say that H. tristrami is readily distinguishable from H. vagans by its larger size, brighter blue on the upper surface, more conspicuous nuchal collar, and greater extent and depth of cinnamon hue on the underparts. But, after all, it is hardly possible to resist the conclusion that these closely allied forms are little more, if anything, than local or climatic races of one common species. For example, in the British Museum there is a Tongan specimen of H. sacra (from the collection of Sir H. tristrami, although the underparts, as well as the nuchal collar, are perfectly white. On the other hand, a specimen of H. vagans (brought by H.M.S. ‘Herald’ from Raoul Island), albeit a comparatively young bird, is as highly coloured in every respect as ordinary examples of H. tristrami, although it is appreciably smaller in all its dimensions.
Le Coucou brun varié de noir, Montb. Ois. vi. p. 376 (1779).
Society Cuckoo, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. p. 514 (1782).
Cuculus taitensis, Sparrm. Mus. Carls, t. 32 (1787).
Cuculus taitius, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 412 (1788).
Eudynamys taitensis, Gray, Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 193 (1843).
Cuculus fasciatus, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 160 (1844).
Eudynamys cuneicauda, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 139, pl. 38. f. 2 (1848).
Eudynamys tahitius, Gray, B. Tr. Isl. Pacif. Ocean, p. 35 (1859).
Eudynamis taitiensis, Cab. & Heine, Mus. Hein. Th. iv. p. 56 (1862).
Eudynamis tahitiensis, Potts, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. iii. p. 90 (1870).
Koekoea, Kawekawea, Koheperoa, and Kohaperoa.
♂ ad. brunneus, pileo longitudinaliter fulvo striato: corpore reliquo superiore brunneo et pallidè ferrugineo conspicuè at irregulariter transfasciato: tectricibus alarum fulvo maculatis: caudâ brunneo et ferrugineo transfasciatâ alboque terminatâ: remigibus brunneis, ferrugineo maculatis, fascias irregulares formantibus: supercilio angusto fulvo: regione auriculari brunneâ angustissimè fulvo lineatâ: genis et collo laterali albis ferrugineo lavatis et brunneo longitudinaliter striatis: subtùs albicans, plumis medialiter brunneo striatis et ferrugineo tinctis: hypochondriis brunneo transfasciatis: subalaribus fulvescenti-albis, angustè brunneo striatis: rostro pallidè brunneo, ad basin saturatiore, mandibulâ flavicante: pedibus viridi-flavis, unguibus brunneis: iride rubescente, interdum flavicante: regione ophthalmicâ nudâ sordidè viridi.
♀ vix a mari distinguenda: paullò minor: coloribus sordidioribus.
Juv. pallidior, suprà ubique albido maculatus, nec fasciatus: caudâ pallidè fulvo transfasciatâ: subtùs ochraceus, pectore abdomineque maculis elongatis triquetris notatis: rostro flavicanti-brunneo: pedibus viridi-flavis.
Adult male. Upper surface dark brown, with a purplish gloss, longitudinally streaked on the head and neck, barred and spotted on the wings and back with rufous; wing-coverts tipped with fulvous white; quills dark brown, banded with pale rufous; tail-feathers marked in their whole extent with narrow alternate bars of dark brown and rufous, tipped with white and finely glossed with purple; a broad line of yellowish white passing from the nostrils over the eyes, and another extending downwards from the angles of the mouth; lores and chin white, with numerous black hair-like filaments; sides of the neck dark brown mixed with rufous; throat, fore part of neck, breast, and sides of the body pure white, with numerous longitudinal streaks of brown, each feather having a broad mark down the centre; lining of wings fulvous white or pale fawn-colour; femoral plumes and under tail-coverts crossed with broad arrow-head marks of brown. Bill pale brown, darker at the base, and yellowish on the lower mandible; irides reddish brown, inclining in some to yellow; bare skin surrounding the eyes dull green; tarsi and toes greenish yellow; claws dark brown. Total length 16·5 inches; extent of wings 21; wing, from flexure, 7·5; tail 9·75; bill along the ridge I, along the edge of lower mandible 1·4; tarsus 1·5; longer fore toe and claw 1·4; longer hind toe and claw 1·25.
Adult female. Slightly smaller than the male, and with the tints of the plumage duller, the purple gloss on the upper parts being scarcely perceptible.
Young. Upper surface blackish brown, marked on the crown with narrow streaks, on the hind neck with fusiform and on the back with rounded spots of fulvous yellow; quills and tail-feathers blackish brown, barred and tipped with fulvous brown. Under surface pale cinnamon-brown; on each side of the throat two longitudinal streaks, and on the breast and sides of the body broad shaft-lines of dusky black; under tail-coverts barred and tibial plumes crossed with marks of the same colour in the form of an inverted V. Bill yellowish brown; tarsi and toes greenish yellow.
Obs. In examples of the young birds much difference is observable both in the ground-tints and in the markings of the plumage. Some are much darker than others, and have the spots on the upper surface pale rufous instead of fulvous yellow; in others, again, they are yellowish white; some have the barred markings on the tail-feathers very obscure, while in others they are as distinct as in the adult, although not so regular in form.
Note.—There is a remarkable phenomenon in the animal world known to naturalists as “mimicry,” or the law of protective resemblance. It is developed chiefly among insects, and particularly among the Lepidoptera. Mr. Wallace describes, at page 205 of his enchanting book on the ‘Malay Archipelago,’ a butterfly which, when at rest, so closely resembles a dead leaf as almost to defy detection. The varied details of colouring combine to produce a disguise that so exactly represents a slightly curved or shrivelled leaf as to render the butterfly quite safe from the attacks of insectivorous birds, except when on the wing. The flight of the insect, on the other hand, is so vigorous and rapid that it is well able then to protect itself. Mr. Wallace adds that in many specimens there occur patches and spots, formed of small black dots, so closely resembling the way in which minute fungi grow on leaves that it is impossible not to believe that fungi have grown on the butterflies themselves! This protective imitation must obviously favour the species in the general struggle for existence, and may of itself be sufficient to save it from extinction. But there is another kind of “mimicry,” where one insect which would, on discovery, be eagerly devoured, assumes for similar protective purposes a close resemblance to some other insect notoriously distasteful to birds and reptiles, and often belonging to a totally different family or order. Numberless instances might be given in illustration of this singular fact, every department furnishing examples of adaptation more or less complete, and all being explainable on the principle of variation under natural selection or the “survival of the fittest.” Mr. Wallace, when exploring in the Moluccas, was the first to discover similar instances of mimicry among birds, although the law of protective colouring had long been known to exist in the case of birds’ eggs. He gives two very curious examples of external resemblance co-existing with very important structural differences, rendering it impossible to place the model and the copy near each other in any natural arrangement. In one of these a Honey-sucker has its colours mimicked by a species of Oriole, and the reason is thus stated:—“They must derive some advantage from the imitation, and as they are certainly weak birds, with small feet and claws, they may require it. Now, the Tropidorhynchi are very strong and active birds, having powerful grasping claws, and long, curved, sharp beaks. They assemble together in groups and small flocks, and they have a very loud, bawling note, which can be heard at a great distance, and serves to collect a number together in time of danger. They are very plentiful and very pugnacious, frequently driving away crows and even hawks, which perch on a tree where a few of them are assembled. It is very probable, therefore, that the smaller birds of prey have learnt to respect these birds, and leave them alone, and it may thus be a great advantage for the weaker and less courageous Mimetas to be mistaken for them. This being the case, the laws of Variation and Survival of the fittest will suffice to explain how the resemblance has been brought about, without supposing any voluntary action on the part of the birds themselves; and those who have read Mr. Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ will have no difficulty in comprehending the whole process.”
Among the many minor instances that have attracted notice, the English Cuckoo ( Cuculus canorus) is supposed to derive protection from the resemblance of its markings to those of the Sparrow-Hawk (
The coincident existence of such a remarkable resemblance to a New-World form cannot of course be any protection to an inhabitant of New Zealand, and I do not pretend in this instance to apply the rule; but in the light of natural selection, to which at present no limit can be assigned, the fact itself is a suggestive one, and sufficiently striking to call for special mention.
The illustration which accompanies this article, although it may have the appearance of an exaggeration, is in reality a true picture of bird-life. The Long-tailed Cuckoo, which is a native of the warm islands of the South Pacific, visits our country in the summer and breeds with us; but the task of rearing its young (as many witnesses can testify) is entrusted to the Grey Warbler (Gerygone flaviventris), figured in our Plate—a species that performs the same friendly office for the Shining Cuckoo ( Chrysococcyx lucidus), another summer visitant.
Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub, in their valuable work on the Birds of Central Polynesia, record the occurrence of this species in Samoa, as well as in the Friendly Dr. Finsch has identified a young male in the spotted dress in a collection of birds from the island of Eua.
In the still summer’s evening when the landscape is wrapped in the gloom of faded twilight—when no sound meets the ear but the low musical song of the pihareinga cricket and the occasional hum of a Prionoplus on the wing—there comes from the thicket a long-drawn cry, shrill and clear; then a pause of five minutes or more, followed by another cry; and so on at intervals till long after the pihareingas have ceased to chirp and the nocturnal beetles have folded their wings in sluggish repose. This is the first intimation we get that the Long-tailed Cuckoo has come amongst us.
It begins to arrive about the second week in October, but is not numerous till the following month, when the pairing commences. It is, however, somewhat irregularly dispersed over the country; for in the far north it is at all times a very rare bird. In the southern portion of the North Island, and throughout the wooded parts of the South Island, it is comparatively common. It appears to be most plentiful in November and December, becoming scarcer in January and disappearing altogether by the end of February. I have a note, however, of its occurrence at Otaki (in the North Island) as late as the first week in April.
Young birds are not unfrequently met with in the month of March or even later; but it seems probable that these are only solitary individuals hatched too late to permit of their joining in the return migration, and accordingly left to perish as the cold season advances; and this is likewise the case with our Shining Cuckoo. As an illustration of this, I may mention that a young bird of this latter species, which had been picked up dead in a garden, was brought to me at the end of February (long after the old birds had quitted the country), and that I found it excessively fat, and the stomach crammed with caterpillars—strong presumptive evidence that the bird had not suffered from the neglect of its foster-parents, but had succumbed to the exigencies of its late birth.
In the early dawn and during the cool hours of the morning, the Long-tailed Cuckoo resorts to the low underwood and brushes; but although its cry may be frequently heard, it is not easy to find the bird, inasmuch as the sound, though produced within a few yards of the listener, has the effect on the ear of one coming from a remote distance. This species, in fact, appears, like some others of the same family, to be endowed with a sort of natural ventriloquism, and its apparently far-off cry is often very deceptive.
While searching for his food the Koheperoa moves about with much activity; but as soon as the sun is up he betakes himself to the top branches of a kahikatea or other lofty tree, where he remains closely concealed till sunset. He continues to utter, at intervals of ten or fifteen minutes,
It is not unusual to hear a pair of these birds answering each other for hours together from the tops of neighbouring trees. Indeed, I have observed that it is habitually stationary, for it may often be heard uttering its long, plaintive scream for a whole day in the same tree, but always quite out of view. During the quiet nights of December its piercing cry may be heard at intervals till break of day, varied only in the earlier watches by the solemn hooting of the Morepork.
This species is more predatory in its habits than is usual with the members of this group. Lizards and large insects form its principal diet; but it also plunders the nests of other birds, devouring alike the eggs and young. From the stomach of one which I shot in December 1856, I took the body of a young bird (apparently a Piopio), partly fledged and only slightly mutilated, showing the enormous capacity of the Cuckoo’s throat. This interesting object, preserved in spirit, is now in the collection of the Colonial Museum at Wellington. The large nocturnal beetle (Prionoplus reticularis), the various species of Deinacridœ and Phasmidœ, the kekereru or fetid bug, the large bush Cicada, and different kinds of spiders and caterpillars, all contribute to the support of this bird; for I have found their remains in abundance in the stomachs of specimens I have dissected.
As already stated, it is accustomed to rob the nests of other birds; and whether from this or some other cause, it is an object of constant persecution to the Tui or Parson bird. The instant one of these birds shows itself, the Tui commences its pursuit, chasing it from tree to tree, and fairly driving it out of the woods. I have actually seen three or four of these persecutors at one time following the unfortunate Cuckoo, with loud cries of intimidation, and, finally, compelling it to take refuge in the long grass on the banks of a stream.
During its sojourn with us it is generally met with singly or in pairs, but Captain Mair gives the following interesting particulars of a summer flight:—“Passing down the Hurukareao river, in the Urewera country, during the intensely hot weather of February 1872, I was astonished at the number of Koheperoa that coursed about overhead. During the three days that we were making the passage, I saw some hundreds of them, swarming about in the air like large dragon-flies, as many as twenty or thirty of them being sometimes associated together. The loud clamour of their notes became at length quite oppressive. There was much dead timber on the banks of the river, and it appeared to me that the birds were feasting on the large brown cicada. This is the only occasion on which I have observed this bird consorting as it were in parties.”
Very little is at present known of the breeding-habits of this species. As I have mentioned above, it is parasitical; but to what extent is not yet fully determined. The theory put forward in my former edition was, that it performs itself the duty of incubation, and then abandons its young to the Grey Warbler, which instinctively accepts the charge and caters untiringly for its support. In the first place it is difficult to conceive how a bird of the size and form of the Long-tailed Cuckoo could deposit its eggs in the domed nest of the last-named species; and even supposing that it did, it would seem almost a physical impossibility for so small a creature to hatch it; and, again, even were this feasible, it is difficult to imagine how the frail tenement of a suspension nest could support the daily increasing weight of the young Cuckoo Mr. Justice Gillies thus describes a nest of the Grey Warbler which he found depending from a manuka bush close to the roadside, and about five feet from the ground, at the Bay of Islands (it was on the 7th October, and the nest contained four eggs):—“It is of the shape of a soda-water bottle, eight inches in length by about four in diameter at its widest part. The side aperture is fully one-third way down from the twig on which it hung, and measured one and a half inches across by about one inch perpendicular. The upper portion of the nest somewhat overhangs the aperture, forming a sort of hood. The nest is composed of twigs, grass, cow-hair, and greenish spider-nests, with a white coral-like moss scattered over the outside. The eggs are ten sixteenths of an inch in length by seven sixteenths of an inch greatest diameter, ovoid, of a faint pinkish colour, with small brown spots, more numerous at the larger end of the egg.” The learned author continues:—“How the Long-tailed Cuckoo ( On referring to the page of my first edition as cited above, it will be seen that, so far from making the supposed statement, I then expressed, as I now repeat, a very decided opinion to the contrary. Mr. “Oct. 29th. Found Wood-Robin’s nest with two eggs. Oct. 31. Visited Robin’s nest; four eggs. Nov. 3. Agreeably surprised to find egg of Eudynamis taitensis) can, as stated by Dr. Buller (‘Birds of New Zealand,’ p. 75), deposit its eggs in such a nest I can scarcely understand. On the 22nd instant (October) one of my children discovered, under a large Cupressus macrocarpa in my garden, a specimen of the Eudynamis taitensis, recently killed, apparently by a Hawk. It would have been impossible for the Eudynamis to have entered the opening in the nest of the Greygone.” (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 524.)Chrysococcyx smaragdineus of Western Africa, it is alleged that this Cuckoo hatches its single egg and then, utterly unmindful of its parental obligations, casts the care of its offspring on a charitable public; and that almost every passing bird, attracted by the piping cry of the deserted bantling, drops a caterpillar or other sweet morsel into its imploring throat! My artist, Mr. Keulemans, assures me that he often witnessed this himself during his residence on Prince’s Island. As entirely opposed to this theory, however, there is one undoubted case of an egg of this Cuckoo being hatched out by a Wood-Robin (Miro albifrons) in whose nest it had been deposited. The young Cuckoo was removed by the finder and soon afterwards diedEudynamis taitensis placed among the rest; for this is the first time I have seen its egg in the nest of this species. It was almost round in shape, with a deeper shade of colour than the specimen in the Canterbury Museum. Nov. 7. Found Robin sitting, and did not disturb her. Nov. 10. Made bird fly off, in order to examine the eggs, which I found to be all right. She was very tame, and came close to my face whilst I was looking at the eggs. Nov. 15. Again found bird on the nest, and left her undisturbed. Nov. 24. Visited nest again, and found all the eggs hatched; young Cuckoo of enormous size compared to its mates; must have been hatched out later than the others, as one of the young Robins was dead. I took the former in my hand, and found it to be a very helpless creature, with the skin almost entirely naked and the eyes closed. Nov. 28. Found young Cuckoo thriving well, being kept constantly supplied with food by the Robin, whose own surviving offspring, three in number, appear likewise to be doing well. Dec. 2. Young Cuckoo growing rapidly. It will soon be too large for the nest, and already has to lie on the top of the young Robins. Dec. 6. Cuckoo still in nest, and now covered with thick blackish downy feathers. It seems very robust; and I observed it raise its body over the edge of the nest in order to void its excrement. Dec. 8. Young Cuckoo has grown so much that it quite fills the cavity of the nest. The young Robins appear instinctively to remain at the bottom for self-preservation; for if the Cuckoo could displace them, he could occupy the whole of the cavity of the nest. Dec. 9. Removed two of the young Robins, in order to make room for the increasing size of the Cuckoo. Dec. 10. Young Cuckoo and remaining Robin doing well, the latter being nearly ready to fly. Dec. 11. Placed the nest, with both occupants, inside a box with wire-netting in front—the mesh being large enough to admit the head of the parent—and left it there. Dec. 15. Found young birds quite active, having been fed by the old ones through the netting. Liberated the Robin and brought the Cuckoo home. It is now in fine plumage, spotted with white or greyish white on a brown ground. Dec. 17. Cuckoo doing well and eats freely. Moves about the box in a clumsy way, and utters a peevish chirp, usually after being fed. Legs well developed, but apparently weak; eyes very bright. Dec. 22. Young Cuckoo died last night, much to my regret, as I was anxious to make it live through the winter.”
An egg forwarded to me some years ago by the Rev.
Shining Cuckoo, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. p. 528, pl. xxiii. (1782).
Cuculus lucidus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 421 (1788, ex Lath.).
Variable Warbler, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. ii. p. 250 (1801).
Sylvia versicolora, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. ii. p. 250 (1801).
Chalcites lucidus, Less. Traité d’Orn. p. 153 (1831).
Cuculus nitens, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 151 (1844).
Cuculus versicolor, Gray, Gen. of B. ii. p. 463 (1847).
Chrysococcyx lucidus, Gould, B. of Austr. iv. pl. 89 (1848).
Cuculus chalcites, Illiger, MS. in Mus. Berol., undè
Chrysococcyx chalcites, Licht. Nomencl. Av. p. 78 (1854).
Lamprococcyx lucidus, Cab. & Heine, Mus. Hein. Th. iv. p. 14 (1862).
“Captain Hutton says that the Chatham-Island Bronze Cuckoo is not the same as the New-Zealand one, but is Chrysococcyx plagosus, Hutton (nec Lath.), Trans. N.-Z. Inst. (1872), vol. v. p. 223C. plagosus of Australia, in which opinion I do not agree, after having compared a specimen from the Chatham Islands lent me by the New-Zealand Institute. The underparts show a little broader gold-green crossbands, and the second tail-feathers, instead of two welldefined rusty bands, have only indications of them; but there is no other difference, and I see no reason to separate the Chatham Island bird from the New-Zealand C. lucidus.” (Finsch, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 227.)
Warauroa, Pipiauroa, and Pipiwarauroa.
Ad. suprà metallicè viridis, æneo et cupreo nitens, supracaudalibus lateralibus latè albo semifasciatis: fronte, supercilio distincto et facie lateral albo maculatis, viridi transfasciatis: loris mentoque albidis haud viridi notatis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus brunneis, ad basin pogonii interni albidis, primariis extùs æneo nitentibus, secundariis magis conspicuè lavatis et pennis dorsalibus omninò dorso concoloribus: caudâ brunneâ, æneo-viridi nitente, fasciâ anteapicali nigricante, rectricibus tribus exterioribus ad apicem pogonii interni albo maculatis, pennâ extimâ albo conspicuê fasciatâ, penultimâ in medio vix rufescente tinctâ: pectore et subalaribus albicantibus transversim æneo-viridi fasciatis: abdomine puriùs albo, hypochondriis subcaudalibusque conspicuè æneo-viridi transfasciatis: rostro nigro: pedibus brunnescenti-nigris, plantis pedum flavicantibus: iride nigrâ.
Juv. obscurior et sordidior, minùs metallicus: tectricibus alarum brunneo marginatis: caudâ nusquam rufescente: gutture et pectore superiore fulvescenti-albis, fuscescenti-brunneo variis, vix viridi lavatis: corpore reliquo subtùs fulvescenti-albo, hypochondriis et corporis lateribus fasciis interruptis metallicè viridibus notatis: subcaudalibus maculis viridibus triuetris transnotatis.
Adult male. Upper parts bright golden green, changing to coppery purple in certain lights; frontal feathers tipped more or less with white; superciliary streak formed of irregular whitish spots; throat, sides of head, and fore prat of neck white, with narrow broken bars of coppery green; breast and underparts generally white, with transverse bands of changing golden green, coppery brown in certain aspects; on the sides, flanks, and under tail-coverts these bands are very regular and conspicuous, each, feather being crossed by
Young. Metallic tints of the upper parts duller; upper wing-coverts edged with brown; tail-feathers as in the adult, but with the rufous markings obsolete; throat and fore part of neck yellowish white, clouded and mottled with dusky brown, faintly glossed with green; underparts generally yellowish white, marked on the sides and flanks with fragmentary or interrupted bands of dull shining green; the under tail-coverts crossed by broad triangular spots of the same.
There is nothing more delightful, on a sultry summer’s day, than to recline in some cool shade and inhale the sweet fragrance of the native woods. All is still and quiet save the hum of bees in the air and the loud drumming of the tarakihi as it clings to the bark overhead. Then there falls upon the ear the well-known cry of the Koheperoa—not the vociferous scream of the early morning, but a low sleepy cry—issuing from some lofty tree-top where the bird is resting during the heat of the day. From a neighbouring tree comes the full rich note of the Tui, uttered at short intervals like the slow tolling of a silver bell; then the low whistle of a Kaka calling to its mate to come and seek repose while the sun is at the meridian; then all is still again, and nothing is heard but the soft murmur of insects in the air and the languid cry of a solitary Fantail as it flits around with full-spread wings and tail, dancing from side to side, or the sweet trill of the Ngirungiru, full of pleasant associations. But while we are still listening, a new sound arrests the attention—a peculiar whistling cry, different from that of any other bird. This announces the arrival in our country of the Shining Cuckoo, an inhabitant of Australia, and probably New GuineaCf. Ramsay, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. W. vol. iii. p. 256.
This is undoubtedly the most tropical-looking of our birds. The glancing of the sunlight on its burnished plumage is very effective, especially, too, when the bird is seen resting on the bare stems of the quasi-tropical In New-Zealand scenery there is much to remind one of a tropical country. The scattered clumps of “cabbage-trees” in the open and the nikau-palms in the deep wooded gullies have quite a tropical aspect, and the wild luxuriance of the evergreen bush brings vividly to mind the rank prodigality of a Brazilian forest. To show that this is not a mere play of fancy, I will give here a leaf from my own diary containing an account of a day at Rio do Janeiro:— “We landed from the S.S. ‘Tongariro’ at 9 A.M. on the 1st April, and came on board again before midnight, having spent a very pleasant day on shore. On landing, we walked through the market-place, which was interesting, then up the principal street, through which no wheeled vehicles are permitted to pass. The passage is narrow and the balconies are overhanging, giving it the appearance of a street in Constantinople. Many of the shops are most attractive in their multifarious exhibits—feather-plumes, rare butterflies, and brilliant beetles being not the least interesting objects. At the street corner we took a tramcar, and, after one or two changes, proceeded to the railway station, passing on our way some fine public and private buildings, notably a marble palace, the property of a rich coffee-planter. Many of the gardens are very beautiful, being brilliant with tropical flowers of every hue. After a short delay at the station, we entered the railway carriage and started up the Corco Vardo line. From the commencement to the finish at the peak the trip was one of unmitigated enjoyment. The day was clear as crystal, with the sun hot and bright; and the scenery was enchanting. The railway line, which ascends spirally at a gradient of 1 in 3, is something quite unique. Looking down into the deep gullies, I was often reminded of our beautiful New-Zealand bush in the tangled richness of the vegetation. There was the same character of forest-growth, the same crowding together of the tree-tops, the same wealth of lianas, vines, and epiphytes, but all on a more luxuriant scale. In place of our Cordyline, or feeding on the green-and-gold cicada, which is so abundant there Astelia cunninghamii, with its narrow flag leaves, the trees were laden with large clumps of some tropical species with leaves six inches in width; in place of our tiny-flowered orchids there were magnificent tropical species with gorgeous blossoms. There was along the wayside a dense undergrowth in every shade of green, but the leaves were larger and the foliage richer than in the New-Zealand woods, whilst in the places exposed to the sun beautiful flowers of brilliant hues added the charm of high colour to this sylvan picture. The ground below the forest trees was covered with vigorous young plants of many kinds; but the eye sought in vain for that ever-present charm of the New-Zealand bush, the carpet of spreading ferns and mosses. Here and there could be seen a tuft of maiden-hair or a clump of
“Then all along the line brilliant butterflies of every size and colour fluttered in the warm sunlight; glorious morphos, with a spread of six inches and of the richest metallic blue, hovered, hawk-like, among the trees; large black-and-grey ‘swallow-tails’ winged their way like Swifts among the lower vegetation; crimson Danaidæ and smaller forms of different kinds-scarlet, golden-yellow, green, or spotted—rested on the leaves or hovered over the flowers, almost within reach of our delighted party, some being actually caught by the hand from the carriage windows. Then here and there a tiny humming-bird, sparkling like a ruby under the rays of the midday sun, might be seen suspended before an open flower or spinning like a moth through the air in search of its absent mate. Such were the sights of tropical loveliness through which we passed on our way to the summit of the Corco Vardo. The view from this point, which is just 2200 feet above to sea-level, baffles description. The far-reaching panorama of sea and land, the wondrous archipolago in front and the glorious amphitheatre of mountains behind—on the one hand the boundless Atlantic, on the other the towering peak of Techuka, 3300 feet high, rising out of deep valleys filled with tropical forests; then, contracting the scope of vision to the left, the city of Rio in all its quaint oriental beauty lying before you far down in the plains, its suburbs of villas and gardens spreading away for miles and far as the eye can reach, whilst to the right, nestling as it were in an illimitable expanse of ornamental shrubbery, are the Botanical Gardens, with their double row of Imperial palms in perfect symmetry, their feathery tops reared nearly a hundred feet above the ground, presenting a picture of unparallelled beauty; then, still further contracting the scope of vision, the sides of the Corco Vardo and the deep ravine below, clothed and filled with a perfect tangle of tropical vegetation, wildly exuberant in its growth, presenting every hue of green, and enlivened with spreading floral masses of purple and white. The view which burst upon us when we took our stand on the topmost peak of the Corco Vardo was, in short, one which no human artist could depict and no words describe: a view to be gazed on once and then remembered all through life!”
During its sojourn with us it subsists almost exclusively on caterpillars, and the black leech which attacks our fruit-trees. It is therefore entitled to a place among the really useful species.
In disposition it is very gentle. On one occasion I was watching this bird from the window of my hotel, foraging in the garden below for caterpillars, while a brood of young Sparrows were doing the same. Whilst the Cuckoo rested for a moment on a slanting stick, the Cock Sparrow dropped down till it almost touched him, as if to inspect his shining coat. The object of these attentions never left his perch, but simply swerved his body and spread his outer wing, without uttering a sound. I noticed that the young Sparrows were far more active in catching caterpillars than the Cuckoo, although both birds adopted the same plan of search, darting right into the shrub-tops and bringing out their victims to batter and kill them before swallowing.
Its general attitude is that depicted in the Plate, with its tail half-spread and its wings drooping, my artist having utilized a pencil-sketch which I made of a captive bird as it rested quietly on the paper-basket in my study.
Its cry is a remarkable one, as the bird appears to be endowed with a peculiar kind of ventriloquism. It consists of eight or ten long silvery notes quickly repeated. The first of these appears to come from a considerable distance; each successive one brings the voice nearer, till it issues from the spot where the performer is actually perched, perhaps only a few yards off. It generally winds up with a confused strain of joyous notes, accompanied by a stretching and quivering of the wings, expressive, it would seem, of the highest ecstasy. The cry of the young birds is easily distinguished, being very weak and plaintive Captain Mair writes to me:—“Speaking from ten years’ observation of this bird in the Tauranga district, I may state that it never sings after the middle of February and seldom after the beginning of that month. As lite as the end of March or beginning of April, during several successive years, I have met with these birds in the Mangorewa forest between Tauranga and Rotorua, but never heard them utter a note at this season. I have seen numbers of them perched in silence on the branches of the poporo ( Solanum nigrum), always in full feather, but absolutely songless. This I regard as a very curious fact.”
I had a young bird brought to me as late as the 15th February. It appeared to be in vigorous health, with the membrane at the angles of the mouth still visible; and on being approached by any one would open its mouth in an imploring sort of way, but without making any sound.
Like the Long-tailed Cuckoo already described, this species is parasitic in its breeding-habits, and entrusts to a stranger both the hatching and the rearing of its young.
The little Grey Warbler ( Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia, p. 207.Gerygone flaviventris) is the customary victim; but exceptional cases have been recorded where the duty was entrusted to the South-Island Tomtit (Myiomoira macrocephala); and Captain Mair assures me that he once saw the young of this species attended and fed by a Korimako (Anthornis melanura). Dr. Bennett, writing of the same bird in Australia, statesAcanthiza chrysorhina, and that he has seen a nest of this bird with five eggs, that of the Cuckoo being deposited in the centre of the group, so as to ensure its receiving the warmth imparted by the sitting bird, and thus less likely to be addled. He also narrates the following circumstance:—“A White-shafted Flycatcher (Rhipidura albiscapa) was shot at Ryde, near Sydney, in the act of feeding a solitary young bird in its nest, which, when examined, was found to be the chick of the Bronze Cuckoo of the colonists…… It was ludicrous to observe this large and apparently well-fed bird filling up with its corpulent body the entire nest, receiving daily the sustenance intended for several young Flycatchers.”
Mr. Mr. Thompson states, further, that in Otago, Gerygone flaviventris, Myiomoira macrocephala, and Zosterops cœrulescens. are the usual foster-parents. Mr. Gould records that, in Australia, the task of incubation is often delegated to the Yellow-tailed Acanthiza, and adds, “I have several times taken the egg of the Cuckoo from the nest of this bird, and also the young, in which latter case the parasitical bird was the sole occupant.” Mr. Potts reports (Journ. of Science, ii. p. 477) that at Ohinitahi he found an egg of this species in the nest of Zosterops cœrulescens, together with three eggs of the dupe. He enumerates sixteen instances, between Oct. 28 and Jan. 6, of its being found in the nest of Gerygone flaviventris. Generally there were from one to three eggs of the dupe in the nest; in two cases (Dec. 18 and Jan. 6) the Cuckoo egg only; and in three other cases (Dec. 17, Dec. 23, and Jan. 1) the young Cuckoo only. He states further that he has in his possession an egg of this bird taken from the nest of Gerygone albofrontata at the Chatham Islands.
As it is usual to find the Cuckoo’s egg associated with those of the Grey Warbler, we may reasonably infer that the visitor simply deposits its egg for incubation without displacing the existing ones. But the young Cuckoo is generally found to be the sole tenant of the nest; and the following circumstance, related to me by the Rev.
Since the above was written, I have had an opportunity of examining a young Cuckoo in possession, and it exhibits a droll phase of bird-life, the intruder occupying the entire cavity of the nest, with its head protruding from the opening.
I have received from Mr. “Oct. 7th. Found a nest of Gerygone flaviventris, with four small eggs and one much larger. The latter I take to be the egg of the Shining Cuckoo ( Chrysococcyx lucidus). Left the nest, intending to return in a few days. 11th. Visited place again. The Grey Warbler flew out when I approached. Five eggs still all right. 21st. Still unhatched. 24th. Two young ones hatched; one egg lying on the ground outside the nest, containing chick quite could and dead. 25th. Three young ones in nest; large egg unhatched. 26th. Large egg hatched—a chick of the Shining Cuckoo; very clumsy in nest, lying on top of the three young Warblers. 30th. Found one dead chick lying on the ground; two young Warblers still alive; young Cuckoo growing rapidly, being now nearly large enough to fill the nest itself; beak and legs fairly well developed. Nov. 2nd. One of the young Warblers lying dead in nest, the other alive. Young Cuckoo has now its eyes open; signs of feathers on the neck and wings, but underparts of the body perfectly bare. 5th. Visited nest again. Young Cuckoo thrust out its head to receive food when I approached. Lifted the surviving young Warbler out of the nest, and found it very feeble. 6th. Young Cuckoo lying with its head at opening of nest, having taken full possession. Its lifeless companion was lying underneath, having apparently died from starvation. 8th. Found young Cuckoo almost ready to leave its cradle. Brought both nest and bird home with me. 10th. Thriving well, being fed on small worms, grubs, flies, spiders, and very small pieces of lean meat. 15th. Has now come out of nest; eats largely three times a day, but does not care for meat; increasing rapidly in size. 20th. Nearly feathered. Placed it in a cage, but it looks sickly. 21st. Young Cuckoo died. Proved, on skinning, to be a male bird.”
The egg of the Shining Cuckoo is of a broad ovato-elliptical form, generally of a greenish-white or very pale olive colour, often clouded or stained with brownish grey, and measuring ·8 of an inch in length by ·5 in breadth. One taken by myself, many years ago, from the nest of a Grey Warbler, in the manuka scrub, on what is now the site of a flourishing city, was of a pale creamy colour; and another, which was laid by a captive bird in my possession, is pure white. A specimen in the Otago Museum is broadly elliptical in form, measures ·7 of an inch in length by ·5 in breadth, and is of a uniform dull olivaceous grey inclining to brown. Of two specimens in my son’s collection one is rather more elliptical in form and of a uniform olivaceous brown, somewhat paler at the smaller end; the other (which came from the Chatham Islands) is pale olivaceous grey, perceptibly darker at the larger end, and very minutely granulated with brown over the entire surface.
Pacific Parrot, Lath. Gen. Syn. i. p. 252 (1781).
Psittacus novœ zeelandiœ, Sparrm. Mus. Carls. pl. 28 (1787).
Psittacus pacificus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 329 (1788).
Platycercus pacificus, Vigors, Zool. Journ. i. p. 526 (1825).
Pezoporus novœ zeelandiœ, Voigt, ed. Cuv. Thierreich, p. 750 (1831).
Lathamus sparmanii, Less. Traité d’Orn. i. p. 206 (1831).
Platycercus erythrotis, Wagl. Monogr. Psitt. p. 526 (1835).
Cyanoramphus erythrotis, Bonap. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. vi. p. 153 (1854).
Cyanoramphus novœ zelandiœ, Bonap. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. vi. p. 153 (1854).
Cyanoramphus auckandicus, Bonap. Naumannia, 1856, Suppl. p. 352.
Cyanoramphus novœ guineœ, Bonap. Naum. 1856, Suppl. p. 352.
Platycercus aucklandicus, Gray, Cat. Brit. Mus. Psitt. p. 13 (1859).
Platycercus cookii, Gray, Cat. Brit. Mus. Psitt. p. 13 (1859).
Platycercus novœ guineœ, Gray, Cat. Brit. Mus. Psitt. p. 13 (1859).
Cyanorhamphus saisseti, Verr. et Des Murs, Rev. et Mag. de Zool. xii. p. 387 (1860).
Platycercus rayneri, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 228.
Coriphilus novœ zeelandice, Schlegel, Dierent. p. 77 (1864).
Euphema novœ zeelandiœ, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Psittaci, p. 105 (1864).
Platycercus forsteri, Finsch, Papag. ii. p. 287 (1868).
Kakariki, Kakawariki, Powhaitere, Porere, and Torete.
prasinus, uropygio paullò Iætiore: genis et corpore subtùs flavicanti-viridibus: pileo antico, maculâ anteoculari, alterâ, supraauriculari et plumis paucis ad latera uropygii positis puniceis: occipite ad basin plumarum celatè citrino: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus brunneis, alâ spuriâ lætissimè ultramarinâ: primariis extùs ad basin ultramarino, versus apicem angustè flavido marginatis: caudâ suprà lætè prasinâ, subtùs magis flavicante: subalaribus cyanescenti-viridibus: maxillâ cyanescenti-albâ, versus apicem nigricante, mandibulâ omninò nigricante: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride rubrâ.
Adult male. General plumage bright grass-green, lighter, or rather yellowish-green, on the underparts. Forehead, crown, and streak across the eye terminating on the ear-coverts deep crimson, with a spot of the same, more or less distinct, on each side of the rump; on the nape a broad basal mark of yellowish white, observable only when the plumage is disturbed or raised. The wing-feathers are dusky black, lighter on the under surface, and crossed by an obscure yellowish band; the outer primaries and their coverts, as well as the bastard quills, bright blue on their outer webs. Irides cherry-red; upper mandible bluish white, with a black tip; lower mandible bluish black; feet pale brown. Extreme length 12 inches; wing, from flexure, 5·5; tail 6; culmen ·8; tarsus ·8; longer fore toe and claw 1·15; longer hind toe and claw 1.
Adult female. Of similar plumage to the male, although the frontal crimson cap is not so conspicuous. It is, however, somewhat smaller. Extreme length 10·25 inches; extent of wings 14; wing, from flexure, 5; tail 5; tarsus ·75; longer fore toe and claw 1.
Young. The plumage of the young bird does not differ appreciably from that of the adult.
Varieties. Like many other members of the large natural family to which it belongs, this species exhibits a strong tendency to variability of colour; and the slight differences which some of the ornithologists of Europe have recognized as sufficient specific characters are clearly of no value whatever. A specimen brought to me by a native, in the Kaipara district, many years ago, had the whole of the plumage of a brilliant scarlet-red. Another, obtained in the woods in the neighbourhood of Wellington, had the green plumage thickly studded all over with spots of red; this handsome bird was caged, and at the first moult the whole of the spots disappeared. An example of this species in the British Museum has the abdomen and under tail-coverts bright yellow mixed with green; the thigh-spots very large and bright; the rump stained, and the tail obscurely banded on the upper surface, with dull yellow.
A Southland paper thus describes a specimen which was shot in the Seaward Bush :—“One of the most beautifully plumaged native birds we have ever seen was shown us yesterday by Mr. James Morton, a taxidermist, to whom it had been handed to be stuffed. It is a variety of Platycercus novæ zealandiæ, and proved to be a male. Instead of the usual green hue, the feathers of the one in question are tipped and edged with green on a beautiful lemon-yellow ground—the small feathers of the wing showing a steel-blue tint at the edges, or mixed bronze and yellow. The large pinion-feathers are yellow and green, merging into bronze at the tips—the tail-feathers being similarly coloured. The beak is surmounted by a crescentshaped patch of blood-red, and there are two others on the back.”
I have in my possession a feather of rich uniform yellow with a white shaft, from the tail of a tame bird of this species, formerly in the possession of the Wellington Working Men’s Club, in which all the rest of the plumage was of the normal colour. I am indebted to Mr.
There are three very beautiful varieties in the Otago Museum :—
No. 1 has the entire plumage of a uniform vivid canary-yellow, except that the vertex, ear-coverts, and uropygial spots are crimson as in the ordinary bird; there are a few dashes of ultramarine blue on the tertials and some “invisible green” markings on the quills and tail-feathers, the shafts of which are white, as though the normal colours had here endeavoured to assert themselves; the bill, feet, and claws are white. The crimson markings, especially on the sides of the uropygium, are bright and conspicuous, and the bird altogether is as lovely an object as the most ardent ornithologist could desire as the type of a new species; but, alas, it is nothing but a “freak of nature” whose exact counterpart may never occur again. This specimen was obtained at Seaward Bush in October 1874, and was presented to the Museum by Mr. J. M. Broderick.
No. 2 is a beautiful instance of cyanism. The entire plumage of the cheeks, throat, and underparts is a delicate marine-blue, or isabelline, the feathers on the lower parts and sides of the body narrowly edged with dusky; supplying the place of crimson on the vertex and ear-coverts is a pale yellowish or greyish brown; the rest of the upper surface is a deeper isabelline, varied with a still darker shade of blue, and with the feathers more distinctly margined with dusky; there are no uropygial spots; the quills are marked with ultramarine as in ordinary specimens; the tail-feathers have greenish reflections, with a wash of blue down the outer vane of the lateral ones, the under surface of wings and tail being dusky brown. Bill and feet of the normal colours. This is the Parrakeet mentioned by Prof. Hutton as the “blue variety from Southland.”
No. 3 is a very different looking bird, from Invercargill. The entire plumage is dirty yellow, with a varying wash of green, which is deepest on the underparts and least apparent on the quills and tail-feathers; the vertex and ear-coverts are crimson, the former having a flush of canary-yellow along its posterior edge; the shafts of the quills and tail-feathers are white, and on the primarics and tertials there is just the faintest indication of the normal colour in a delicate shade of greenish blue; the upper wing-coverts are washed on their edges with green; the crimson uropygial spots are present, and the bill and feet are the same as in ordinary specimens.
Note. The synonymy of the genus Platycercus, as may be seen above, has been involved in much confusion. We are indebted to Dr. P. novæ zealandiæ vary
Dr. Finsch is of opinion that P. (Cyanorhamphus) saisetti (Verr.) is inseparable from this species. On comparing a specimen sent by Mr. P. novæ zealandiæ only in having the sides of the face, throat, breast, and underparts generally greenish yellow, deepening into grass-green on the sides of the body and on the flanks. If, however, this is a constant character I accept it as specific. There is a wash of blue on the outer vanes of the tail-feathers, but this may be an accidental peculiarity. The crimson of the vertex likewise has a wash of yellow in it, to which the same remark will apply, for I have met with New-Zealand examples tinged in the same manner. The crimson uropygial spots in Layard’s specimen have an admixture of yellow; and the bill is blue and black, without any of the whiteness characteristic of our bird.
I am of opinion that P. forsteri, admitted with some hesitation by Dr. Finsch, and founded on a single example in the British Museum, is nothing but P. novæ zealandiæ, with the red uropygial spots accidentally absent; and I have accordingly included it in the synoptical history of this species as given above.
There is an example in the Otago Museum with an abnormally developed bill, as shown in the accompanying woodcut. It likewise has a wash of yellow on the secondary quills.
“At nesting-time the old birds often indulge in a low murmuring note to each other.” (Journ. of Science, ii. p. 480.)The Red-fronted Parrakeet is very generally dispersed over the whole country, but is more plentiful in the southern portion of the North Island than in the far north, where the yellow-fronted species predominates. It frequents every part of the bush, but appears to prefer the outskirts, where the vegetation is low and shrubby, as also the wooded margins of creeks and rivers. It is often met with amongst the dense koromiko (Veronica) which covers the low river-flats, or among the bushes of Leptospermum and other scrub. It seldom ventures beyond the shelter of the woods, unless it be to visit the farmer’s fields for its tithe of grain, or to reach some distant feeding-place, when it rises rather high in the air and flies rapidly, but in a somewhat zigzag course. When on the wing it utters a hurried chattering note; and when alarmed, or calling to its fellows, it emits a cry resembling the words “twenty-eight,” with a slight emphasis on the last syllable. It often resorts to the tops of the highest trees, but may always be enticed downwards by imitating this note. It is gregarious, forming parties of from three to twelve or more in number, except in the breeding-season, when it is generally met with in pairs
Its food consists chiefly of berries and seeds; but I suspect that it also devours small insects and their larvæ; for I have observed flocks of a dozen or more on the ground, engaged apparently in a search of that kind, and it is a well-established fact that several of the Australian members of this group subsist partly on insect food. When the corn-fields are ready for the harvest, flocks of this gaily-coloured Parrakeet resort to them to feed on the ripe grain; and it is very pretty to see them, on any alarm being given, rise in the air together and settle on a fence, or on the limb of a dead tree, to wait till the danger has passed, keeping up all the time a low, pleasant chatter.
Sir Syrrhaptes paradoxus) into Europe in 1863? These birds, which had scarcely ever been heard of before, came from beyond the Caspian Sea, traversing some 4000 geographical miles, spreading themselves over Europe in countless flocks like a Tartar invasion, without any apparent cause, and disappeared again just as suddenly and unaccountably as they had come. The same question may be asked of the remarkable influx of the Waxwing into England in the winter of 1849–50, an event quite unparallelled in the ornithological history of the country. To come nearer home, what naturalist was able to account, more than theoretically, for the plague of caterpillars which (up to the time of the introduction of the muchabused House-Sparrow) periodically, but at long intervals, visited our country districts, coming in countless millions, sweeping all before them, and utterly wrecking the hopes of the farmers?
This species bears confinement remarkably well, and is very docile and familiar even when taken as an adult bird. It is also very intelligent, and possesses the faculty of mimicry in a high degree.
It is quite the cottagers’ friend in New Zealand. Riding or driving through the suburbs of the provincial towns—the Porirua and Karori districts for example, near Wellington—you will notice in many of the farmers’ houses and roadside cottages small wooden cages of primitive construction (often merely a candle-box or whisky-case, faced with wire netting or thin wooden bars) fixed up to the front of the building or under the simple verandah. On closer inspection each of these cages will be found to contain a tame Parrakeet—the pet of the rustic home and “Pretty Poll” of the family; and I have often been quite interested at finding how attached these simple people become to their little captive.
One of these birds has been in the possession of a lady at Christchurch (Canterbury) for more than eight years. Although full-grown when first caged, it has learnt to articulate several words with great clearness. It is very tame, and displays a considerable amount of intelligence—leaves its cage every day for exercise, and returns to it immediately on the appearance of a stranger. It knows its fair owner’s voice, will respond to her call, and will “shake hands” with each foot alternately in the most sedate manner. Another, in our own possession, survived confinement for more than eleven years, and appeared then in perfect health and strength, when it fell a victim to the household puss. This bird could articulate sentences of three or four words with great precision; and the loss of so intimate a family-friend was “sincerely lamented” by all our circle.
At the Foxton railway-station there used to be (and may be still) a tame Parrakeet that had learnt to say “Be quick!” and was accustomed to repeat these words with energy and clear articulation as the passengers by train crowded round the ticket-window.
In certain particular woods where, for some unaccountable reason, all other birds are scarce, this Parrakeet may always be found. One such tract lies between Cambridge and Ohinemutu, where the coach-road passes through some twelve miles of the most picturesque bush imaginable. Destitute as it generally is of bird-life, the scenery is enchanting. At intervals of a few miles there are deep wooded gorges, the eye often resting on tree-tops some three hundred feet below the spectator. The bush itself
Cyathea smithii, with its grand expanse of graceful fronds, then groups of
A hole in a decaying or dead tree affords this species a natural breeding-place, the eggs being laid on the pulverized rotten wood at the bottom; for, as a rule, there is no further attempt at forming a nest Prof. Scott states that during a visit to Campbell Island he found this species of Parrakeet there “in great numbers round the shore,” and that, in the absence of woods, it makes its nest under the grass-tussocks.
Although exhibiting a preference for hollow trees, they sometimes nest in the holes or crevices of rocks. On the Upper Wanganui the natives pointed out to me a small round cavity in the perpendicular cliff forming the bank of the river, and assured me that this was the entrance to a small chamber where a pair of Parrakeets had reared their young in security for many years. The eggs are very broadly oval, measuring 1·05 by ·85 inch; they are pure white and are very finely granulate on the surface, sometimes with minute limy excrescences near the larger end.
Platycercus auriceps, Kuhl, Consp. Psittac. p. 46 (1820).
Pacific Parrot, var. C, Lath. Gen. Syn. i. p. 252 (1781).
Psittacus pacificus, var. δ, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 329 (1788).
Platycercus auriceps, Vigors, Zool. Journ. i. p. 531 (1825).
Platycercus novœ zelandiœ, Bourjot St.-Hilaire, Perroq. t. 37 (1837).
Euphema auriceps, Licht. Nomencl. Av. p. 72 (1854).
Cyanoramphus auriceps, Bonap. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. vi. p. 153 (1854).
Cyanoramphus malherbi, Souancé, Rev. et Mag. de Zool. ix. p. 98 (1857).
Platycercus malherbii, Gray, Cat. Brit. Mus. Psitt. p. 14 (1859).
Coriphilus auriceps, Schlegel, Dierent. p. 77 (1864).
The same as those applied to the preceding species.
Ad. P. novæ zealandiæ similis, sed valdè minor, et vertice aureo, fronte puniceâ facilè distinguendus.
Adult male. General plumage beautiful grass-green, paler or more suffused with yellow on the underparts. A band of dark crimson connects the eyes, passing across the forehead, immediately above the nostrils; upper part of forehead and crown golden yellow; on the nape a basal spot of yellowish white, apparent only on moving the feathers; on each side of the rump a conspicuous spot of crimson; quills dusky black, crossed on their under surface with a band of pale yellow; the outer web of the bastard quills and first four primaries, with their coverts, indigo-blue, narrowly margined with yellow. Irides pale cherry-red; upper mandible bluish white at the base, black towards the tip; under mandible bluish black; feet pale brown. Extreme length 10·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·5; tail 5; culmen ·6; tarsus ·6; longer fore toe and claw 1; longer hind toe and claw ·9.
Varieties. Like the preceding bird, this species also exhibits abnormally coloured varieties. A young bird, brought to me from the nest, and not fully fledged, had the plumage of the body pale yellow, shaded with green on the upper parts, and the quills and tail-feathers marked with red. Another had numerous light crescentic marks on the wing-coverts. In the summer of 1863 I obtained a very beautiful variety at Manawatu. I found it in the hands of a labouring settler, who had purchased it from the natives for something less than a shilling. Finding him unwilling to part with it, I tempted him with a guinea, and secured the prize. It was a bird of the first year, and presented the following appearance:—Frontal band crimson; vertex golden yellow; space around the eyes and a band encircling the neck green; head, shoulders, and lower part of back red, the intermediate space variegated with red and green; quills dusky, obscurely banded with yellow, and margined on the outer web with blue; wing-coverts greenish yellow, barred and margined with red; tail-feathers green, obscurely barred with yellow in their apical portion; underparts green, variegated with crimson and yellow, an interrupted band of the former colour crossing the breast. Like the spotted variety of P. novæ zealandiæ already mentioned, within a short time it commenced to moult, and was fast assuming the common green livery of the species, when it was accidentally killed. This specimen, which still exhibits traces of its original colours, belongs now to the type collection in the Colonial Museum.
A pretty male bird obtained by Reischek near Dusky Sound, at an elevation of 2000 feet, has the entire plumage tinged with saffron-brown, which is darkest on the breast, shoulders, and upper wing-coverts; the yellow on the vertex is mixed with orpiment-orange; the blue on the bastard quills and primaries is unusually brilliant; the scapulars have a wash of yellow; and the uropygial spots are very indistinct.
I have seen several examples exhibiting marks of red on the vertex and crown; and in the Canterbury Museum there is a specimen which has the frontal band dull red instead of crimson, the crown, upper surface of wings, and the abdomen more or less marked with yellowish brown, the primaries tipped and the secondaries largely margined with paler brown.
Mr. Henry Travers obtained one on Mangare Island (at the Chathams) “with a faint tinge of yellow on the head.”
A specimen obtained by Dr. Lemon at Takaka, in the South Island, and presented to the Colonial Museum, is one of the loveliest objects in the mounted collection. The whole of the plumage is of a vivid canary-yellow, which is brightest on the vertex, and is bordered by a narrow band of crimson across the forehead. The uropygial spots are large and of flaming crimson. The only indications of the normal colour are on the quills and tail-feathers. The quills are pale canary-yellow, inclining to white; the middle primaries in one wing are clouded with dark grey, and in the other wing there is a splash of green across the secondaries; in both wings the bastard quills are edged with blue; the two middle tail-feathers are stained with green, and the two succeeding on either side are green in their central portion; one of the outer laterals also is marked with green. Bill pure white; legs and feet flesh-white.
This bird, as Dr. Lemon informs me, was shot in May 1882, in Eve’s Valley, Waimea, by Mr. Fabian, telegraph lineman, who had the good sense to preserve it. By the courtesy of Sir
Obs. This species is very readily distinguished from all the other members of the group of Platycerci by its beautiful golden vertex. Individuals vary both in size and in the brilliancy of their plumage.
Some specimens exhibit the yellow vertex stained more or less with crimson. The type of Platycercus malherbi, in the British Museum, received from the Auckland Islands, and characterized by Souancé as “encore plus petit que l’auriceps,” is nothing but a very small example of this species. There is an equally small one in the same collection from the Bay of Islands, New Zealand.
Professor Hutton states that two specimens brought by Mr. Henry Travers from the Chatham Islands are slightly larger than the New-Zealand bird.
The Yellow-fronted Parrakeet, although generally dispersed over the country in all suitable localities, is more plentiful than the red-fronted species in the northern parts of the North Island, and less so as we approach Cook’s Strait. In the South Island, however, the two species appear to be more equally distributed.
In habits this bird closely resembles the preceding one; but it is less gregarious, being seen generally in pairs. It loves to frequent the tutu bushes (Coriaria ruscifolia), to regale itself on the juicy berries of this bushy shrub; and on these occasions it is easily snared by the natives, who use for that purpose a flax noose at the end of a slender rod. When feeding on the tutu-berry, the whole of its interior becomes stained of a dark purple. When the wild dock has run to seed, this pretty little Parrakeet repairs to the open fields and feasts on the ripe seeds of that noxious weed; at other seasons the berries of Coprosma lucida, Fuchsia excorticata, and other forest-shrubs afford it plentiful and agreeable nutriment.
Far up the course of the Northern Wairoa, just below Mangakahia, the banks of the river for some miles are cleared of the original forest, the land having been in years gone by occupied by Maori plantations. A new growth has covered the long-abandoned “wairengas,” and, just along the margin of the stream, the soil, enriched by deposits of fine silt through the occasional overflowing of the muddy waters, supports a belt of tupakihi, intermixed with other shrubs and completely overgrown with climbing convolvulus. In no part of New Zealand have I found the Yellow-fronted
My son met with it in the stunted woods in the Owhaoko-Kaimanawa district, when the whole country was under snow.
At irregular periods, after intervals of from seven to ten years, this Parrakeet (in company with the preceding species) visits the settled and cultivated districts in astonishing numbers, swarming into the gardens and fields, devouring every kind of soft fruit, nibbling off the tender shoots on the orchard trees, and eating up the pulse and grain in all directions. Sir
There is a widespread popular belief that the movements of certain species of birds indicate approaching climatic changes, or form a sort of index to the seasons; and it would not be difficult to find and multiply apparent proofs of such a connection. But the theory, as generally accepted, is true only to a certain extent. Everyone is probably aware that birds, of all animals (except perhaps frogs), are the best natural barometers. For example, to every native colonist the vociferous cry of the Sparrow-Hawk betokens change; the altitudes at which these birds habitually fly make them susceptible to the slightest change of temperature, and to all observers of outdoor nature they announce the fact with no uncertain sound. Even our little Wood-Robin, which keeps near the ground and never leaves the seclusion of its forest home, is so ready to detect any atmospheric disturbance and to predict by its peculiar note a change of weather, that it is commonly called the “rain-bird” in many parts of the country. The presence on a calm day of the snow-white Gannet, sailing majestically over our harbours and, ever and anon, plunging headlong into the placid waters, or of a flock of playful Sea-Gulls coming inland to rest themselves in our fields and pastures, is a sure indication that a storm is brewing at sea, although there may be no actual appearance of it at the time. But, of course, it does not follow from such instances as these that any species of bird can foresee an impending change of season, or, by any ratio-cinative process, prepare for it by migration. So far as I understand the facts, the case is simply this:—The failure, more or less complete, of their natural food (which in itself is often a safe indication of seasonal derangement) necessitates the migration of all birds dependent on such food-supply to other parts of the country in search of the ordinary means of subsistence. And as the migration always precedes the other evidences of climatic change, the popular notion that birds are instinctively prophetic in the matter of seasons is easily accounted for. The sudden irruption of Parrakeets in the South Island, referred to above, to such an extent as to be an actual “pest” is, it seems to me, but an illustration of this natural law of cause and effect. This pretty little Parrakeet is strictly an arboreal bird. It is an inhabitant of the woods, and, besides being well distributed, its plumage is so admirably suited to its natural surroundings by the law of assimilative colouring that, although it exists in tens or hundreds of thousands, it is rarely seen, and except to the lovers of nature and bush-craft its very existence is almost unknown to the colonists. But when, from some unknown cause, there is a failure of its everyday food-supply, the fact is proclaimed by the sudden and unexpected appearance of countless numbers of these birds in our cultivated fields, gardens, and
The same thing happens, although in a less pronounced manner, with the Tui and Korimako, both of which species occasionally appear in our midst, all miserably lean and in a state of absolute starvation.
What occasions this widespread failure of the natural food is generally a mystery; but that such failure is the chief factor in the migratory impulse there can be little doubt. The case of the Passenger Pigeon in the United States is strongly in point. The movements of this bird are irregular in the extreme—completely disappearing from entire districts for years together, and then returning in prodigious numbers (in flocks of hundreds of thousands), the migration being regulated entirely by the scarcity or abundance of the natural food.
In captivity it is very gentle and tractable, but it is far inferior to the larger red-fronted bird in its talking-capacity. One or two instances of its being taught to articulate words of two syllables have come to my knowledge; but, as a rule, the attempt to instruct it ends in failure.
Like its congener it nests in hollow trees, and lays from five to eight eggs, resembling those of Platycercus novæ zealandiæ, but smaller. Specimens in my son’s collection measure ·9 of an inch in length by ·75 in breadth; others are more broadly ovoid, measuring ·85 by ·70, and are stained yellowish white, probably the result of incubation. Major Mair informs me that he watched a pair of these birds breeding in the cavity of a dead tree for three successive seasons. The first year’s brood numbered five, the second eight, and the third seven.
As will be seen by the synonymy at the head of this article, there has been a considerable amount of confusion in the nomenclature of this and the preceding species, notwithstanding their strongly marked characters. I trust that the reference lists and full descriptions now given will, for the future, make it impossible to confound these forms with other members of the genus. As a brief review, however, of the types in the National Collection may help to elucidate the synonymy of the group, I will reproduce here the notes on the subject which I published in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute’ (vol. xi. pp. 368, 369).
British-Museum Collection.—My examination of the types gives the following results:—Platycercus aucklandicus not distinguishable from P. novæ zealandiæ, but smaller than ordinary examples; beak decidedly smaller, being of same size as in P. auriceps, but lighter at base; ear-spots indistinct; frontal spot less extensive, but of same colour as in P. novæ zealandiæ. P. malherbii=P. auriceps, but smaller than average specimens of the latter. P. pacificus similar to P. novæ zealandiæ, but much larger, with a more robust bill. P. erythrotis, from Macquarie Islands, =P. pacificus, but with lighter plumage. P. forsteri=P. novæ zealandiæ, with the thigh-spots accidentally absent. There is another specimen marked “Platycercus forsteri,” to which I shall refer again presently, in very different plumage. P. cookii=P. pacificus. P. unicolor, a much larger and very distinct species. P. rayneri, from Norfolk Island, is like P. pacificus, but larger and with a more powerful bill; the frontal spot is more extensive but lighter in colour; ear-spots small and obscure as compared with P. novæ zealandiæ. I think we may pretty safely conclude that P. rayneri is in reality P. pacificus, although the British-Museum specimen is both larger and lighter-coloured than ordinary specimens of the latter. Platycercus ulietanus, from the Society Islands, is very distinct in appearance from all those enumerated above. The so-called P. forsteri, before referred to, labelled as from the main island Otaheiti, appears to hold an intermediate position between P. ulietanus and P. pacificus. It has the general plumage of P. pacificus but of much duller tints, mixed with brown on the upper parts and clouded with a colder green on the underparts. It wants the crimson vertex; but there is a frontal patch of brownish black corresponding to the colour of P. ulietanus, which changes to crimson in front of the eyes; behind which, also, there is a small obscure spot of dull crimson. It has the concealed nuchal patch of yellowish white which is found in P. pacificus; while, on the other hand, it has the bright crimson rump which is characteristic of P. ulietanus. The tail has a dingy, washed-out appearance, and the colours of the plumage generally are very undecided. The bill and feet are exactly as in P. ulietanus, of which species this bird may be an accidental variety, or possibly a hybrid. There is likewise in this collection a specimen of our P. novæ zealandiæ, exhibiting much bright yellow mixed with the green on the abdomen and under tail-coverts. It likewise has the thigh-spots very large and bright; the rump stained, and the tail obscurely banded on the upper surface with dull yellow.
Platycercus alpinus, Buller, Ibis, 1869, p. 39; Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. Intr. p. xvi (1873).
Ad. P. auricipiti similis, sed minor, et fronte aurantiacâ, vertice pallidè flavo distinguendus.
Adult. Plumage bears a general resemblance to that of Platycercus auriceps; but the frontal band is orange and the vertex pale yellow; and there is an absence of the yellow element in the general plumage, which is of a cold pure green, much paler on the underparts; the rump-spots, moreover, are smaller and less conspicuous, being orpiment-orange instead of crimson. Extreme length 9 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·2; tail 4·5; culmen ·5; tarsus ·5; longer fore toe and claw ·85; longer hind toe and claw ·75.
Note. In treating of the members of this section in my former edition, I had recourse to Dr. Platycercus alpinus as a species, and to consider it the young state of P. auriceps (vide Birds of N. Z. 1st ed. pp. 61 & 62). The validity of the species, however, was afterwards established beyond all doubt. More than twenty specimens were brought to this country before the completion of my work; and I accordingly took the opportunity, when writing the Introduction, to rehabilitate the species (at page xvi) under the head of Platycercidæ.
This species is probably the bird mentioned by Latham as the “Buff-crowned Parrot.”
This form differs from its near ally (Platycercus auriceps) both in size and in the tints of its plumage; so that we have, thus far, three species of Platycercus presenting a distinct gradation in size and colouring. In P. novæ zealandiæ the frontal spot, ear-coverts, and rump-spots are deep crimson, while the general plumage is dark green. In the smaller species (P. auriceps) the frontal band is crimson and the vertex golden, while the general plumage is a warm yellowish green. In P. alpinus, which is smaller, again, than the last-named species, the frontal band is orange, and the vertex pale yellow, while there is a further modification of the body-plumage as described above. On comparing the bills of the two species the difference is very manifest, that of P. alpinus being fully one third less than that of P. auriceps. A fourth species has yet to be mentioned, in which a size intermediate between P. auriceps and P. alpinus is combined with the well-defined plumage of Platycercus novæ zealandiæ.
The present bird was originally described by me, under the above name, from specimens obtained in the forests of the Southern Alps, at an elevation of from 2000 to 2500 feet. In its native haunts it may be found frequenting the alpine scrub, in pairs or in small parties, and is very tame and fearless. It is by no means uncommon in the wooded hills surrounding Nelson.
Mr. Reischek met with this little Parrakeet in the scrub on the summit of Mount Alexander (above Lake Brunner); and he met with the species again on the Hen, where he shot two, and on the Little Barrier, where he observed another pair on the highest peak and killed the male. It does not exist on the opposite mainland, nor indeed, so far as I am aware, in any part of the North Island.
At Nelson I saw many caged birds of this species, and one in particular was remarkable for the clear manner in which it articulated the words “pretty Dick,” repeating them all day long in the most untiring way.
Platycercus rowleyi, Buller, Trans. N.-Z. Instit. vol. vii. p. 220 (1874).
Ad. P. novœ-zealandiœ similis, sed conspicuè minor.
Adult male. Similar in plumage to P. novæ zealandiæ, but considerably smaller. Total length 10 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·75; tail 5; bill, along the ridge ·55; tarsus ·65; longer fore toe and claw 1; longer hind toe and claw ·9.
Female. Slightly smaller than the male, but differing in no other respect.
Young. A specimen from Dusky Sound has the frontal spot of crimson mixed with green, and a line of undeveloped feathers in silvery shields along the base of the upper mandible; the aural bar of crimson very small and indistinct; the abdomen pale yellowish green; the bill greyish white, tinged with blue on the sides of the upper and base of the under mandible. The culmen measured along the curve only ·45 of an inch.
Obs. There is an appreciable difference in size between this bird and the type of Bonaparte’s P. aucklandicus.
When I was in England superintending the publication of the first edition of this work, the late Mr. Platycercus aucklandicus in the British Museum, I came to the conclusion that although Mr. Rowley’s specimen was somewhat less in size, both were referable to P. novæ zealandiæ, being only exceptionally small examples of that species. On my return, however, to the colony, my attention was directed to a very large series of Parrakeet skins collected by the late Mr. P. novæ zealandiæ, but so much smaller in size as to be even less than ordinary examples of the Yellow-fronted Parrakeet (P. auriceps). Mr. Fuller, who had skinned some hundreds of Parrakeets for the Canterbury Museum, assured me that the bones of this smaller red-fronted bird could be readily distinguished from those of P. novæ zealandiæ, being weaker and more slender, and more like the bones of P. alpinus. He likewise informed me that all his specimens of this small form had come from Canterbury North; and it seemed to me a significant fact that although P. novæ zealandiæ is a very common species in the North Island, none of the very small examples have been recorded there.
We have thus a regular gradation in the following sequence: Platycercus novæ zealandiæ (red-fronted), P. auriceps (yellow-fronted), P. rowleyi (red-fronted), and P. alpinus (orange-fronted).
In selecting a specific name to distinguish this diminutive form, I thought I might appropriately dedicate it to Mr. There is an excellent figure of this species in Rowley’s ‘Ornithological Miscellany,’ vol. ii. facing p. 115.
Reischek met with this small form on the Hen, but on none of the other islands in the Hauraki Gulf, although P. novæ zealandiæ was abundant everywhere.
Platycercus unicolor, Vigors, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1831, p. 24.
Platycercus viridis unicolor, Bourj. St.-Hilaire, Perr. t, 34 (fig. fide Leon), 1837.
Cyanoramphus unicolor, Bonap. Eev. et Mag. Zool, 1864, p. 153; id. Naumannia, 1856.
Platycercus unicolor, Gray, Gen. of B. ii. no. 19 (1845); id. List of Psitt. 1859, p. 14; id. Ibis, 1862, p. 229.
Platycercus unicolor, Finsch, Die Papag. 1868, p. 289.
Platycercus unicolor, Buller, Trans. N.-Z. Instit, vol. vi. p. 121 (1873).
Platycercus fairchildii, Hector (in litt. 1886).
♂ ad. omninò prasinus, vertice capitisque lateribus lætioribus: dorso et corpore subtùs flavido lavatis: alâ spuriâ et primariis exterioribus extùs cyanescentibus: caudâ sordidè viridi, subtùs flavicanti-brunneâ: rostro nigro, versus basin albido: pedibus brunnescentibus; iride flavicanti-rubrâ.
♀ mari simillima, sed valdè minor et pallidior: maxillâ cinerascenti-albo, versus apicem nigricante, mandibula omnino cinerascenti-alba.
Adult male. General plumage grass-green, brighter on the crown, sides of the head, face, and ear-coverts; back, rump, and all the under surface strongly tinged with yellow; primaries bright green on their outer vanes; the margins of the outermost primaries, as well as their coverts, and the whole of the bastard quills, indigo-blue; tail-feathers dull green, olivaceous or yellowish brown on their under surface. Bill black, greyish white towards the base of lower mandible; legs and feet dull brown. Total length 13·25 inches; wing, from flexure, 6; tail 6·25; culmen 1·25; tarsus ·9; longer fore toe and claw 1·4; longer hind toe and claw 1·25.
Female. Of smaller size and paler plumage than the male. Bill greyish white, the upper mandible brownish black in its apical portion, and with a clouded bluish spot in front of each nostril. Wing 6·75 inches; culmen 1; tarsus ·8.
Obs. My description of the male is taken from the type specimen in the British Museum; that of the female from the specimen referred to below.
Note. One of the specimens collected by Captain Fairchild (as stated below) was sent to the Canterbury Museum; and of this Prof. Hutton has sent me the following note:—“It answers very well to your description of the bird in Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vi. p. 122, except that in the bill it is the basal half of the upper mandible that is greyish white, and not the lower. The measurements are as follows, but taken from the skin after it had been mounted:-Extreme length 14·25 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·25; tail 6; culmen 1; tarsus ·9; longer fore toe and claw 1·18; longer hind toe and claw ·95. The foot seems smaller than in the British-Museum specimen; but I measured with a pair of compasses from point of claw, while you may have measured round the curve.”
Sir
On my first, visit, in company with the late Mr. Platycercus novæ zealandiæ and P. auriceps immediately arrested my attention. My companion informed me that this was the type of Platycercus unicolor (Vigors), and that it was supposed to have come from New Zealand. On further inquiry I found that the bird had come to the Museum from the Zoological Society’s Gardens, where it had lived for some time, that its origin was quite unknown, and that the specimen was unique.
Mr. Gray had included the species in his “List of the Birds of New Zealand” (l. c.); but in the absence of any positive evidence as to the habitat I felt bound to omit it from my former edition.
The home of Platycercus unicolor has at last been discoyered. Captain Fairchild, of the Government steamboat ‘Hinemoa,’ on a visit to Antipodes Island in March 1886, found the bird comparatively common there and brought several specimens back with him to New Zealand. One of these was forwarded to me by Sir J. Hector; and this has enabled me to add the description of the female to that of the hitherto unique specimen of the male bird in the British-Museum collection.
Although this type specimen (which has been in the Museum for upwards of fifty years) had no ascertained habitat it was always supposed to have come from New Zealand, and Mr.
Captain Fairchild, who is an excellent observer, reports that on Antipodes Island he found it inhabiting a plateau 1320 feet above the sea. It was very tame and easily caught. He never saw it take wing, which he attributes as much to the boisterous winds that sweep over this exposed island as to its naturally feeble powers of flight. It habitually walks and climbs among the tussock-grass, reminding one of the habits of the Australian Ground-Parrakeet (Pezoporus formosus),
Besides collecting several good specimens, Captain Fairchild brought with him to Wellington a live one. Sir Platycercus fairchildii:—“It is a ground Parrakeet, i. e. a Parrakeet that resembles a Kakapo. It is twice the bulk of P. novæ zealandiæ, flies feebly, does not care to perch, climbs with its beak and feet, and walks in the same waddle-and-intoed fashion as the Kakapo.”
So far as external characters go there is absolutely nothing by which to separate this bird from Platycercus. An investigation of its skeleton (of which the Colonial Museum has fortunately secured a specimen) may perhaps bring to light some new character showing its relation to a different group. But my own view at present is that the apparent inability to use its wings for purposes of flight is just another of those remarkable cases where the muscles have in some degree atrophied through long-continued disuse. Even in the case of Pezoporus from Australia, neither Mr. Sharpe nor I can find anything, apart from the different style of coloration, by which to distinguish the genus.
Sir George Grey tells me that forty years ago the natives assured him of the existence of a strange Parrot on Cuvier Island, and described the sexes as differing from each other. Excepting only Mair Island, Cuvier is the most seaward point in the Hauraki Gulf. It is a mountainous island of a few thousand acres, rising abruptly from the ocean and clothed to the very summit with dense vegetation. It is difficult of approach, but there are several practicable landing-places in fine weather.
Southern Brown Parrot, Lath. Gen. Syn. i. p. 264 (1781).
Psittacus meridionalis, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 333 (1788).
Psittacus nestor, Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 110 (1790).
Psittacus australis, Shaw, Mus. Lever, p. 87 (1792).
Nestor novæ zealandiæ, Less. Tr. d’Orn. p. 191 (1831).
Centrourus australis, Sw. Classif. of B. ii. p. 303 (1837).
Nestor meridionalis, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 193 (1843).
Pgittacus hypopolius, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 72 (1844).
Nestor australis, Gray, Gen. of B. ii. p. 426 (1846).
Nestor hypopolius, Bonap. Rev. et Mag. de Zodl. 1854, p. 155.
Nestor occidentalis, Buller, Ibis, 1869, p. 40; Hutton, Cat. of N. Z. Birds, p. 20 (1871); Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 50 (1873).
Kaka; varieties distinguished as Kaka-kura, Kaka-kereru, Kaka-pipiwarauroa, Kaka-reko, and Kaka-korako.
Ad. pileo albicanti-cinereo, plumis nuchae brunneo marginatis: torque collari aurantiaco et coccineo mixtâ: facie laterali fusco-runneâ, regione auriculari aurantiacâ et genis anticis sordidè coccineo notatis: dorso supe-riore olivascenti-brunneo, interdum olivaceo-viridi nitente, plumis omnibus nigro marginatis: uropygio et supracaudalibus sordidè coccineis, plumis Iaetiore coccineo fasciatis et nigro terminates: tectricibus alarum pallidè brunneis, nigro raarginatis: remigibus pallidè brunneiâ, pogonio interne dilutè coccineo transfasciatis: caudâ pallidè brunneâ, suprà vix distinctè olivaceo vel rubro tinctâ, sed subtùs hôc colore lavatâ et ad basin coccineo irregulariter fasciatâ: pectore toto cinereo-fusco, plumis nigro terminatis: abdomine toto cum hypochondriis et subcaudalibus pallidè brunneis, plumis omnibus coccineo et ad apicem-nigro transfasciatis: subalaribus et axillaribus coccineis, plus minusve aurantiaco tinctis, et minimis brunneo transfasciatis: rostro cyanescenti-cinereo, mandibulâ versus basin fulvescenti-brunneâ: pedibus cyanescenti-cinereis, plantis pedum flavicanti-brunneis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
Juv. torque nuchali indistinctiore: alâ subtus fusco transfasciatâ.
Adult. General plumage olivaceous brown, each feather margined with darker brown, flushed on the lower parts of the body with dark red, the plumage of the upper parts sometimes with a metallic green tinge; crown and sides of the head grey, margined with dusky brown; ear-coverts orpiment-orange, margined with brown; feathers projecting over the lower mandible dark vinous red, with black hair-like filaments; on the nape the feathers are dingy red, margined with yellow and black, and forming a broad collar with blending edges; feathers of the lower part of the back, rump, sides, abdomen, upper and lower tail-coverts, in their outer portion, dark blood-red, of varying shades, and more or less tinged with yellow in different examples; on the underparts these feathers are narrowly margined with black, on the upper they are banded alternately with black and a lighter shade of red; quills light olivaceous brown, toothed on the inner web with pale yellowish red, and the secondaries washed, on their inner surface, with pale red; lining of the wings, as well as the aiillaries, brilliantly coloured with scarlet and yellow, varying in shade in almost every specimen, and differing in their markings according to age. In the fully mature bird all these soft feathers, excepting
Young. In the younger birds the scarlet lining on the under surface of the wings is marked by numerous transverse bars of dusky brown; and towards the carpal edges the feathers are olivaceous brown, barred and margined with orpiment-orange; the long soft feathers underlying the secondaries are dusky grey, with faint bars of scarlet, In some examples the nuchal collar is very indistinct, being simply indicated by a tinge of yellow, while in others it is fully as conspicuous as in the adult.
Nestling. The newly hatched nestling is covered with soft white down, thinly distributed, and very short on the underparts; abdomen entirely bare; bill whitish grey, the upper mandible armed near the tip with a white horny point; cere pale flesh-colour; rictal membrane greatly developed and of a pale yllow colour; legs dull cinereous. The bill and feet seem disproportionately large, giving the nestling a very ungainly appearance. The fledgling (Feb. 5) has the membrane at the angle of the mouth and the rim encircling the eyes yellow.
Obs. In this species of Nestor the cere is very prominent, and towards the head generally has an abraded appearance, as if the feathers had been rubbed off. The two mandibles are connected at the base by a tough elastic membrane, capable of much expansion, the mandibles being more than an inch apart when fully extended. The tongue, which, like the beak, is bluish grey, is hard and smooth on the under surface, having the appearance of a human finger-nail much produced, along the terminal edge of which there is a fine brush-like development. The upper surface of the tongue is soft, rounded on the edges, with a broad central groove. In adult birds the denuded shaft of the tail-feathers is produced to a fine point a quarter of an inch or more beyond the web. Freshly killed birds have a peculiar woody odour, which is sometimes very strong. During the season that the rata is in bloom the long feathers of the cheeks and the light parts of the lower mandible, as well as the bare membrane at its base, are stained a rich orange-colour by contact with the juice of these flowers, which evidently contain strong colouring-matter.
Apart from the strongly marked varieties to be presently noticed, individual specimens exhibit a considerable amount of variation in the details of their colouring. The nuchal collar varies not only in extent, but in colour, from pale orpiment-orange to a dark wine-red margined with yellow; and there is much difference in the colour of the ear-coverts and of the filamentous feathers overlapping the under mandible. Examples also vary in size, a small one in my possession measuring only 16·5 inches in length; wing, from flexure, 10; tail 6.
Varieties. The members of the genus Nestor show a great tendency to individual variation, examples even of Nestor productus (which is confined in its range to a single rocky island) presenting such differences of plumage as almost to induce a belief in the existence of more than one species. But this variability of character is developed to the highest degree in Nestor meridionalis. Although it may be necessary, or convenient, to recognize a larger and a smaller race, the former confined to the South Island, and the latter having a wider dispersion, I have come to the conclusion that the following are merely aberrant varieties of the typical form, and, although sometimes recurrent in different localities, are not entitled to recognition as distinct species.
Var. a. Nestor superbus, Buller, Essay on New-Zealand Ornithology, p. 11.
This is one of the most beautiful of the many varieties to be noticed. Owing to the discovery, at the same time
N. superbus as a species. The following description of this supposed species appeared in my ‘Essay’ (l. c.) :—“Crown, hind neck, breast, scapulars, and upper wing-coverts canary-yellow of different shades, and tinged with scarlet; upper surface of wings whitish yellow, the primaries inclining to pale ash; upper surface of tail, when closed, pale ashy yellow, the sides being bright canary-yellow with a scarlet tinge; sides, abdomen, lower tail-coverts, axillaries, lining of wings, lower part of back, and upper tail-coverts bright scarlet, varied on the underparts, and minutely edged on the upper tail-coverts with canary-yellow; cheeks, throat, earcoverts, and a broad nuchal collar paler scarlet, largely mixed on the ear-coverts and collar with bright yellow. The under wing-coverts are beautifully marked with alternate bands of scarlet and yellow; the primaries, on their under surface, are ashy, marked on their inner vane with triangular spots of scarlet and yellow; under surface of tail-feathers pale scarlet for two thirds of their extent, and banded on their inner vane with brighter, ashy beyond, and yellowish towards the tip. Bill and legs dark bluish grey.”
There are two specimens (said to be ♂ and ♀) in the Canterbury Museum. They differ slightly in the details of their colouring. In one the nuchal collar of scarlet and yellow is much broader and brighter than in the other, while the crown of the head is paler, being of a dull yellowish white. The lower part of the back is equally brilliant in both; and the peculiar ashy white, which is characteristic of albinism, is very strongly apparent in the primaries and tail-feathers, although tinged on the latter with yellow. One has the bill considerably larger and stronger than the other, while in both the tail-feathers have denuded tips, or, more properly, the shaft is produced half an inch beyond the webs.
An example in my collection, obtained on Banks Peninsula (Canterbury), corresponds exactly with the supposed male above described.
There is another specimen (obtained in the Tararua ranges) in the possession of Wi Parata at Waikanae. It is well mounted in a glass case, and exhibited with other novelties in his elegant Whare-puni. The general plumage is white, with a wash of canary-yellow, shading into crimson on the cheeks and feathers overlapping the lower mandible; a narrow. nuchal collar of crimson and golden yellow intermixed; the feathers of the breast and the small wing-coverts tipped with bright yellow; the whole of the abdomen, flanks, and under tail-coverts bright crimson, and the under surface of tail-feathers flushed with the same. Bill white; legs and feet grey.
Var. β. Nestor esslingii, Souancé, Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1856, p. 223.
M. de Souancé, the original describer of the supposed species, says:—“Nestor dont nous allons donner la description est, sans contredit, l’oiseau le plus remarquable de la collection Massé’na. Intermédiaire entre le N. hypopolius et le N. productus, ce magnifique Perroquet réunit, dans son plumage, des détails caractéristiques de ces deux espéces. Coloration générale semblable à celle du N. hypopolius.
Mr. Gould, in the Supplement to his ‘Handbook to the Birds of Australia,’ says of it:—“A single specimen only of this magnificent Parrot has come under my notice; and this example is perhaps the only one that has yet been sent to Europe. It formerly formed part of the collection of the Prince D’Essling, of Paris, but now graces the National Museum of Great Britain. It is in a most perfect state of preservation, and is, without exception, one of the finest species, not only of its genus, but of the great family of Parrots. The native country of this species is supposed to be New Zealand; but I, as well as M. de Souancé; have failed to learn any thing definite on this point. In size it even exceeds the great Kaka (Nestor hypopolius), which it resembles in the form of its beak, while in its general colouring it closely assimilates to Nestor productus.”
Dr. Finsch, on the other hand, states, in his Mouograph, that Nestor esslingii, De Souancé (of which the type is in the British Museum), is in size and general colour the same as Nestor meridionalis, but has the breast ashgrey, with brown terminal margins and a broad yellowish-white transverse band straight across the belly. He adds that he was not able to make such an examination of it as he wished, owing to its being in an hermetically closed glass case, but quotes Souancé to the effect that the red marks on the inner vane of the quills and tail-feathers are precisely as in Nestor meridionalis; whereas Mr. Gould distinctly says that while the tail-feathers in N. meridionalis and N. productus are strongly toothed on the under surface with red, “in Nestor esslingii no such marks occur, the toothing on the inner webs of the primaries is not so clear and well-defined, and the light-coloured interspaces are more freckled with brown.”
Referring to these several accounts, I expressed the following opinion, in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute’ (vol. iii. 1870, p. 51) :— “Assuming Dr. Finsch’s description to be strictly correct—that it most
Nestor meridionalis, from which it is only distinguishable by the broad yellowish-white band across the underparts of the body—and considering the extreme tendency in that species to variability of colour, I should be inclined to regard the British-Museum bird as an accidental variety of the common Kaka. Among the numerous abnormally coloured examples which I have seen, from time to time, varying from an almost pure albino to a rich variegated scarlet, I remember one which, although like the common bird in its general plumage, had a broad longitudinal band of yellowish white on the abdomen. The specific identity of this specimen with Nestor meridionalis was unmistakable.”
It only remains for me to add that the examination which I have since made of the type specimen in the British Museum has entirely verified this conclusion. It may be mentioned that this bird furnished Mr. Gould with a subject for a beautiful picture in the Supplement to his ‘Birds of Australia.’
My son saw one at Owhaoko with a white tail, the rest of the plumage being dingy brown. He endeavoured in vain to shoot it.
Var. γ. Nestor montanus, Haast.
This is a larger race than the common Kaka, and is generally much brighter in colour. It appears to be confined to the South Island, whence all the examples that have come under my notice have been obtained. No doubt some naturalists will be disposed to regard this larger race as a distinct bird; and for a considerable time my own inclinations were in that direction; but, looking to the extreme tendency to variation in this species, and to the difficulty of drawing a clear line between the larger and smaller races, in consequence of the occasional intermediate or connecting forms, I feel that I am taking a safe course, concurrently with Dr. Finsch, in refusing, for the present at least, to separate these birds While adhering to the view expressed above, I think it only right to quote the following opinions as to its claims to take rank as a distinct species:—. Sir Julius von Haast in forwarding me a specimen wrote:— “I send you another skin of our Alpine Parrot. Even judging from its habits alone, it is quite distinct from the common Kaka. It is never found in the Fagus forest, whilst the other never goes above it into the sub-alpine vegetation. Near the glacier sources of the Waimakariri, where I was in the latter part of March, I saw them frequently in the alpine meadows—4000 to 5000 feet high—feeding on the large red berries of Sir “I never met with it in the forests of the low lands. It is more active in its habits and more hawk-like in its flight than the common Mr. Fuller (taxidermist to the Canterbury Museum) also stated, as the result of very careful observation, that “the manner of flight is quite different from that of the common Kaka, for they soar after the manner of the Kea (Coprosma pumila and nivalis, two dwarf plants lying close to the ground. We found these berries in the gullets of those we opened. They evidently had their nests with young ones among the crags of the nearly perpendicular rocky walls (about 6000 feet above the sea), and I repeatedly observed them flying backwards and forwards, as if feeding their young. After the first day’s shooting they got exceedingly shy, and could, not be approached within gun-shot.”Nestor occidentalis as previously quoted) that he intended the following note to refer:—Nestor. It often sweeps suddenly to the ground; and its cry differs from that of the common Kaka in being more shrill and wild.” Nestor notabilis).”
Mr. Reischek, to whom I am indebted for some fine specimens, of all ages, obtained at Dusky Sound, is strongly of opinion that this is a distinct species. He says (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xvii. p. 194):—
“This bird represents Nestor meridionali in the sounds, but it is not very plentiful. I have found them alone or in pairs or with their young, from two to four. They breed in hollow trees. The nest consists of a deepening lined with wood-dust and feathers out of the parent birds. They lay their eggs from the beginning of March till April. Male and female hatch and rear the young birds together; in August the young are full-grown. This bird is not so gregarious as its ally meridionalis, also different in plumage and construction of the skeleton [?] and habits. The cry and whistle is shriller; the male is flery red under the wings, the female golden yellow and a little smaller. These birds are very bold. On the 13th April, 1884, I found in a hollow tree a female with one egg and three young birds, which she pluckily defended by biting and scratching. At the cry of the female the male came swooping several times past my head. This species is the finest of the three existing species of Nestor.”
Among the specimens received from Mr. Reischek is a nestling covered with grey down; but it differs in no respect from that of the common Kaka, except perhaps that the downy covering is a shade darker. An egg which he submitted to me differs, however, slightly from that of Nestor meridionalis; it is creamy white, the surface covered with extremely fine punetae, making it almost granulate, of a regular ovoid form, and measuring 1·5 inch in length by 1·26 in breadth.
There are some beautiful examples of this larger form in the Canterbury Museum. One of these has the crown silvery grey; the sides of the head and neck washed with sea-green; the ear-coverts glossy golden yellow; the feathers overlapping the lower mandible, and the whole of the throat and fore neck, rich vinous red with paler centres; the nuchal collar very broad, and composed of various shades of scarlet and yellow beautifully blended; the breast and sides varied with crimson and yellowish olive, blending on each feather, and across the former an indistinct pectoral band of yellowish grey; the rump, flanks, abdomen, upper and lower tail-coverts as in ordinary specimens, but brighter in colour. In another example the small wing-coverts are pale orange-red, terminally margined with black; while in a third the abdomen has a conspicuous, irregular patch of canary-yellow. An unusually fine specimen forwarded to me by Sir Julius von Haast for examination had the forehead of a rufous-orange colour; but this proved to be entirely the result of flower-stains, as I had no difficulty in demonstrating. This bird measured 20 inches in length, wing from flexure 12, tail 7·5, culmen 2·75, tarsus 1·5. The plumage of the upper parts was faded and snow-beaten, the ends of the primaries and tail-feathers being much worn and jagged. Crown and sides of the head grey tinged with dull metallic green; ear-coverts bright golden yellow with darker edges; breast and sides olivaceous brown, with a reddish hue; feathers composing the nuchal collar dull red, with golden tips; those covering the shoulders marked in the centre with a large irregular spot of red, and stained with golden yellow; rump and upper tail-coverts dull arterial red, each feather with a narrow terminal margin of black; under surface as in ordinary specimens, but more largely suffused with yellow.
In another example of the southern bird (in my own collection, which contains a good series) the crown and hind part of the head are light grey edged with darker grey; the feathers composing the nuchal collar are rich orange-red, narrowly barred with yellow and black; ear-coverts bright orpiment-orange, changing into deep vinous red on the cheeks; the feathers overlapping the lower mandible edged with black; the fore neck, breast, shoulders, and upper wing-coverts olivaceous brown margined with darker brown, and having, more or less, a green metallic lustre; sides, abdomen, rump, and upper tail-coverts dark red, banded with bright arterial red and dusky brown; under tail-coverts dull red, tipped with brighter red, olivaceous brown at the base; quills olivaceous brown, lighter on the outer web, largely toothed on the inner one with pale orange-red; lining of wings and axillary plumes bright scarlet tipped with yellow, and banded, more or less distinctly, with brown; tail-feathers olivaceous brown, darker in their apical portion, washed on their under surface with dull vinous red, and toothed with pale scarlet. Bill uniform bluish grey; tarsi and toes dark bluish grey.
In another specimen the general colours are altogether duller; but there is more of the metallic lustre on the wings; the arterial-red bands on the rump and abdomen are wanting, the plumage of these parts being dark red edged with dusky brown or black; the lining of the wings is less brilliant; the toothed markings are paler on the quills, and far less distinct on the tail-feathers.
A beautiful specimen in Mr. Reischek’s collection (♀) has the light feathers of the crown tipped with yellow, the feathers of the nape deeply margined with oil-green, the nuchal collar broad and very richly coloured, the whole of the chin, fore neck, and breast flushed with crimson; abdomen, sides of the body, and under tail-coverts flaming crimson with transverse bands of a lighter colour; small wing-coverts metallic green, flushed in their apical portion with crimson and terminally margined with a narrow band of black; rump and upper tail-coverts same as abdomen and crissum, but darker.
Var. δ.
The following brilliantly coloured variety of N. meridionalis was obtained more than twenty years ago in the Wanganui district, and is now in the author’s collection, in the Colonial Museum, ‘at Wellington. General plumage bright scarlet-red, deepest on the lower part of back, sides, and abdomen, and variegated with orpiment-yellow on the nape, sides of the neck, and breast. Crown greenish yellow, with a metallic gloss, each feather centred with brown; feathers overlapping the under mandible, and a broad patch on the throat, dark reddish brown, as in ordinary examples. The feathers of the breast are stained in the centre with dull ashy brown, and, as well as those of the upper parts, are narrowly bordered with black. Primaries dark olivaceous brown, largely marked in their basal portion with yellowish white; secondaries and their coverts pale scarlet, variegated with yellow, olivaceous brown in their apical portion; all the quills on their under surface pale orange in their basal portion, but without the toothed markings; lining of wings vivid scarlet, varied with yellow. Tail-feathers pale scarlet with a broad terminal band of olivaceous brown; under tail-coverts darker scarlet. On the bright upper surface of the tailfeathers there are obsolete bars, and on the under surface there is a broad olivaceous margin; but the “toothed” character peculiar to the species is entirely wanting. Bill bluish grey; feet dark grey, paler on the soles; claws black.
A specimen in the possession of Mr. W. Luxford, at Wellington, has the prevailing colour a bright scarlet; but on the back and wings each feather has a narrow terminal band of blackish brown; head and throat rusty brown; breast darker rust-colour, each feather broadly margined with yellow. Primaries canary-yellow on the outer web for one third of their length, then brown; upper wing-coverts brown margined with scarlet. About two thirds of the tail pale scarlet; there are then a few interrupted bands of brown, and the terminal portion is of that colour. This bird was shot in the hills near the town of Wellington in the early days of the colony, and before the requirements of the settlers had led to the destruction of the surrounding woods.
Under this section may be placed a gorgeous example obtained in the Hawke’s Bay district, and sent by Mr.
The tail-feathers in the Canterbury Museum found near Cass river (mentioned in Trans. N.-Z. Instit. vol. iv. p. 148) are exactly similar to those here described.
Var. ∊.
The following is the description of a very light-coloured variety obtained by the natives near the burning mountain of Tongariro, and presented to me by Mr. R.
General plumage pale canary-yellow; the crown tinged with grey; ear-coverts bright orange-yellow; feathers of the throat, hind part of the neck, and some of the upper wing-coverts margined with the same; feathers on the lower part of the cheek, and those overlapping the lower mandible, yellowish red, with paler shafts; sides, abdomen, rump, upper and lower tail-coverts vivid scarlet, the feathers of the underparts narrowly margined with yellow; lining of wings bright yellow tinged with scarlet; axillary plumes, and the soft feathers underlying the secondaries, bright scarlet, tipped with yellow; quills pale canary-yellow on their upper surface, ashy on their under surface, with broad toothed markings of pale red, obsolete on the outer remiges, and diminishing on the secondaries; tail-feathers ashy yellow, with brighter margins, tinged with orange in the centre and along the tips, changing on their under surface to orange-yellow, in their basal portion with narrow toothed markings of scarlet. Bill white horn-colour. Irides dark brown. Tarsi and toes pale brown or flesh-coloured; claws white horn-colour.
The late Rev.
Var. ζ.
I am indebted to Sir Julius von Haast for a specimen showing a very decided tendency to albinism, although still exhibiting the bright scarlet facings which adorn the others. In this bird the crown is greyish white, with pale yellow margins; the nape dull crimson, with yellowish tips, forming a broad nuchal collar; ear-coverts bright orpiment-orange stained with red; feathers overlapping the lower mandible, and those covering the throat, pale vinous red; fore neck and upper part of breast smoky grey, washed with red, and each feather tipped with dull yellow; back and upper surface of wings smoky yellow tinged with gamboge; lining of wings and axillary plumes bright scarlet-red; quills dark yellowish grey, obscurely toothed, and washed at the base with pale scarlet; sides, flanks, and abdomen scarlet-red, tipped more or less with dusky and yellow; tail-feathers yellowish brown, with paler edges, washed on the under surface with scarlet, marked with dusky freckles, but not toothed; upper and
Under this head may be placed the creamy-white Kaka with scarlet rump and abdomen, and a narrow nuchal collar of canary-yellow, which was shot in the Makereru ranges near Waipawa, and sent by Mr.
Var. η.
A specimen obtained by Mr. Henry Travers in the Provincial district of Marlborough is remarkably small, as compared with ordinary examples from the same locality, and is differently coloured.
Crown of the head hoary grey; fringed behind the eyes and on the occiput with pale sea-green; ear-coverts golden yellow tinged with red; mantle, scapulars, and wing-coverts dull olivaceous green, margined with black; nuchal collar dull vinous red, with lighter tips; neck above dark olivaceous brown; cheeks, throat, front and sides of the neck dark brown, strongly tinged with red; breast, sides, abdomen, and under tail-coverts of different shades of arterial red shaded with brown; lower part of the back, rump, upper tail-coverts, and thighs dark arterial red banded with lighter red, and tipped with black; lining of wings and axillary plumes beautiful scarlet, transversely barred with dusky black. Quills and tail-feathers olivaceous brown, with paler edges, toothed on their inner webs with pale orange-red.
Var. θ. “Kaka-kereru” of the natives.
The following description is taken from a specimen in my collection, which was obtained in the vicinity of Wellington, in 1856:—
Upper parts generally tinged with oil-green, and each feather narrowly margined with black; crown light grey, with darker shades, varied with deep sea-green over the eyes and on the hinder part of the head; nape sea-green, mixed with brown and yellow; nuchal collar, which is nearly two inches broad, dark crimson, each feather faintly margined with yellow and black. Upper wing-coverts and upper portion of the tail-feathers tinged with olivaceous. The ear-coverts are orpiment-orange varying in shade; while the cheeks and throat are dark vinous red, each feather having a bright centre; feathers of the neck and breast dark brown, with a marginal tinge of crimson; rump, upper and lower tail-coverts, thighs, and abdomen deep crimson, with lighter crescentic bands and narrow terminal margins of black. This bird was shot with a flock of twelve others (all bagged), and was the only one presenting this character of plumage.
In another example, obtained at Otaki in September 1862, all the tints of the plumage are very rich, and the red of the underparts extends to the breast, each feather having two bright crescentic bands of arterial red and a terminal margin of dusky black; the ear-coverts are gallstone-yellow, and the nuchal collar, which is much extended, is of the same colour intermixed with red; the secondaries and lesser wing-coverts are pale metallic green, narrowly edged with black; and the whole of the dark upper plumage is tinged with the same colour.
Var. τ.
In June, 1870, I received from Manawatu a very beautiful specimen of the variety known among the natives as “Kaka-pipiwarauroa.” The whole of the plumage was most handsomely variegated, each feather having a brownish-black centre, and the margins broadly edged with orange-red and yellow. These bright markings were most conspicuous on the nape and upper surface of the wings. The sides of the face and the ear-coverts were of a bright golden yellow, changing to red on the long feathers overlapping the lower mandible; the sides, thighs, and lower part of the abdomen arterial red, with lighter bands; the lining of the wings brilliant scarlet, banded with yellow and black. The natives had this beautiful bird in their possession for many months; and the delighted settler who wrote apprising me of it described it as “a bird with all the colours of the rainbow.” I ultimately induced the owner to part with it, giving him in return a block of the much-prized greenstone, weighing more than 20 lb. I designed this rara avis for the Zoological Society of London, and shipped it accordingly with every care; but it appeared to suffer from the extreme cold, and, unfortunately, perished before it was out of sight of the New-Zealand coast.
Var. κ.
In the Otago Museum there is a remarkable specimen, obtained in the south, in August 1874, and presented by Mr. J. Coulan. This bird (which is a male) has the plumage of the upper parts smoky yellowish brown, and, except on the crown, each feather has a dusky margin; the feathers of the crown, wings, and tail pale yellowish
Var. λ.
A fine bird received from Catlin river (likewise preserved in the Otago Museum) has the hind part of the crown and the whole of the nape and hind neck rich canary-yellow of varying shades, the normal nuchal collar only appearing at the outer edge of this gorgeous hood. The ear-coverts are bright orpiment-orange; and the filamentous feathers overlapping the mandibles are crimson with light shafts; so also are the chin-feathers, under which there is a band of rich canary-yellow suffused with crimson, spreading over the throat and connecting the two sides of the head. On the breast and underparts of the body there are numerous canary-yellow feathers interspersed irregularly with the ordinary plumage. The upper surface is in the plumage of the “Kaka-kereru” (var. θ), being highly flushed or burnished with metallic green.
Var. μ. Nestor occidentalis, Buller, Birds of N. Z. 1st ed. p. 50.
To the above numerous varieties I feel bound now to add the form which, with some hesitation, I kept distinct under the above name in my former edition. As stated in the text, my reason for then rejecting the supposition of its being a mere aberrant variety of the common species was the account of its habits and peculiar cry furnished by Sir
“Upper surface dark olivaceous brown, tinged with yellow on the wing-coverts, each feather margined with dusky black; feathers of the nape dull red, margined with yellow and black, and forming a narrow nuchal collar; rump, tail-coverts, and abdomen dark arterial red, the feathers of the latter banded with a brighter tint; ear-coverts pale orpiment-orange; feathers projecting over the lower mandible tinged with red; throat, neck, and breast dark olivaceous brown; lining of wings and axillary plumes bright scarlet, obscurely barred with black, and tipped with golden yellow; quills and tail-feathers russet-brown, the former toothed with yellow on the inner web; bill and feet dark olivaceous grey. Length 16·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·5; tail 6; tarsus 1; longer fore toe and claw 2·25; longer hind toe and claw 2·1; bill, following curvature 2·25, along edge of lower mandible 1·5.
“Apart from the difference of plumage this species is appreciably smaller than the common one, while the bill is more slender and has the upper mandible produced to a finer point. The two specimens obtained by Dr. Hector on the west coast of the South Island differ very slightly in the details of their colouring, and there is scarcely any perceptible difference in their size.”
Note. To illustrate the brilliancy and beauty of some of these accidental forms, I have given a portrait of the brighter of the two specimens sent by Mr. Baker to the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, both of which are now in my collection.
General Remarks. To MM. Blanchard and Pelzeln belong the credit of having first determined the true affinities of the genus Nestor. It bears a close relation to the Australian Lories; and the New-Guinea form known as Pecquet’s Parrot (Dasyptilus pecqueti) appears to exhibit the transitional or connecting link between these two well-marked groups.
In habits and structure the members of the genus Nestor are true flower-suckers, the tongue being furnished at its extremity with a fine brush-like development for that special purpose. The common Kaka of New Zealand is the type of the genus.
Modern systematists, as a rule, have placed it in the subfamily Proc. Zool. Soc. 1872, pp. 787–789.Trichoglossinæ; but I accept Prof. Garrod’s view that its proper station is among the typical Parrots
Sprightly’in its actions, eminently social, and more noisy than any other inhabitant of the woods, the Kaka holds a prominent place among our native birds. Being semi-nocturnal in its habits, it generally remains quiet and concealed during the heat of the day. If, however, the sportsman should happen to find a stray one, and to wound instead of killing it, its cries of distress will immediately rouse the whole fraternity from their slumbers, and all the Kakas within hearing will come to the rescue, and make the forest echo with their discordant screams. Unless, however, disturbed by some exciting cause of this sort, they remain in close cover till the approach of the cooler hours: then they come forth with noisy clamour, and may be seen, far above the tree-tops, winging their way to some favourite feeding-place; or they may be observed climbing up the rough vine-clad boles of the trees, freely using their powerful mandibles, and assuming every variety of attitude, or diligently tearing open the dead roots of the close epiphytic vegetation in their eager search for insects and their larvæ. In the spring and summer, when the woods are full of wild blossom and berry, these birds have a prodigality of food, and may be seen alternately filling their crops with a variety of juicy berries, or sucking nectar from the crimson flowers of the rata (Metrosideros robusta—a flowering branch of which is depicted in the Plate) by means of their brush-fringed tongues.
With the earliest streaks of dawn, and while the underwoods are still wrapped in darkness, the wild cry of this bird breaks upon the ear with a strange effect. It is the sound that wakes the weary traveller encamped in the bush; and the announcement of his ever active Maori attendant, “Kua tangi te Kaka,” is an intimation that it is time to be astir. But although habitually recluse during the day, it is not always so. During gloomy weather it is often very active; and, sometimes, even in the bright sunshine a score of them may be seen together, flying and circling about, high above the trees, uttering their loud screams and apparently bent on convivial amusement. When the shades of evening bring a deeper gloom into the depths of the forest, and all sounds are hushed, save the low hoot of the waking Morepork, or the occasional cheep-cheep of the startled Robin, the Kaka becomes more animated. It may then be heard calling to its fellows in a harsh rasping note, something like the syllables “t-chrut, t-chrut,” or indulging in a clear musical whistle with a short refrain.
It is strictly arboreal in its habits, and subsists to a large extent on insects and their larvæ, so that it is probably one of our most useful species. Where they exist in large numbers, they must act very beneficially on the timber-forests; for in the domain of nature important results are often produced by apparently trivial agencies. Like all the honey-eaters, while supplying their own wants, they do good service with their brush-tongues, by fertilizing the blossoms of various trees, and thus assisting in their propagation; while, on the other hand, the diligent search they prosecute for insects and grubs, and the countless numbers daily consumed by each individual, must materially affect the economy of the native woods.
I am aware that in some parts of the country there is a prejudice against the Kaka on account of its alleged injury to forest trees by barking them; but this animus is quite undeserved Against this unmerited charge the Kaka is well defended by Mr. Potts, who writes:—“Although so often accused of injuring trees by stripping down the bark, from careful observation we do not believe a flourishing tree is ever damaged by its beak. It is the apparently vigorous, but really unsound tree that is attacked, already doomed by the presence of countless multitudes of insects, of many varieties, of which it is at once the food and refuge, either in their perfect or larval state. In the persevering and laborious pursuit of this favourite food, the Kaka, doubtless, lends his assistance in hastening the fall of decaying trees; the loosened strips of bark dissevered admit to the exposed wood rain and moisture collected from dews and mists, to be dried by evaporation by the heat of the sun, by the desiccating winds, only to become saturated again. Under this alternation the insidious fungi take root, decay rapidly sets in, the close-grained timber gives place to a soft spongy texture, branches drop off, and gradually the once noble-looking tree succumbs to its fate: but its gradual decay and fall, the work of years, has proved beneficial to the surrounding plants; the dropping of the branches admits light and air to the aspiring saplings, assists in checking the undue spread of lichens and epiphytes; and when the old stem falls, tottering down from its very rotten-ness, its place is supplied by vigorous successors.”
This is one of our highly characteristic forms and is met with, more or less, in every part of the country. Far away in the depths of the forest—where the trees are clad with rich mosses, cryptogams, and lycopods to their very tops—where, as if to hide the mouldering decay of nature, huge masses of green vines and creeping plants cover the aged trunks and bind the bush together—where the sunlight, struggling through the leafy tops, discloses here and there a feathery tassel of Asplenium flaccidum hanging from the branches or a clump of the scarlet-flowered mistletoe—there the Kaka is at home and may be studied to advantage. So long as he does not know he is watched, he may be seen twisting and turning among the sprays, hopping Cockatoo-fashion along a branch, then climbing higher, with graceful agility; resting for a moment to whistle for his mate and, when she has joined him, expressing his pleasure in a sharp chuckling note, like the striking together of two quartz pebbles; then, as if suspecting some treachery below, he suddenly takes wing with loud cries of
In the dark Fagus-forests, both north and south, it shares the domain with the stealthy Woodhen, descending often to the ground to hunt for grubs and insects among the moss-covered roots and decaying wood. In the low-lying woods, where the climbing kiekie ( Freycinetia banksii) attaches its rooted stems to the larger trunks and, spreading upwards its tufted coils, wraps the whole tree in a flowing mantle of brilliant green, there too at flowering-time the Kaka will be found, feasting on the sugary bracteæ and fleshy-white spadices of this remarkable plant. He fills his crop with this delicious food, and then betakes himself to some leafy shade to avoid the heat of the noonday sun. In more open places, on the outskirts of the bush, where huge clumps of
In the South Island, during certain seasons, it frequents the open land, alternately perching on the rough blocks of trachyte and feeding among the grass and other stunted vegetation. I remember on one occasion, some years ago, counting upwards of twenty at a time on the Port hills which divide Lyttelton from Christchurch.
On its feeding-habits Captain Mair writes to me:— “In June 1875 I was at Tuhua in the upper Wanganui. I found the Kakas there so fat that they could not fly. I actually caught fifteen of them on the ground, as they were unable to take wing.”
Mr. Buchanan informs me that he has seen the Kaka stripping off the bark from a green tree
Panax colensoi), and sucking up with its tongue the gummy matter underneath, in the same manner that it extracts the honey from the flowers of the Phormium tenax; and Mr. Potts has observed it luxuriating on the viscid nectar which fills the blossoms of this tree in spring time, till sated at last it cleanses its beak against a neighbouring bough, and then, with grateful clatter, glides off to join its fellows.
It is said also to feed on the sweet honey-like substance which exudes copiously from the bark of the Fagus when it is attacked by the fatal grub.
When migrating from one part of the country to another, the Kakas travel in parties of three or more, and generally at a considerable height, their flight being slow and measured and their course a direct one. They occasionally alight, as if for the purpose of resting, and in a few minutes resume their laboured flight again. On these occasions the bleached and bare limbs of a dry tree are always selected, when one of the requisite elevation is within reach, as affording most fully that which they appear to delight in, an unobstructed prospect.
A curious circumstance in the natural history of the Kaka was mentioned by me, on the authority of an eye-witness, in a communication to the Wellington Philosophical Society Trans. N.-Z. Instit. 1878, vol. xi. p. 369.
It is surprising how seldom one meets with dying birds in their natural or wild state. Like Macgillivray’s wounded Gull, seeking some quiet retreat in order to “pass the time of its anguish in forgetfulness of the outer world,” birds in general, and indeed all wild animals, have the faculty of hiding themselves away when the time of their dissolution approaches. During the many months I have spent in the New-Zealand woods I never but once picked up a bird that had died from natural causes, and this was a little Riroriro at the base of a kauri tree, as mentioned on page 45. On one occasion, however, at Omahu, about the end of July, a native brought in a Kaka which he had caught by the hand at the roadside. It seemed sickly, drooping its wings and uttering its “kete-kete” when touched. My friend, Renata Kawepo, put it on a parrot-perch as a mokai, but it died that night.
On the ground it generally moves by a succession of hops, after the manner of the Corvidæ, and not with the awkward waddling gait peculiar to most Parrots. In the trees, where it is more at home, it is perpetually on the move, often walking deliberately along a branch, and then climbing to another by a dexterous use of both beak and feet, or silently winging its way to a station in a neighbouring tree. Its alarm-cry resembles that of the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo of Australia. During the pairing-season the two sexes are always together, and when on the wing keep side by side, both calling as they go. In the neighbourhood of their nests they have a low call-note, like ki-i-to, ki-i-to, and a very soft whistling cry.
Possessing excellent powers of mimicry, and useful to the natives as a decoy-bird, the Kaka is much sought after, and almost every native village has its “mokai.” Like most Parrots, it is a long-lived bird; and one which had been in the possession of the Upper Wanganui tribes for nearly twenty years presented the curious feature of its overgrown mandibles completely crossing each other. This was no doubt attributable to the fact of its having been constantly fed with soft food, thereby depriving the bill of the wear and tear incident to a state of nature. It is not so easy, however, to
It would seem that in this species there is a natural tendency to a deformity of growth in this respect. This will be manifest from the drawings of two remarkable examples which I gave in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute’ for 1876 (vol. ix. page 340).
One of these represents a specimen in the Canterbury Museum; and the other a case of natural deformity in the British Museum, which was brought under my notice by Dr. Günther.
The tame Kaka is very susceptible to kindness, and forms strong attachments. It soon learns to distinguish its keeper’s voice, and will respond to his call. It often, however, proves a mischievous pet, especially if it gets access to the orchard, where I have known it, in a single day, nip off thousands of blossoms from a promising pear-tree. I have seen it treat a favourite vine in a similar manner and apparently from a sheer love of mischief.
If it be allowed the freedom of the house, it will destroy the furniture in the most wanton manner with its powerful beak and proclaim itself a nuisance in a variety of ways Mr.
When the korari-flower ( Phormium tenax) is in season, the Kakas repair in flocks to the flax-fields to feast on the flower-honey; and on these occasions numbers of them are speared by the natives as an article of food. In the woods also at certain periods they are captured in abundance by means of an ingenious snare called a “tutu” worked by a decoy-bird.
I have seen it climbing among the crimson flower-stalks of the tree-honeysuckle ( Knightia excelsa), gathering the honey most carefully with its long brush-fringed tongue. At another season it feeds on the pollen of the kowai (
The tame village Kaka is not the useless pet that Parrots generally are. It may amuse the young people by its wonderful articulation of Maori words and phrases, and by its whistling powers, but it has far more substantial attractions for the owner. It is a source of profit and subsistence to him; and as it requires the experience of several seasons to give it a proficiency as a decoy-bird, it acquires a specific value according to its age and training. I have known a native refuse an offer of ·10 for a well-trained “mokai,” although an aged bird and in a very ragged condition of plumage.
These pets are never caged, but are secured to a perch by means of a “poria” made of bone, in the form shown in the accompanying woodcut, the bird’s foot being squeezed through the ring, so as to make the latter encircle the tarsus, and a thong of plaited flax-fibre, of convenient length, being then attached to the outer process and tied to the perch The Rev.
As will be seen by the full descriptive notes given above, very beautiful varieties of the Kaka are met with. I have never seen a pure albino; but I am assured by the natives that they are occasionally found, and Major Messenger of Taranaki has the skin of one which he has kindly promised to send me. I am informed that a bird very nearly approaching that condition was shot at Whauwhau (in the county of Marsden) in the summer of 1863. The value set on these rare varieties by the natives may be inferred from the following circumstance:—A “kaka-korako” was seen by a party of Rangitane in the Upper Manawatu, and followed through the woods as far as the Oroua river, every effort being made to take it alive. The Oroua people (of another tribe) then took up the chase, and followed the bird to the foot of the Ruahine range; and although carrying guns, to their credit they allowed it to escape rather than shoot it, in the remote hope that it might hereafter reappear in their district. Nor were they disappointed. Two seasons later the bird came back to the Oroua woods, and was taken alive by a native trapper. It was forwarded to Wellington by Mr. Alexander MacDonald, and, after passing through several hands, was ultimately sent to Europe. Finally it came into the possession of the late Mr.
From some unaccountable cause the Kaka has always been a comparatively scarce bird in the forests north of Auckland, although there is no lack of its ordinary food supply. In some other districts it is less common than it formerly was; but it still exists, in very considerable numbers, in various parts of the country. In the months of December and January when the rata is in flower, thousands of these birds are trapped by the natives, in the manner already indicated, and which I will presently describe more fully. Partly owing to this cause and partly to the extension of settlement in some districts, where, in former years, they were excessively abundant, their cry is now seldom or never heard; but in the wooded parts of the interior they are as plentiful as ever. Certain wooded ranges are noted as Kaka-preserves, and are very jealously protected by the native tribes owning them, who annually resort to them for the purpose of trapping these birds as an article of food. Nor is this its only practical value. Some half-dozen of the pillows in my house are filled with the feathers of the Kaka; and they are so delightfully soft and elastic that it is a positive luxury to sleep on them. These feathers were obtained at Raukawa, in the Upper Manawatu, some twenty years ago, when Kakas were far more plentiful in that part of the country than they are now. With the march of settlement, roads have been made, townships have sprung up, and a railway-line is being laid down within a mile or two of Raukawa, thus altering the whole face of the country. At the time to which I refer this place could be only reached by a canoe journey of some eighty or ninety miles from Foxton, or by a rude bush-track—one of the Maori war-paths of former times. The Manawatu gorge, lying just above, has now become a highway of busy traffic; the telegraph-wire already connects it with the commercial centres, and so, indirectly, with every
The Kaka is particularly abundant in the Urewera country, and during the short season the rata is in bloom the whole Maori population, old and young, are out Kaka-hunting. An expert bird-catcher will sometimes bag as many as 300 in the course of a day; and at Ruatahuna and Mangapohatu alone it is said that from 10,000 to 12,000 of these birds are killed during a good rata season, which occurs about every three years “Barangi tahi” is the Maori proverb in allusion to this periodio recurrence of the Kaka season.
There are several modes adopted for catching the Kaka, but the commonest and most successful is by means of a trained mokai or tame decoy, the wild birds being attracted to artificial perches, skilfully arranged around the concealed trapper, who has simply to pull a string and the screaming Kaka is secured by the leg, as many as three or four being often taken at the same moment. At the close of each day the dead birds are buried, and when a sufficient number have been collected they are unearthed, stripped of their feathers, fried in their own fat, and potted in calabashes for winter use, or for presents to neighbouring tribes. The perches used for Kaka-trapping are often elaborately carved and illuminated with paua shell.
It may be mentioned that the birds manifest extreme fastidiousness in the matter of these perches (or tutu-kaka as they are called), alighting very readily on some, and avoiding others in the most careful manner.
They commence breeding in the early part of November; and at Christmas the young birds are old enough to be taken from the nest, although, if unmolested, they probably do not leave it before the second week of January, or even later. The place usually selected for depositing their eggs is the deep hollow of a tree the heart of which is completely decayed. There is very little attempt at forming a nest, the eggs being placed on the dry pulverized wood which these cavities usually contain.
Mr.
The eggs are generally four in number (sometimes, according to the natives, six), broadly ovoid, measuring 1·6 inch in length by 1·2 in breadth, with a slightly glossy surface, and pure white in colour till they become soiled and stained in the process of incubation. Much care, and even some degree of fastidiousness, is displayed in the choice of a suitable tree; and once decided on, it is often resorted to by the same birds for many seasons in succession. On this account the natives set a high value on their “rua Kaka.” The mere robbing of the nest, if accomplished with caution, does not cause the birds to abandon it; but the natives consider it of importance not to breathe into the cavity or to touch any part of it with their hands, for fear of “polluting” the nesting-place and causing its desertion. A nest which I discovered in the Otairi range, on my journey to Taupo, on the 23rd December, contained two young ones, apparently about ten days old. In a large maire tree with a decayed heart, about three feet from the ground there was a long narrow opening (measuring 2 feet in length by only 14 inches in width) leading into an inner chamber more than a foot in diameter. The walls of this chamber were smooth; and on the floor there was a deep layer of decayed wood,
Mr. Enys informs me that, on Sir
An egg of this species received from Reischek is much soiled on the surface, being more or less of a dark brown colour, as if stained by contact with decayed wood or some other colouring-matter. It was taken (late in December) from a hollow pukatea tree in the central part of the Little Barrier, just below the high pinnacle of rocks so distinctly visible at sea. The nest contained four eggs, all of which, as my correspondent assures me, were stained in a similar manner.
An egg from Dusky Sound yields somewhat larger measurements than those given above, is creamy white in colour, and marked with extremely fine points, making the surface almost granulate; but these may be regarded as mere individual variations. It was taken on the 13th April, from a tree-hole, in which a soft nest had been formed by means of pulverized rotten wood and feathers, apparently plucked from the bird’s own breast. Besides this egg there were three young birds in the nest, and the mother, who remained in possession, defended her offspring in a very plucky manner.
A nest of four eggs in my son’s collection presents this difference, that all of them are slightly larger than ordinary examples, measuring 1·7 inch in length by 1·25 in breadth. They were evidently freshly laid when taken, the surface being beautifully white.
Besides The following “Note on the Tongue of the Psittacine genus Nestor meridionalis, there is another very distinct species (N. notabilis) inhabiting New Zealand, a full account of which will follow next in order. But, in addition to these, there recently existed on Phillip Island a closely allied form (Nestor productus) which is now extinct, although many specimens of it are preserved in public and private museums in this country. Another (N. norfolcensis), formerly inhabiting Norfolk Island, although recognized by Dr. Finsch as a distinct speciesN. producto similis; at pileo et cervice viridibus; dorso ac tectricibus alarum olivaceo-viridibus, horum maculis apicalibus nigris triangulis; genis flavis; pectore abdomineque superiore ochraceis, unicoloribus; rostro insigniter longo, introrsum curvato.NestorNestor” was communicated to the Zoological Society by the late Prof. Garrod, F.R.S.:–“On the death of a specimen of Nestor hypopolius in the Society’s Gardens, a short time ago, Mr. Sclater kindly directed my attention to the peculiarity of its tongue, and referred me to Dr. Finsch’s work on the Parrots, where Nestor is placed among the Trichoglossinœ, though the author states that he is not possessed of any very precise information on the subject.
“Mr. Gould, in his ‘Birds of Australia’ (vol. v. pl. vi.), partly describes the tongue of this bird, and shows that it is not that of a Lory; but he has omitted to notice its chief peculiarity.
“Dr. Buller, in the recently published 1st part of his ‘Birds of New Zealand’ [1st edit.], has also described the tongue quite correctly, though not much in detail—but nevertheless places Nestor close to, the Lories, mentioning that this affinity was first shown by MM. Blanchard and Pelzeln. As, however, the tongue of Nestor does not in reality resemble that of the Trichoglossi at all, it may be of interest to describe it more fully.
“As far as I have had opportunity of observing, in all Parrots the fleshy tongue ends anteriorly by a dilated portion, supported on a narrower neck. This tip is much like the end of a human finger, as mentioned by most observers: and its function is similar also; for it is employed by the bird as a third prehensile organ in connexion with the upper and lower beak, any solid substance being held by the tongue and upper beak, while the mandible is freed to give another bite. Continuing the
“In the Trichoglossi this horny plate is also present, and is similarly constructed; but on the superior surface of the tongue, between the lateral edges of the unguis, in the part which in others is covered by a smooth longitudinally plicated epithelium, there is an arrangement of retroverted papillæ forming a spinous covering; and their mechanism is such that when the tongue is protruded beyond the mouth to grasp any object, the papillæ stand upright or are even directed somewhat forward.
“In Nestor there are no papillæ of this description, but the tongue is here, as Dr. Buller says, ‘soft, rounded on the edges, with a broad central groove,’ and it is as smooth as in other Parrots. Therefore the Kaka Parrot cannot in this point be said to approach the Trichoglossi (badly so called).
“The peculiarity of the tongue of Nestor consists in the fact that the anterior edge of the unguis, always free (though for a very short distance) and jagged, as mentioned above, in the other birds of the class, is here prolonged forwards, beyond the tip of the tongue, for about 1/10 inch as a delicate fringe of hairs, with a crescentic contour. This fringe seems to result from the breaking up into fibres of the forward-growing plate, which is always marked by longitudinal striations, clearest anteriorly, the result of unequal density and translucency of the tissue composing it, though on making a cross section I was not able to find any of the longitudinal papillary ridges which are present in the human nail and which the striation led me to expect. The unguis is also longer than broad, and very narrow considering the size of the bird, as is also the whole tongue, though the length is greater than in others of the class. In the living bird the mouth is moist, as in the Lories, and not, as in the Cockatoos and others, dry and scaly.
“From these considerations, and a comparison of the tongues of Stringops, Nestor, and Trickoglossus, it is evident that the structure of this organ would lead to the placing of Nestor among the typical Parrots, though an aberrant one, and not with the Trichoglossinœ; and other points in its anatomy favour this conclusion.” (P. Z. S. 1872, pp. 787–789.)
Kea and Keha; “Mountain-Parrot” of the colonists.
superne omninò olivaceo-viridis: plumarum omnium scapis et marginibus nigricantibus: pileo paullò dilutiore, vix canescente: facie laterali magis brunnescente: dorso postico, uropygio et supracaudalibus sordidè cruentatis versus apicem angustè flavicantibus et nigricante marginatis, his imis olivaceo-flavicantibus: scapularibus et tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, his majoribus extùs vix cyanescente lavatis, remigibus nigricantibus, alâ spuriâ et primariis versus basin cyanescentibus, secundariis olivaceo-viridibus dorso concoloribus: remigibus subtùs pogonio interno versus basin citrino transfasciatis: caudâ olivaceo-viridi, suprà sordidè cyanescente lavatâ et fasciâ nigrâ anteapicali transnotatâ, rectricibus subtùs flavicante tinctis, et pogonio interno citrino vix aurantiaco dentatis: corpore toto subtùs olivaceo-viridi, plumis nigricante marginatis, abdomine dilutè aurantiaco lavato: subalaribus et plumis axillaribus lætè scarlatinis, minimis flavicantibus, angustè nigricante terminatis: rostro cinerascenti-brunneo, mandibulâ ad basin lætè flavicante: pedibus flavicanti-olivaceis.
mari simillima, sed sordidior et plumis nigricante latiùs marginatis.
Adult male. General plumage dull olive-green, brighter on the upper parts, with a rich gloss; each feather broadly tipped and narrowly margined with dusky black, with shaft-lines of the same colour, except on the head, where there is merely a darker shaft-line; ear-coverts and cheeks olivaceous brown, with darker margins; feathers on the sides strongly tinged with orange-red; primaries dusky brown, the outer webs light metallic blue in their basal portion, largely toothed on the inner web with bright lemon-yellow; secondaries greenish blue, changing to olive on their outer webs, dusky brown on their inner, and toothed with orange-yellow; lining of the wings and axillary plumes vivid scarlet, with narrow dusky tips; inner coverts towards the flexure washed with lemon-yellow; rump and upper tail-coverts bright arterial-red mixed with olive, and prettily vandyked at the tips with dusky black, this colour being richest on the middle tail-coverts and changing on the lateral ones to bright olive shaded with red and tipped with brown; tail-feathers olive-green on their upper surface, with a fine metallic gloss, paler at the tips, inclining to blue on the outer feathers, the whole crossed near the extremity by a broad band of blackish brown; the under surface pale olive-green, with the subterminal band less distinct, and broadly toothed on their inner webs with bright lemon-yellow; under tail-coverts dull olive-green, tipped with brown. Irides black; bill greyish brown; lower mandible rich wax-yellow in its basal portion; eyelid and cere dull yellow; feet yellowish olive, with paler soles. Total length 19·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 12·5; tail 7·5; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 1; tarsus 1·5; longer fore toe and claw 2·25; longer hind toe and claw 2.
Female. Similar to the male, but having the tints of the plumage generally duller, and the dusky margins of the feathers broader.
Obs. The bill is very variable, measuring in one of my specimens 2·25 inches along the ridge, and 1·5 along the edge of lower mandible. In some examples the lower mandible, instead of being yellow at the base, is dark brown, like the upper one, with only a faint line of lighter brown down the centre. This is probably characteristic of the young bird.
I examined a very brightly coloured specimen in the Otago Museum, the markings being unusually distinct. On the upper parts each feather has a narrow subterminal crescent of dull yellow, bordering the black and imparting a very pretty effect. The nuchal collar is heavily margined with brownish black, giving it the appearance of a collaret of looped lace-work. The feathers covering the rump and the short upper tail-coverts are dull crimson shading into green, then bordered by bright crimson and terminally margined, in a deeply notched manner, with black; on the tail-coverts there are generally two bands of bright crimson, and the larger coverts are uniform olive-green with black margins. These margins are very conspicuous on the back and mantle; but the blue on the outer webs of the primaries is less vivid than in many other specimens I have seen. Bill dark grey, without any tinge of yellow; the sides of the lower mandible paler grey. (Presented by Mr. Spence, Aug. 1877.)
Varieties. As with the other members of the genus Nestor, individuals vary much in the brilliancy of their tints. In July 1883, Mr. J. H. Berryman sent me the following description of a specimen procured by a friend of his in the interior of Otago:—“Bright canary-yellow, with a few red feathers interspersed throughout the plumage; vivid red on the rump and upper tail-coverts, as well as under the wings. Such a gorgeous bird has never been seen in the district before.”
Remarks, Apart from the difference in plumage, this species differs from Nestor meridionalis in having more pointed wings; it likewise has a longer, slighter, smoother, and less curved bill, without any notch. The subjoined woodcuts will best illustrate the divergence of character in this respect.
The first recorded examples of this interesting bird were obtained in 1856 by Mr. Cf. remarks on the skeletons of Nestor notabilis and Stringops habroptilus, with illustrative plates, by L. v. Lorenz, SB. Ak. Wiss. Wien, Bd. Ixxxiv. Abth. 1, pp. 624–633, pls. i.–iii.
It is essentially a mountain species, inhabiting the rugged slopes of the Southern Alps, and
“The rigour of a hard winter, when the whole face of the alpine country is changed so as to be scarcely recognizable under a deep canopy of snow, is not without its influence on the habits of this hardy bird. It is then driven from its stronghold in the rocky gully, and compelled to seek its food at a far less elevation, as its food-supply has passed away gradually at the approach of winter, or lies buried beyond its reach. The honey-bearing flowers have faded and fallen long before; the season that succeeded, with its lavish yield of berries, and drupes that gaily decked the close-growing Coprosmas, the trailing Paimelias, or the sharp-leaved Leucopogos, has succumbed to the stern rule of winter. Nor has this change of season affected the flora of the Alps alone; the insect world, in a thousand forms, which enlivened every mountain-gully with the chirp and busy hum of life, now lies entranced in its mummy state, as inanimate as the torpid lizard that takes its winter sleep, sheltered beneath some well-pressed stone. Under the effects of such a change, that cuts off the supply of food, the Kea gradually descends the gullies, where a certain amount of shelter has encouraged the growth of the kowhai that yields its supply of hard, bitter seeds, the beautiful Pittosporums with their small hard seeds packed in clusters, and the black-berried Aristotelia; these and numerous other shrubs or trees, such as the pitch-pine and totara, furnish the means of life to the Parrot. It is during the continuance of this season that we have had the best opportunities of becoming somewhat familiar with it.”—Out in the Open.
That distinguished explorer and geologist, the late Professor von Hochstetter, in describing the physical features of New Zealand, gives the following graphic account of the grand scenery in the South Island:—“High, precipitous, craggy mountain ranges, intersected by narrow longitudinal valleys, run parallel to each other from Foveaux Strait to Cook’s Strait. They are connected by transverse ridges and intersected by the deep transverse valleys of the various rivers. In the centre of this range are seen, towering up in majestic grandeur, the peaks of Mount Cook, Tasman, and the adjacent mountain giants, glistening with perpetual snow and ice, to a height of 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, almost as high as Mont Blanc. Splendid glacier streams, lovely mountain lakes, magnificent cataracts, mountain passes, and gloomy ravines with roaring mountain streams rushing through them—such are the charms of a wild and uninhabited Alpine region but seldom trodden by human foot!” But this furnishes only a passing glimpse of our noble southern Alps, with their lofty peaks, capped with perpetual snow, flanked with glaciers of almost measureless depth, and presenting some of the finest mountain scenery in the world. In the deep valleys which divide these upheaved zones of stratified rocks of different ages luxuriant forests flourish, and on the high mountain-slopes there is the characteristic low vegetation, becoming more and more stunted as it approaches the line of perpetual snow. Such are the haunts of the Kea! I have seen it soaring or flying—often in parties of three or more—from one peak to another, high above the wooded valley; but it is more generally to be met with on the open mountain side, flying from rock to rock, or hopping along the ground amongst the stunted alpine vegetation, in quest of its natural food.
Sir
For many years the Kea ranked amongst our rarest species, and it is not very long ago that a specimen fetched ·25 in the London market. But all this is changed, and, although still of very rare occurrence in the northern parts of the South Island, and quite unknown in the North Island, it has become, as will presently appear, an absolute pest in the middle and southern districts.
At the heads of all the principal rivers in the provincial district of Canterbury it is comparatively common; and especially near the sources of the Rangitata river.
The late Sir Julius von Haast sent me, from time to time, some beautiful specimens obtained in these localities, in the course of his geological and other scientific work. He informed me that in disposition it is most inquisitive, prying into and examining everything that comes in its way. On one occasion he left a large bundle of valuable alpine plants, which he had collected with much labour, lying exposed on the summit of a lofty mountain-crag. During his temporary absence a Kea
When hunting for food in its wild mountain home, it may be seen perched for a few moments on a jutting rock, then descending to the ground to hunt for grubs and insects, or to gather the ripening seeds from certain alpine plants, it disappears for a time and then mounts to the summit of another rock, just as I have seen the Common Raven doing in the higher parts of the Bernese Alps.
On the level ground their mode of locomotion is similar to that of the Kaka, consisting of a hopping rather than a walking movement. Like that bird also, they are semi-nocturnal, exhibiting much activity after dusk and in the early dawn.
The cry of the Kea, as generally heard in the early morning, has been aptly compared to the mewing of a cat; but it likewise utters a whistle, a chuckle, and a suppressed scream, scarcely distinguishable from the notes of its noisy congener.
But the most interesting feature in the history of this bird is the extraordinary manner in which, under the changed conditions of the country, it has developed a carnivorous habit—manifesting it, in the first instance, by a fondness for fresh sheep-skins and other station offal, and then, as its education progressed, attacking the living sheep for the purpose of tearing out and devouring the kidney-fat, and inflicting injuries that generally prove fatal The first announcement of this strange development of character in the Kea was made in the ‘Otago Daily Times’ newspaper, in the following terms:—“For the last three years the sheep belonging to a settler, Mr. Henry Campbell, in the Wanaka district (Otago), appeared afflicted with what was thought to be a new kind of disease; neighbours and shepherds were equally unable to account for it, having never seen anything of the kind before. The first appearance of this supposed disease is a patch of raw flesh on the loin of the sheep, about the size of a man’s hand; from this, matter continually runs down the side, taking the wool completely off the part it touches; and in many cases death is the result. At last a shepherd noticed one of the Mountain-Parrots sticking to a sheep, and picking at a sore, and the animal seemed unable to get rid of its tormentor. The runholder gave directions to keep watch on the Parrots when mustering on the high ground; the result has been that, during the present season, when mustering high up on the ranges near the snow-line, they saw several of the birds surrounding a sheep, which was freshly bleeding from a small wound on the loin; on other sheep were noticed places where the Kea had begun to attack them, small pieces of wool having been picked out…… The birds come in flocks, single out a sheep at random, and each, alighting on its back in turn, tears out the wool and makes the sheep bleed, till the animal runs away from the rest of the sheep. The birds then pursue it, continue attacking it, and force it to run about till it becomes stupid and exhausted. If, in that state, it throws itself down, and lies as much as possible on its back to keep the birds from picking the part attacked, they then pick a fresh hole in its side; and the sheep, when so set upon, in some instances dies .… Where the birds so attack the sheep, the elevation of the country is from 4000 to 5000 feet above the sea-level; and they only do so there in winter-time. On a station owned by Mr. Campbell, about thirty miles distant from the other, and at the same altitude, in the same district, and where the birds are plentiful, they do not attack the sheep in that way.” The following statement appeared in one of the leading newspapers of the colony:—“In one instance a foal was attacked in this manner, and would have died had it not been rescued; in another, 200 out of 500 choice sheep were destroyed by these birds, which are the more difficult to shoot from their nocturnal habits. Two or three runs in wild districts have been abandoned in consequence of the ravages of these harpies. This is a remarkable instance of change of habits, under altered conditions, for, of course, it is only within a few years that sheep have been introduced into the part of the country the Kea inhabits, and there was formerly no indigenous animal for it to prey on. In the summer the Kea lives on honoy and berries. It is in the winter, when these fail, that it descends from the mountains and harries the flocks.” Another newspaper, by way of comfort, adds:—“The Keas have found rivals in Seagulls, which are now to be seen in the Lake Country, Otago, driving away the Keas from the carcases of sheep these birds are devouring.”
On the surgical operation performed on the living sheep by the Kea, an interesting paper was read before the Pathological Society of London, in November 1879, by the distinguished surgeon, Mr. John Wood, F.R.S. He exhibited the colon of a sheep in which the operation known as colotomy had been performed by this Parrot, of which likewise he produced a skin, both specimens having been sent to him for that purpose by Dr. De Latour of Otago. Mr. Wood was informed by his correspondent that when the sheep are assembled, wounds resulting from the Kea’s “vivisection” are often found on them, and not unfrequently the victims present an artificial anus—a fistulous opening into the intestine—in the right loin.
“The specimen exhibited was from a sheep that had been so attacked. It consisted of the lumbar vertebræ and the colon, showing the artificial anus between the iliac crest and the last rib on the right side—just in the place, that is, where modern surgeons perform the operation known to them as Amussat’s; below the wound the intestine was contracted, while it was enlarged and hyper-trophied above. The sheep was much wasted. The modus operandi was described as follows:—The birds, which are very bold and nearly as large as Rooks, single out the strongest sheep in the flock; one bird, settling on the sacrum, tears off the wool with its beak, and eats into the flesh till the sheep falls from exhaustion and loss of blood. Sometimes the wound penetrates to the colon, when, if the animal recovers, this artificial anus is formed; it may be on the left, but is more frequently on the right sideCf. an interesting article on Nestor notabilis, ‘Zoologist,’ 1881, pp. 290–301; also the figure facing p. 184 of ‘Out in the Open.’ This illustration represents a scene from the alpine country when under snow; a well conditioned merino is attacked by a Kea, and the animal in its terror, rushing hither and thither, has broken away from a small mob of sheep and is undergoing the first experience of torture from the beak of the Parrot.
Before the full development of the raptorial habit described above, the penchant for raw flesh exhibited by this Parrot in its wild state was very remarkable. Those that frequented the sheep-stations soon manifested a distaste for all other food and lived almost exclusively on flesh. They took possession of sheep’s heads that were thrown out from the slaughter-shed, and picked them perfectly clean, leaving nothing but the bones. An eye-witness thus described this operation:—“Perching itself on the sheep’s head, or other offal, the bird proceeds to tear off the skin and flesh, devouring it piecemeal, after the manner of a Hawk, or at other times holding the object down with one foot, and with the other grasping the portion it was eating, after the ordinary fashion of Parrots.”
At this period of its history the plan usually adopted on the stations for alluring this bird was to expose a fresh sheep-skin on the roof of a hut; and whilst engaged in tearing up the bait it was easily approached and shot.
In connection with the flesh-eating propensity of Nestor notabilis, I may mention a very remarkable case that occurred within my own experience, in which a whole fraternity of caged Parrots took to “cannibalism,” if I may so term the killing and devouring of one another, without necessity, and in defiance of their natural habits and instincts. I had the following Parrots associated together in one compartment of my aviary at Wanganui, viz. two King Lories (
When the Kea first began to frequent the outstations and sheep-yards, it was very unsuspicious and tame. Mr. Potts, Jun., snared a number of them by means of a simple flax noose at the end of a long rod. He describes them as exhibiting great boldness and confidence, clambering about the roof of his hut, and allowing a very close approach, for they had not yet learnt to regard man as their natural enemy. When caught (he tells us) they remained quite still, without any of the noisy fluttering which usually accompanies the capture of birds, even when managed with adroitness. One of the birds caught by him was placed on the floor under an inverted American bucket, the places for the handle not permitting the rim of the bucket to touch the ground. The Kea, taking advantage
At a meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society, a paper was read by Mr. Alexander McKay, who related a number of personal observations on the Kea, which went to prove that this bird possesses a high degree of intelligence. The author expressed his own conviction, as the result of careful observation, that the Keas had the power of communicating ideas among themselves. He related an anecdote within his own experience in support of this view. He stated that on “one occasion a number of Keas, after a consultation, delegated one bird twice in succession to untie the knot in a string which fastened one of their number to a pick-handle. This statement,” the report continues, “evoked some discussion. Mr.
The ‘New Zealand Herald’ of Sept. 12, 1880, contained the following announcement, which shows how rapidly the Kea nuisance had spread through the southern part of the country:—
“Mr.
From the KcKenzie country Mr.
The war which is now being waged against this Parrot must, in the end, bring about its extermination. On some of the sheep-runs a bonus of three shillings a head is paid to the men for all they kill. Mr. Rolleston informed me that on his own little run at the Ashburton he had paid in one season for as many as 800; and I noticed, as far back as April 1884, a newspaper report that at the previous meeting of the Lake County Council no less than 2000 Keas’ beaks were paid for.
In March 1884, Mr. R. Bouchier, the Sheep Inspector at Queenstown, reported that on a station on Lake Wanaka a mob of hogget-sheep were attacked by Keas, and in one night no less than 200 of them killed. Most of the birds, however, were afterwards destroyed by the shepherds, whose zeal in this work was stimulated by the bonus. The Inspector reported further that at the subsequent shearing hardly a sheep was marked, while the death-rate had been reduced by nearly one half. In the meantime the beaks of 1574 birds had been delivered at his office, for payment of the reward.
It is the fashion for cabinet ornithologists to declaim against the destruction of this “interesting form.” But there is a good deal to be said on the other side. In some parts of the country the Kea nuisance has reached such a pitch that the runholders have been fairly driven off their country. In places where a few years ago only occasional birds were seen they now appear in hundreds, attracted of course by the sheep There occurs the following singular confusion of two well-known New-Zealand species (the Kakapo and the Kea) in Mr. Stringops habroptilus) of a greenish colour, and with a circle of feathers round the eyes, as in the Owl. It is nocturnal in its habits, lives in holes in the ground under the tree-roots or rocks, and it climbs about the bushes after berries, or digs for fern-roots. It has fully developed wings, but hardly ever flies, and has lately exhibited a singular taste for flesh, picking holes in the backs of sheep and lambs” (!).
As a rule they confine their attentions to the latter animal; but there is at least one
On the habits of this species Mr. John George Shrimpton, of Southbrook, Canterbury, has sent me the following very interesting notes:—
“While residing at the Wanaka Lake, I received a letter from my brother Walter (of Matapiro) to the effect that you would like a specimen of the Kea or Mountain-Parrot, and any notes of their habits which I might be able to afford you. My time there was so short after receipt of his letter that, although many Keas were killed, I only succeeded in getting one fair skin, which I forwarded to you by mail a few days ago, and trust it has reached you safely. By this mail I forward a water-colour sketch of some young ones drawn from nature by Mr. Huddleston. In the rocky cavern, high up on the mountain, whence these were obtained, were several broods of young ones of various ages and sizes.
“I believe the Kea does not come farther north than the Rakaia River, Canterbury, and is strictly confined to the central range and its spurs as a rule, but may occasionally and will probably be more seen on those hills adjacent to the main range which attain an elevation of five thousand feet and upwards. There is no doubt that, in spite of the war waged against them, they are increasing very rapidly, probably owing to the plentiful supply of food in the shape of mutton which they can get, and to which they help themselves most liberally. Fifteen years ago, when I first knew the Lake country, it was a rare thing to see these birds on the hills even in their chosen home among the snow; but now you meet them in flocks of fifty even, and so bold have they become that they will attack sheep under the shepherd’s immediate care. Not that they were ever very wild; on the contrary, I think they are the tamest birds in New Zealand; and it is their insatiable curiosity that has probably led them to find out the taste of mutton. At first, they contented themselves with tearing up tents, blankets, and sheep-skins, the usual impedimenta of a musterer’s camp. They have now so improved upon that, that nothing less than the primest mutton will suit their fastidious tastes. Though so tame that you can often knock them down with a stick, and apparently so inoffensive, a single Kea will swoop down on the strongest fat wether or hogget, fix himself firmly on its back, generally facing the sheep’s tail, and commence digging his daily meal. Sometimes the sheep runs till exhausted, sometimes contents itself by trying to dislodge its adversary by a series of contortions only, but the Kea troubles himself very little about either; he hangs on till the sheep gives in. He then digs away, carefully avoiding the backbone, till he reaches the kidney fat. This is his choicest relish. His cries soon attract others, and between them the poor sheep is soon fitted for a museum. Sometimes a sheep gets away from a timid or perhaps less experienced workman; but he carries with him an indelible scar. On some stations about 5 per cent. of the whole flock are mustered in at shearing-time more or less marked in this manner, and the death-rate is almost incredible. I have no hesitation in saying that, on the runs bordering the Wanaka and Hawea Lakes, the loss from Keas alone is nothing short of from fifteen to twenty thousand sheep annually, and these the primest of the flocks. Although Keas are seen openly enough in the daytime, there is no doubt they work their mischief mostly at night, a bright moonlight one being preferred. A severe winter, with sheep snowed in, is their great opportunity; and this they avail themselves of to the uttermost. Although, like other Parrots, they are given to anything in the shape of fun or mischief (and, on one occasion they killed a young Kaka, tethered), I have never known them to seriously attack any animal other than a sheep. But as a moiety of them have advanced so far in the course of the last eight or ten years, it is impossible to say to what lengths they may aspire in the future.
“I cannot state for certainty that there are no Keas north of the limits I have here assigned as their habitat: I can only say that I have travelled over a considerable portion of that country without
I have reproduced, on a smaller scale, in the woodcut given on page 165, the spirited drawing received from Mr. Shrimpton, exhibiting a pair of ungainly nestlings in their alpine nursery.
There is a fine living specimen of the Kea in the “Parrot-house” at the Zoological Society’s Gardens, which appears to thrive in spite of the unnatural semi-tropical heat to which it is subjected The advent of this Parrot was thus chronicled in the London press:—“There is now in the ‘Zoo’ a very remarkable bird, the Nestor notabilis, or Mountain Kea, of New Zealand. It is a parrot of strong frame and powerful bill and claws, which were used like those of all Parrots for obtaining a vegetable diet, until the colonists introduced sheep and pigs. As soon as this was done the Kea seems to have abandoned vegetable food, and to have taken entirely to flesh-eating. He attacks sick or dying or disabled sheep, and with his powerful cutting beak opens a passage through the back, and eats the intestines. Even healthy animals are sometimes assailed by the
This bird was received from Dr. De Latour, who sent the following interesting account of it to ‘The Field’ prior to its departure from the colony:—
“A shepherd in bringing down a mob of sheep was annoyed by one of these Keas attacking the sheep while he was driving them down the mountains; being angry, he threw a stone at it and knocked it over. He succeeded in capturing it alive; he did not kill it, and in return the Kea made great havoc with his clothes. However, after cutting its wings and tying its legs together, he brought it down to his camp. There the shepherd broke his own leg, and came under my care, and the Kea came down shortly after. He was in an ordinary cage made of wood and small iron wire. He was only a day and a half coming down eighty-four miles, but in that time the cage was all but destroyed, the wires bent, some broken in two, as though cut with pliers, and the woodwork was reduced to tinder, and it was just a piece of luck that he did not escape. I had a strong cage of galvanized iron and stout wire built for him, and he has now been with me for two years. The cage is a big one, about 3 feet high, 2 feet across, and 18 inches deep, so that he has lots of room to move about in. He is rather expensive to keep, as he generally gets a mutton chop every day; he does not like cooked meat, and will only take it if very hungry; he will not touch beef if be can get mutton, but is not averse to pork. Some say the Keas only want the fat, but this bird takes lean and fat impartially; indeed I find the fat parts often left on the bone, but never any of the flesh. I have tried him with canary and hemp seed, but he does not seem to care for it, only scattering it about as though for mischief, and they are very mischievous. I am told that when they get into an empty hut—and there are many of these huts used only on occasions when the shepherds are out mustering and away from home for some days—if any blankets, tin pots, sacks, &c. are left, the Keas tear the blankets and sacks to pieces, and bend the tin pots until they are useless.
“My Kea does not care much for vegetable food; give him a lettuce or cabbage and he only tears it up and throws it away; he is, however, fond of the seeds of the sowthistle. I see that you say in your article that a specimen was received by the Zoological Society in 1872, which only survived a few days. It has struck me that my bird having been in captivity for two years, and being now tame, and we will suppose reconciled to his lot, would be in a favourable condition to bear the
“My purpose in writing has been mainly to acquaint you with the habits of the bird in captivity, and somewhat of what I have learnt of its habits in the wild state; and also to ask you for hints as to sending the bird home should the Zoological Society care to have him.
“I have just now another specimen of a sheep attacked by these birds; it is of even greater pathological interest than the other one which I sent home, for in this case the opening is into the rumen or large stomach; the sheep survived for a long time. There are also several other living sheep that have been injured waiting for favourable opportunities to be sent down. I want one with an opening into the rumen, so as to be able to watch the process of digestion. I think it would be very interesting.”
Although, as already shown, very easily captured, it is difficult to detain the bird against its will. My brother, during his residence in the back Mackenzie country, obtained, at various times, no less than eight live specimens for me; but in every instance they managed to escape, either by eating their way out of the wooden cage, or in some other, unaccountable manner, before reaching their destination “A Kea has been seen by his gratified captor to eat his way out of a wooden cage almost as quickly as it had been coaxed to enter it. Two which had been tamed by a neighbouring friend were permitted to wander at large. They regularly returned to his house for their meals and then rambled away again, scrambling and clambering amongst the trees and outbuildings. Any kind of food appeared to suit their accommodating appetite, but a piece of raw meat was evidently the bonne bouche.”—Out in the Open. If taken young, however, they are readily tamed and become very tractable pets. Dr. Finsch, during his travels in New Zealand, was accompanied by one which was daily allowed to leave its cage, and could be handled with impunity. I never heard whether Dr. Finsch sent it to Europe, as he then proposed doing, or whether it remained to share the vicissitudes of his consular life in the South Pacific Islands.
On being removed from its cage and fondled with the hand it crouched down and ruffled up its feathers after the manner of an Owl. I noticed that whrlst in the cage it had a habit of dancing up and down in true Nestor-fashion. It seemed very prying and inquisitive, trying the quality of anything within its reach by means of its well-curved beak.
A live one in the possession of Mr.
The inference I ventured in my former edition, that, judging from its general economy, the Kea nests in the crevices and crannies of the rocks in its wild alpine haunts, has since been verified, many nests of this Parrot having from time to time been met with, and always in such situations The following account is given (‘Zoologist,’ 1883, p. 276) of an egg obtained by Mr.H. Campbell:—“The specimen, with three others, was taken from a nesting-place, in an almost inaccessible fastness of rocks, high up the mountains near Lake Wanaka. An egg was broken in getting out; two of those remaining have also come to grief. Placed among a series of eggs of the Kaka (N. meridionalis) it can be picked out at once; it is larger, rougher, the surface being granulated, dotted over irregularly with small pits, a very few slight chalky incrustations towards the smaller end. The shell is very stout and thick, exceeding in that respect any examples that I have seen of the eggs of the Kaka. It is broadly ovoid, measuring one inch seven lines in length; in width it is one inch three lines.”
An egg in my son’s collection, being one of two found in a Kea’s nest “under a high cliff at Forest Creek,” is of similar form and appearance to that of Nestor meridionalis, but is appreciably larger, measuring 1·75 inch in length by 1·3 in breadth; it is pure white, with a slightly glossy surface.
Strigops habroptilus, Gray, P.Z.S. 1847, p. 62
Strigopsis habroptilus, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 8 (1850)
Stringops habroptilus, Van der Hoeven, Handb. Zool. ii. p. 466 (1856).
Stringopsis habroptilus, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Psittaci, p. 107 (1864).
Stringops habroptilus, Finsch, Papag. i. p. 246 (1867).
Strigops greyii, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 230.
Stringops greyi, Finsch, Papag. i. p. 253 (1867).
Kakapo, Tarapo, and Tarepo; “Ground-Parrot” of the colonists.
Ad. viridis: plumis pilei dorsique medialiter pallidè flavidis, irregulariter nigricanti-brunneo transtasciatis et trans-vermiculatis: uropygii plumis lætiùs viridescentibus: loris plumisque rictum obtectentibus pallidè fulvescentibrunneis, medialiter albicantibus: regione auriculari brunneâ, rachidibus plumarum fulvescentibus: facie laterali brunneâ, plumis medialiter latè flavicantibus: remigibus nigricanti-brunneis, primariis extùs etintùs flavicante maculatis, secundariis irregulariter flavido fasciatim variis et extùs olivascenti-viridi lavatis: caudâ olivascenti-brunneâ, ubique nigricante fasciolatâ: subtùs magis flavicans, viridi lavatus, abdomine puriùs flavicante: pectoris plumis paullò nigricante variis, hypochondriis magis conspicuè fasciatis: subalaribus olivascenti-flavis, obscurè brunneo fasciatis: subalaribus flavicantibus, minoribus nigro variis: rostro flavicanti-albido, ad basin saturatiore: pedibus flavicanti-brunneis, unguibus saturatioribus.
Adult. General colour of the upper surface dark sap-green, brighter on the wings and lower part of back, and largely varied with dark brown and yellow; on their under surface the feathers of these parts are light verditer-green towards the tip, with a fine metallic lustre; on the crown and nape the centre of each feather is blackish brown, with a narrow shaft-line of dirty yellow and a broad terminal band of dull green; on the back, rump, and upper surface of the wings, each feather is silvery brown at the base, pale lemon-yellow beyond, changing to sap-green on the sides and towards the tip, and crossed by numerous broken bars and vermiculations of dark brown; on the anterior portion of the back these bars are regular and distinct, but on the other parts they are interrupted by a broad shaft-line of lemon-yellow. These details of colouring, however, can only be observed when the plumage is disturbed, the general effect on the surface being as already described. The feathers at the base of the upper mandible, lores, sides of face, and feathers projecting over the lower mandible dull yellowish brown, with darker filaments; ear-coverts darker brown, mixed with yellow; fore neck, breast, and sides of the body yellowish sap-green, varied with pale yellow and brown, the distribution of colouring on each individual feather being the same as on the upper parts, but with more yellow down the shaft; lower part of abdomen, thighs, and under tail-coverts light greenish yellow, the longer coverts obscurely barred with light brown; lining of wings pale lemon-yellow, blotched and streaked with dark brown; primaries dark brown, largely toothed on their outer webs with dull lemon-yellow, and on their inner with paler; secondaries and their coverts dull greenish yellow, rayed and freckled with dark brown on the outer webs; dusky brown on the inner webs, with broken transverse markings of lemon-yellow; tail-feathers yellowish brown, with arrow-shaped markings along the shaft, and largely
Obs. The sexes are alike in plumage. Individuals vary a good deal both in the brilliancy of their tints and in the details of their colouring. The ground-colour of the upper parts varies from a dull sap-green to a bright grass-green, and in some examples the whole of the plumage of the underparts is strongly suffused with lemon-yellow. The barred character of the individual feather is more defined in some specimens, while in others the light markings on the quills and tail-feathers are softened to a pale yellow. Individual birds also differ perceptibly in size, owing probably to conditions of age and sex.
Captain Preece, R.M., has in his possession the skin of a Kakapo obtained at Hikurangi, in the North Island. Its plumage is in no respect different from that of the southern bird. Length 25 inches; wing, from flexure, 11; tail 8; tarsus 2; longer fore toe and claw 2·5.
Varieties. Of this species there is a beautifully marked variety in Mr.
A specimen in my collection has the cheeks of a bright reddish brown, this colour fading away on the edges. There is a somewhat similar example in the Otago Museum, with the crown, sides of the face, chin, and upper part of the throat dingy reddish brown. I suspect that this coloration results from some vegetable stain, inasmuch as in this specimen I observe that the ridge and sides of the upper mandible and the fluted grooves in the lower are similarly stained.
In Mr. Silver’s fine collection of New-Zealand Birds at Letcomb Manor there is an abnormally small specimen, the measurements being:—Total length 20 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·5; tail 7·5; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible ·75. The plumage as in the ordinary bird, except that, on the left cheek, there is a patch of yellow about an inch in extent, completely covering the ear-coverts and extending downwards.
I have examined the type specimen of Mr. Strigops greyii in the British Museum and have come to the conclusion that it is simply an accidental variety, although a very singular one, of the true S. habroptilus. The specimen is in very bad condition, the quills being much worn and abraded, and the tail worn down to a mere stump; indeed the whole of the plumage is dingy and soiled, apparently the result of long confinement. The feathers of the upper parts, instead of being sap-green at the ends, are of a dull greenish blue, changing in certain lights to a purplish blue. There is, moreover, somewhat less of the terminal colour; and as the barred markings on the basal portion of the feathers are fulvous white instead of yellow, the back has a more variegated appearance. The entire plumage of the underparts is a pale yellowish fulvous, mottled, except on the abdomen, with brown. The cheeks and feathers overlapping the lower mandible are the same as in ordinary examples, but without any yellow tinge. On the sides and flanks the feathers are slightly tinged with blue, but of a duller tint than on the upper parts; thighs deeply stained with yellow. The newest of the tail-feathers (i. e. the stumpy portion that remains) is rayed in the same manner as in ordinary examples, but without the yellow element, showing a decided tendency to albinism. In the wing-feathers, in which also the yellow colour is absent, the bars appear at first sight more regular and distinct; but on closer examination it will be found that in both wings the broad inner secondaries and the scapulars have been torn out (doubtless due to the bird’s captivity), and the barred effect is therefore more conspicuous. Although, among the numerous examples that have come under my notice, I have never seen one in any degree approaching this condition, yet I have detected in some a tendency in the feathers of the back to assume a bluish margin, and in all specimens these feathers have a bright metallic lustre on their under surface. There is no means of determining the exact length of the
S. habroptilus. But what tends more than any thing else to convince me that the so-called S. greyii is merely an abnormal or accidental variety of the species under review is the fact that some of the small coverts on both wings, and the feathers of the crown, have assumed the normal sap-green colour, thus betraying a strong tendency to reversion. In the absence of any other examples in a similar condition of plumage, this fact appears to me of itself fatal to the recognition of the species. At the same time, I should add that the difference in colour was so manifest and striking, that Mr. S. greyii as a good species. It only remains for me to say that I regret that my convictions compel me to sink a name designed by the describer as a compliment to Sir George Grey, who has always taken so zealous a part in the furtherance of ornithological science.
In Reischek’s collection there is a specimen with a single canary-yellow feather among the scapulars; and another has a bluish glint on the feathers of the upper parts, somewhat like that described above.
I examined a remarkable variety from Dusky Bay, this example having been obtained (as I was assured) at a considerable elevation. This bird had the crown of the head uniform dark green, the cheeks dull greenish brown, the markings on the upper surface generally very obscure, and the plumage of the underparts dull greenish yellow, with faint marbled markings of a paler colour, presenting a very soft appearance, whilst the flanks were prettily marked with numerous narrow bars of brown; the bill was pale yellow, the sides of the under mandible inclining to brown.
Mr.
Mr. Reischek, who spent six months in the West Coast Sounds, brought back with him some very beautiful specimens, differing from the common Kakapo in having the entire upper surface rayed with narrow transverse, more or less wavy, bars of brownish black, and the markings on the wing-feathers very regular and distinct, being of a pale lemon-yellow. Of this bird he writes:—“The Alpine Kakapo—so called by me, as I have never found this beautiful bird anywhere except on high mountains—is considerably larger and much brighter than the ordinary Kakapo. The young ones are much duller in plumage than their parents. These alpine birds are rare, but I was fortunate in securing about a dozen of them. Amongst them was a specimen of a beautiful varied plumage: on the top of the head very light green; back, wing-coverts, and tail yellowish green with crimson spots; round the bill crimson; throat, breast, and abdomen yellow with crimson spots; bill light yellow; legs silver-grey; eyes dark brown.”
Several of these fine specimens are now in my collection, and although I fully appreciate the difference in the plumage of the upper surface, yet, with my knowledge of the extreme variability of this form, I am unable, however willing, to recognize a new species. As to individual size, that counts for very little, for I have in my collection even larger specimens in the ordinary plumage. Again, one of the alpine birds received from Mr. Reischek, in which the colours are particularly brilliant, has little thread-like tufts of down adhering to the tips of the secondaries; it is obviously a very young bird, and does not conform to Mr. Reischek’s description as quoted above.
On the accompanying Plate my artist has represented this Alpine form, in the distant figure, just emerging from its burrow.
Young. The young Kakapo assumes the adult plumage from the nest, although the colours are duller than in the mature bird and with a less admixture of yellow; the ear-coverts are darker and the facial disk less conspicuous. The bill, instead of being horn-coloured, is of a delicate bluish-grey colour.
Nestling. In the Otago Museum there is a Kakapo chick apparently just extruded from the shell. It is extremely small for such a bird, and is covered with thick fluffy down of a creamy-white colour; bill and feet white. It was obtained at Dusky Bay, in April 1877, by Mr. Docherty, who presented it to the Museum. I have seen more advanced nestlings covered with greyish down. (See woodcut on page 191.)
General remarks. In the peculiar form which constitutes the unique member of the genus Stringops the bill is
This is one of the very remarkable forms peculiar to New Zealand, and has been appropriately termed an Owl Parrot. Dr. Sclater refers to it as “one of the most wonderful, perhaps, of all living birds.” As its name Stringops indicates, its face bears a superficial likeness to that of an Owl. In all the essential characteristics of structure it is a true Parrot; but in the possession of a facial disk (in which respect it differs from all other known Parrots), in the soft texture of its plumage, and especially in its decidedly nocturnal habits, it betrays a striking resemblance to the Owl tribe. Its toes, as in all other members of the order, are zygodactyle; but, as pointed out by Mr. Wood in an interesting article communicated to the ‘Student’ (1870, p. 492), the foot of an Owl, when the bird is perched, considerably resembles that of a Parrot, as the outer toe is then placed backwards with the hind one, so that the bird’s feet may be said to be temporarily zygodactyle, whereas those of the Parrot are permanently so.
Although it may, perhaps, be morphologically incorrect to say that this form supplies a quasi-connecting link between the Owls and the Parrots, there can be no doubt that the Kakapo, in some of its external characters as well as in its mode of life (as Mr.
Although exclusively a vegetable-eater, its habit of hiding during the day in holes of trees and dark burrows exhibits a further point of resemblance to the nocturnal birds of prey. As these latter are in reality night Hawks, so is this bird, what the native name indeed implies, a night Parrot; and the analogy thus presented harmonizes with the idea expressed above.
The feathers surrounding the eyes and filling the lores differ from those on the other parts of the body not only in being of a lighter colour, but also in form and structure, being narrow and penicillate, with the shaft considerably produced. Those overlapping the base of the lower mandible are more stiff and elongated.
All who have studied the bird in its natural state agree on this point, that the wings, although sufficiently large and strong, are perfectly useless for purposes of flight, and that the bird merely spreads them to break the force of its fall in descending from a higher point to a lower when suddenly surprised; in some instances (as one of the writers quoted below informs us) even this use of them is neglected, the bird falling to the ground like a stone.
We are naturally led to ask how it is that a bird possessing large and well-formed wings should be found utterly incapable of flight. On removing the skin from the body it is seen that the muscles by means of which the movements of these anterior limbs are regulated are fairly well developed, but are largely overlaid with fat. The bird is known to be a ground-feeder, with a voracious appetite, and to subsist chiefly on vegetable mosses, which, possessing but little nutriment, require to be eaten in large quantities; and the late Sir J. von Haast informed me that he had sometimes seen them with their crops so distended and heavy that the birds were scarcely able to move.
These mosses cover the ground and the roots or trunks of prostrate trees, requiring to be sought for on foot; and the bird’s habit of feeding at night, in a country where there are no indigenous predatory quadrupeds, would render flight a superfluous exertion, and a faculty of no special disuse, under the usual operation of the laws of nature, has, in process of time, produced the modification of structure which distinguishes this form from all other known Parrots and thereby occasioned this disability of wing.
The sternum, which in all other birds of its class has so prominent a keel, is so completely altered that it presents almost a flat surface, although the symmetry of the skeleton does not appear to have suffered in any other respect.
Prof. W. K. Parker says:—“Like all those who glory in ‘high degree,’ the Parrots have a poor relation or two to abate their pride. The Owl-billed Parrot (Stringops habroptilus) of New Zealand is as lowly as ‘the younger son of a younger brother.’ If birds were to be classified by the sternum only, then the Stringops should be put near the Apteryx and the Tinamou attached to the train of the Peacock.”
The late Prof. Garrod has pointed out that the Parrots, as an order, are peculiar for the variation that occurs in their carotids, which show four different arrangements, and that The same distinguished anatomist, in one of his earlier papers on the muscles of Birds, pointed out that the ambiens may be present normally, or it may be differentiated in the thigh, but fail to cross the knee, being lost in the fascia over it, or it may be absent; and he stated that in Stringops is one of those forms in which the two carotids run normallyStringops habroptilus it is present but does not cross the knee. In a subsequent paper “On the Anatomy of the Parrots” (P. Z. S. 1874, pp. 596–598) he says:—“I have twice had the opportunity of dissecting Stringops habroptilus. As a Parrot it is not so strikingly peculiar as many seem to think. Its wings are useless, and the carina sterni is correspondingly reduced, it is true; but as points of classificational importance, I regard these as insignificant. The points of special anatomical interest which it does possess, however, are particularly instructive. The proximal ends of the incomplete furcula are well developed, so much so that it might at first sight seem that the symphysial ends are only lost in correlation with the excessive reduction of the powers of flight; though this is probably not the case, because the allied similarly modified genera Euphema &c. do not keep to the ground. Further, in the Society’s specimen above mentioned, though the ambiens muscle did not cross the knee, yet its fleshy belly was well differentiated on both sides, its thin tendon being lost over the capsule of the joint. In the College of Surgeons’ specimen, however, this muscle was entirely absent in the only knee which was in a fit state for dissection, the other being much shot. It is only in the genus Œdicnemus that I have elsewhere found a similar partial loss of the ambiens. The partial development of this muscle in this particular instance shows that the tendency to lose it is not of great antiquity; and it is to be noted that there is no other Parrot with normal carotids in which any trace of an ambiens is to be found. These considerations suggest, what may perhaps be the case, as is suggested by the peculiarities of their geographical distribution, that Agapornis may be the representative among the normal-carotid Parrots of the Platy-eercine branch from the Arinæ, whilst the Stringopinæ proper (including Geopsittacus, Melopsittacus, and Euphema) are more direct continuations of the main stem, Stringops itself being the nearest living representative of the common ancestor of the whole suborder.” And in a postscript (dated Dec. 8, 1874) he adds:—“On the 25th of last month, from the death of one of the specimens of Stringops habroptilus, recently purchased by the Society, I have had an opportunity of dissecting a third individual of the species. In it the ambiens muscle is complete, of fair size, at the same time that it crosses the knee as in Psittacus. This makes me feel more convinced that the arrangement indicated by me is the correct one, and that the main stem has given rise to three instead of two branches—the Stringopinæ being the nearest representatives of the ancestral form, some of its members (Geopsittacus, Melopsittacus, Euphema, and Cyanorhamphus) having quite recently lost, whilst Stringops itself is just now on the point of losing the ambiens muscle. It is, however, quite possible, if external resemblances and geographical distribution are left out of consideration, that Stringops must stand as the sole representative of the Stringopinæ, thus conforming with generally received ideas.”
Conformably also with the doctrine of natural selection, we have here another striking instance of the law of assimilative colouring, which obtains more or less in every department of the animal kingdom. Nature has compensated this bird for its helplessness when compelled to leave its hiding-place in the daytime, by endowing it with a mottled plumage so exactly harmonizing with that of the green mosses among which it feeds, that it is almost impossible to distinguish it.
Although the existence of a large ground-Parrot was known to the early colonists of New Zealand from the reports of the natives, who set a high value on the feathers for purposes of decoration, it was not till the year 1845 that a skin of this bird reached Europe; and this was purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum for the sum of ·24.
According to native tradition, the Kakapo was formerly abundant all over the North Te Heuheu’s father, Ngatoroairangi, a renowned Maori naturalist of former times, was a successful Kakapo-hunter. He was (so the natives relate) accustomed to lie in ambush near the beaten tracks of these birds, and capture them, in the early dawn, on their way to their hiding-places. This good old chief is said to have attempted the introduction of the Snapper into the Taupo Lake. He planted the island of Mokois, in the Rotorua Lake, with Through the kindness of Mr. White, R.M., I obtained a native-prepared skin of the Kakapo from Taupo, for comparison with examples from the South Island. It was a very small specimen, measuring only 21 inches in length and 8·5 in the wing; but I was able to satisfy myself of the real identity of the species in both islands.totara, and left behind him other evidences that he was a “scientific man” far in advance of his time.
Until within the last few years the Kakapo abounded in the Urewera country, and the natives were accustomed to hunt them at night with dogs and torches. The Maori proverb, “Ka puru a putaihinu,” relates to the former abundance of this bird. The natives say that the Kakapo is gregarious, and that when, in the olden time, numbers of them congregated at night their noise could be heard to a considerable distance. Hence the application of the above proverb, which is used to denote the rumbling of distant thunderCf. Note on Stringops habroptilus and its skeleton by E. Deslongchamps, Ann. Mus. H. N. Caen, i. pp. 49–53; also skeleton as figured by A. B. Meyer, Abbild. Vögelsk.
The first published account of this singular bird is that given by Dr. Lyall, R.N., in a paper read before the Zoological Society of London, on the 24th of February, 1852, and which I have transcribed from the ‘Proceedings’ of that year:–“Although the Kakapo is said to be still found occasionally on some parts of the high mountains in the interior of the North Island of New Zealand, the only place where we met with it during our circumnavigation and exploration of the coasts of the islands in H.M.S. ‘Acheron,’ was at the S.W. end of the Middle Island. There, in the deep sounds which intersect that part of the island, it is still found in considerable numbers, inhabiting the dry spurs of hills or flats near the banks of rivers where the trees are high and the forest comparatively free from fern or underwood. The first place where it was obtained was on a hill nearly 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It was also found living in communities, on flats near the mouths of rivers close to the sea. In these places its tracks were to be seen, resembling footpaths made by man, and leading us at first to imagine that there must be natives in the neighbourhood. These tracks are about a foot wide, regularly pressed down to the edges, which are two or three inches deep amongst the moss, and cross each other usually at right angles.
“The Kakapo lives in holes under the roots of trees, and is also occasionally found under shelving rocks. The roots of many New-Zealand trees growing partly above ground, holes are common under them; but where the Kakapo is found, many of the holes appeared to have been enlarged, although no earth was ever found thrown out near them. There were frequently two openings to these holes; and occasionally, though rarely, the trees over them were hollow for some distance up. The only occasion on which the Kakapo was seen to fly was when it got up one of these hollow trees and was driven to an exit higher up. The flight was very short, the wings being scarcely moved; and the bird alighted on a tree at a lower level than the place from whence it had come, but soon got higher up by climbing, using its tail to assist it. Except when driven from its holes, the Kakapo is never seen during the day; and it was only by the assistance of dogs that we were enabled to find it. Before dogs became common, and when the bird was plentiful in inhabited parts of the islands, the natives were in the habit of catching it at night, using torches to confuse it. It offers a formidable resistance to a dog, and sometimes inflicts severe wounds with its powerful
“The cry of the Kakapo is a hoarse croak, varied occasionally by a discordant shriek when irritated or hungry. The Maoris say that during winter they assemble together in large numbers in caves, and that at the times of meeting, and again before dispersing to their summer haunts, the noise they make is perfectly deafening. A good many young ones were brought on board the ship alive. Most of them died a few days afterwards, probably from want of sufficient care; some died after being kept a month or two; and the legs of others became deformed after they had been a few weeks in captivity. The cause of the deformity was supposed to be the want of proper food, and too close confinement. They were fed chiefly on soaked bread, oatmeal and water, and boiled potatoes. When let loose in a garden they would eat lettuces, cabbages, and grass, and would taste almost every green leaf that they came across. One which I brought within six hundred miles of England (when it was accidentally killed), whilst at Sydney ate eagerly of the leaves of a Banksia and several species of Eucalyptus, as well as grass, appearing to prefer them all to its usual diet of bread and water. It was also very fond of nuts and almonds, and during the latter part of the homeward voyage lived almost entirely on Brazilian ground-nuts. On several occasions the bird took sullen fits, during which it would eat nothing for two or three days at a time, screaming arid defending itself with its beak when any one attempted to touch it. It was at all times of an uncertain temper, sometimes biting severely when such a thing was least expected. It appeared to be always in the best humour when first taken out of its box in the morning, hooking on eagerly with its upper mandible to the finger held down to lift it out. As soon as it was placed on the deck it would attack the first object which attracted its attention—sometimes the leg of my trousers, sometimes a slipper or a boot. Of the latter it was particularly fond: it would nestle down upon it, flapping its wings and showing every symptom of pleasure. It would then get up, rub against it with its sides, and roll upon it on its back, striking out with its feet whilst in this position. One of these birds, sent on shore by Capt. Stokes to the care of Major Murray, of the 65th Regiment, at Wellington, was allowed to run about his garden, where it was fond of the society, of the children, following them like a dog wherever they went.
“Nearly all the adult Kakapos which I skinned were exceedingly fat, having on the breast a thick layer of oily fat or blubber which it was very difficult to separate from the skin. Their stomachs contained a pale green, sometimes almost white, homogeneous mass, without any trace of fibre in it. There can be little doubt but that their food consists partly of roots (their beaks are usually more or less covered with indurated mud), and partly of the leaves and tender shoots of various plants. At one place where the birds were numerous we observed that the young shoots of a leguminous shrub growing by the banks of a river were all nipped off; and this was said by our pilot, who had frequented these places for many years in a whaling-vessel, to be the work of the Kakapo. Their flesh is white and is generally esteemed good eating.”
Sir George Grey, two years later, sent the following interesting account of the Kakapo to Mr. Gould, who gave it a place in the Appendix to his ‘Birds of Australia’:—
“During the day it remains hid in holes under the roots of trees or rocks, or, very rarely, perched on the boughs of trees with a very dense thick foliage. At these times it appears stupid from its profound sleep, and if disturbed or taken from its hole immediately runs and tries to hide itself again, delighting, if practicable, to cover itself in a heap of soft dry grass; about sunset it becomes lively, animated, and playful, issues forth from its retreat, and feeds on grass, weeds, vegetables, fruit, seeds, and roots. When eating grass it rather grazes than feeds, nibbling the grass in the manner of a rabbit or wombat. It sometimes climbs trees, but generally remains upon the ground, and only uses its short wings for the purpose of aiding its progress when running, balancing itself when on a tree or in making a short descent, half-jump, half-flight, from a higher to a lower bough. When feeding, if pleased with its food, it makes a continued grunting noise. It is a greedy bird and choice in its food, showing an evident relish for any thing of which it is fond. It cries repeatedly during the night, with a noise not very unlike that of the Kaka (Nestor meridionalis), but not so loud.
“The Kakapo is a very clever and intelligent bird—in fact, singularly so; contracts a strong affection for those who are kind to it; shows its attachment by climbing about and rubbing itself against its friend, and is eminently a social and playful bird: indeed, were it not for its dirty habits, it would make a far better pet than any other bird with which I am acquainted; for its manner of showing its attachment by playfulness and fondling is more like that of a dog than a bird.
“It builds in holes under trees and rocks, and lays two or three white eggs, about the size of a pullet’s, in the month of February; and the young birds are found in March. At present (1854) the bird is known to exist only in the Middle Island of New Zealand, on the west coast, between Chalky Harbour and Jackson’s Bay, and in the Northern Island about the sources of the Wanganui and in part of the Taupo countries. It was, within the recollection of the old people, abundant in every part of New Zealand; and they say it has been exterminated by the cats introduced by the Europeans, which are now found wild and in great numbers in every part of the country. They say also that the large rat introduced from Europe has done its part in the work of destruction.
“The natives assert that, when the breeding-season is over, the Kakapo lives in societies of five or six in the same hole; and they say it is a provident bird, and lays up in the fine season a store of fern-root for the bad weather. I have had five or six of the birds in captivity, but never succeeded in keeping them alive for more than eighteen months or two years. The last I had I sent home as a present to the Zoological Society; but it died off Cape Horn.”
Mr. The Council of the Society offered a sum of ·60 for this bird, but were unable to come to terms with the owner.
This notice called forth a letter ‘Field’ newspaper, November 12, 1870.
“I am surprised to find that during the time it was in the Zoological Gardens it very rarely showed itself in the daytime. My experience has been the reverse of this. It has generally been lively enough during the greater part of the day, though not quite so violent and noisy as at night. I had this bird at Saltburn, in Yorkshire, during the summer; and any of your readers who were at that place in the month of August, will remember seeing this bird at the bazaar held in aid of the district church, on which occasion its playfulness never flagged during the whole day. This may partly have been due to excitement at seeing so many strange faces; but it also, no doubt, felt the excellence of the cause (recollect, Sir G. Grey testifies to its cleverness and intelligence), and exerted itself accordingly to help the Church-building Fund.”
In another account of the habits of the particular bird in his possession, Mr. Sale remarks:—“I observe that it rarely makes any noise by day; but about dusk it usually begins to screech, its object being apparently to attract attention; for if let loose from its cage and allowed to have its usual play, it ceases to make any noise. It also makes a grunting noise when eating, especially if pleased; and I have myself attracted it to me by imitating the same sound It also screeches sometimes when handled, not apparently from anger, but more from timidity.” In a note he adds:—“The sound of the bird is not a shrill scream, but a muffled screech, more like a mingled grunt and screech.”
Sir
“The name of Owl Parrot is very appropriate, from the aspect of its head and face, as the bill is short and almost buried among feathers and long bristly hairs like the whiskers of a cat. These whiskers, no doubt, are used in the same manner, as delicate feelers for distinguishing objects in the dark, as the Kakapo is strictly nocturnal in its habits—never stirring from the holes and burrows in which it rests during the day until nightfall. They then emerge from the woods to the sides of the rivers; and, as they feed, their harsh screams can be heard at intervals until they return at daybreak to the depths of the forest. Notwithstanding the shortness of their legs and large size of their feet, they run at a good pace, with a waddling duck-like gait; and though they climb with great facility,
Carmichellia), which they chew up into a ball without detaching it from the plant—satisfying themselves with the juice which they extract. Their haunts are therefore easily recognized by the little woolly balls of chewed fibre which dangle from the branches of the shrubs, or strew the ground where they have been feasting on the succulent grasses. It is stated by the Maoris that in winter they assemble in large numbers, as if for business; for after confabulating together for some time with great uproar, they march off in bands in different directions. However, they are not gregarious at all seasons of the year, but are generally found in families of two or three together. They breed in February, having two eggs at a time, which they lay in the holes they scrape for dormitories under the roots of decayed trees and fallen rocks.
“The Kakapo can only be successfully hunted with dogs. The best time for hunting these birds is in the early morning, as soon as it is sufficiently light to permit of the sportsman passing rapidly through the bush, as at that time the scent is still fresh of the birds that were abroad during the night. The Maori dogs enjoy the sport very keenly, and follow it largely on their own account—so much so that, when the Maoris encamp in a locality where these nocturnal birds abound, the dogs grow fat and sleek, and the birds are soon exterminated. The Kakapo is esteemed a great delicacy by the natives; but its flesh has a strong and slightly stringent flavour.”
Probably no New-Zealand explorer enjoyed more favourable opportunities for investigating the natural history of the Kakapo than the late Sir Julius von Haast, whose observations on the subject were embodied in a paper, full of scientific interest, read before the Canterbury Philosophical Society on the 4th June, 1863.
A German version of this paper was contributed by the author to the ‘Verhandlungen’ of the Zoological and Botanical Association of Vienna, of October 10, 1863. A translation appeared in ‘The Ibis’ of the following year (pp. 340–346); and, curiously enough, a retranslation was published in the ‘Journal für Ornithologie’ for 1864 (pp. 458–464). But the paper as originally written has never been published; and as the author favoured me at the time with a private copy of it, I have much pleasure in finding room for the following copious extracts:—
“So little is known of this solitary inhabitant of our primeval forests, that the following short narrative of observations which I was fortunate enough to make during my recent west-coast journey may interest you. Although I was travelling almost continuously for several years in the interior of these islands, it was only during my last journey that I was enabled to study its natural history. I was well acquainted with its call, and had often observed its tracks in the sands of the river-beds and in the fresh fallen snow, but I had not actually seen it. The principal reason for this was, that formerly I had no dog with me; and consequently it would only be by the greatest accident that this bird, not at all rare in those untrodden regions, could be obtained.
“The true habitat of the Kakapo is the mossy open Fagus-forest, near mountain-streams, with occasional grassy plots; but it also lives both on the hill-sides, amongst enormous blocks of rock, mostly overgrown with roots of trees and a deep covering of moss, and on wooded flats along the banks of the larger rivers, liable to be inundated by heavy rainfalls or by the sudden melting of the
Fagus-forests exist there also. It appears to have crossed the main chain at the low wooded pass which leads from the source of the Heast to that of the Makarora, and reached the mouth of this river at Lake Wanaka, where probably the absence of forest put a stop to its further advance. It is very abundant in the valley of the last-mentioned river, and is found even in the Makarora bush, notwithstanding that numerous sawyers are at work there. When camped on the borders of that forest, we continually heard its call near our tents; but none of the sawyers had any idea of the existence of such a large bird in their neighbourhood, although the irregular shrill call had sometimes attracted their attention. It also occurs in the valley of the Wilkin, but is less numerous there, which may be accounted for by the existence of wild dogs in this locality. We may therefore safely assume that from the junction of this river with the Makarora the Kakapo ascended toward the sources of the former. In the valley of the Hunter, only divided by a mountain-range of great altitude but with some low saddles, no sign of it was to be observed, although large Fagus-forests would appear to offer a propitious abode…… This bird has hitherto been pronounced to be of true nocturnal habits; but I think, from observations I was able to make, that this opinion ought to be somewhat modified. It is true that generally an hour after sunset, the dense foliage of the forest giving additional darkness to the country, its call began to be heard all around us. It then commenced to rove about, and, attracted by the glare of our camp-fire, frequently came close to our tent, when the heedless bird was immediately caught by our dog. But as we met with it on two occasions in the daytime, occupied in feeding, and as I observed that it knew and understood perfectly well the danger which approached, we may safely assume that it has, at least in this respect, some relation to diurnal birds. In order to show why I come to this conclusion, I will particularize the two occurrences I have mentioned, especially as they appear to bear directly upon some other important points in the structure of this bird. When returning from the west coast, we observed, in the afternoon (the sky being clouded), a Kakapo sitting on the prostrate trunk of a tree in the open forest. When about ten yards from it, the bird observed us, and disappeared instantly in its hole, from which, with the aid of the dog, we afterwards took it. It is clear that in this case the bird was not overtaken by the coming day, when far away from its abode, but that it left its retreat voluntarily during daylight The second instance I shall mention is more striking, and shows that the Kakapo feeds also during the day. It was towards evening, but still broad daylight, when we passed along the hill-side near a deep rocky gorge, and saw a large Kakapo sitting on a low fuchsia tree, about ten feet from the ground, feeding on the berries. When close to it, the bird saw us, and instantly dropped down, as if shot, and disappeared amongst the huge fragments of rocks strewed along the hill-side. But the most remarkable circumstance was, that the frightened bird did not open its wings to break its fall, but dropped as if it did not possess any wings at all …… In order to see whether they would fly, or even flutter, when pursued by an enemy, I placed on the ground a full-grown specimen, which had been caught by the dog without being hurt. It was on a large shingle-bed; so that the bird had ample room for running or rising on the wing, if for this purpose it wanted space. I was not a little astonished to observe that it only started running towards the nearest point of the forest, where a dark shadow was apparent—and quicker than I had expected, considering the position of its toes and its clumsy figure, resembling closely a Gallinaceous bird in its movements. As I was standing sideways to it, I thought that it kept its wings closed upon its body, so little were they opened; but my companion, who was equally anxious to see how our prisoner would try to escape, and who stood a little behind it, observed that it opened its wings slightly, but without flapping them in any degree, using them apparently more for keeping its balance than for accelerating its movements. This would almost lead to the conclusion that the Kakapo does not travel far, especially as I have already shown
Coriaria, by which their flesh was flavoured, all the birds examined by me had their crops widely distended by a mass of finely comminuted vegetable mosses, weighing many ounces …… I carefully examined the subterranean abode of this bird. From the account given by the natives, I thought that it would be found living in well-excavated holes, resembling in their construction those of the fox or badger, that the entrance would be so small as to enable only the inhabitant to enter, and thus to exclude larger animals from persecuting it. This, however, is not the case, because, with one exception, all the specimens obtained were either in fissures amongst rocks, or in cavities formed by huge blocks, tumbled one over another, and overgrown with moss, or in holes formed by the roots of decayed trees. The cavities in the rocks were generally sufficiently large to allow of my dog (a good-sized retriever) freely entering them. The openings to the other holes being smaller, it was sometimes necessary to cut away a few roots at the entrance. Inside, the cavity was invariably of very large size, because we could plainly hear the dog advancing several yards before commencing his scuffle with the occupant; and on returning, with the bird in his mouth, he always emerged head foremost, thus proving that the chamber was large enough to enable him to turn himself round. Before he had become accustomed to the work, the dog was often punished severely by the bird’s powerful beak and claws; but he ultimately became quite an expert, always seizing his prey by the head and crushing the skull. He appeared to take a delight in searching for these birds, and was never tired of providing for us in this manner…… The holes or abodes of the Kakapo were not only on the mountain-sides, but also on the flats near the river-banks, which are liable to be overflowed. There can be no doubt, that, when a sudden inundation takes place, the bird can save itself upon a bush or neighbouring tree. I do not think, however, that it can climb the boles of standing trees, because it never resorted to them during the night or when persecuted by the dog—except in one single case, when the bird ascended a leaning tree close to our camp, and remained till the dog had given up the attempt to obtain it But, notwithstanding that almost all the abodes that came under examination were natural cavities, I met with one hole which seemed to have been regularly mined. On the northern bank of the river Haast, just below the junction of the river Clarke, a large flat occurs, formed by deposits of sand, over which a thin layer of vegetable mould is spread, and on which a luxuriant vegetation has sprung up. The river, in washing against these deposits, has in some places formed nearly perpendicular banks, about six to eight feet high. At one spot, about two feet below the surface, several rounded holes were observed; and the dog tried in vain to enter them. After carefully scenting the ground, he began to scratch the surface with his paws, and soon succeeded in widening the entrance sufficiently to admit his body; and he immediately afterwards emerged with the bird in his mouth. There is no doubt, in my own mind, that this hole, at least, had been excavated; and the burrowing-faculty of the bird may be considered so far established. On a flat, in the valley of the Makarora, the dog brought one from the interior of a hollow drift-tree, which was lying amongst sedges and grasses in an old river-channel. There was never more than one individual in the hole, although very often within twenty or thirty yards of it another specimen would be scented out by the dog, the two being generally of opposite sexes. At night-time, in visiting our camp-fire, they generally came in pairs, the two being successively caught by my dog, a single or sometimes a repeated angry growl from the bird informing us that he had hold of it. These circumstances lead me to conclude that
In his Nelson reportLoc, cit. p. 7. Coriaria sarmentosa), a favourite food of the
The following notes were contributed to ‘The Ibis’ (1875, pp. 390,391) by the Baron A. von Hägel:—
“One thing I can boast of already is having been in the midst of the Kakapos: but I did not accomplish this without some trouble; for the In this communication the Baron mentioned that although he was unable then to give a complete life-history of the Kakapo, his observations did not altogether agree-with those recorded by me on the authority of Sir J. von Haast, who was the first to study the bird in its native haunts. As, however, he did not either then or subsequently point out in what respects the account appeared to him faulty, I have, since my arrival in England, written to Baron von Hügel asking him for the desired information, and he has kindly sent me the following:—“The notes I promised, about the habits of the Kakapo, to ‘The Ibis’ (which fact until yon reminded me of it I had completely forgotten) were never sent. I do not remember now the point in which I thought Haast in error.”Stringops, unfortunately, is driven yearly further and further up country by the settlers, and now it is only met with in the most lonely mountains-districts. But I hardly think that any trouble and labour would be too great to see the bird as I saw it, at home, and, what is even better, procure a fine series of specimens. My trip was undertaken from Invercargill, and consisted of forty miles by rail, twenty-four in a coach, and some fifty more on horseback, with finally a ten-mile row up and across Lake Te-Anau. This brought me into the midst of the Parrots. The whole ground in the bush, which is covered with thick moss, is honeycombed with their burrows—which emit a strong scent, a sort of greasy essence of Parrot-bouquet. The entrance to each—as in fact is the whole ground—is strewn with their excrement, so as almost to make one believe that a flock of sheep had been grazing there. I had an old Scotch shepherd and his dog with me, and they both proved very useful. The latter caught the birds very cleverly by the back, and invariably brought them already killed to us with their feathers in perfect order; but some we lost through his killing them in the bush instead of on the open tract of bracken where we were posted, and then feeding on them quietly before we could make out his whereabouts. The note of the Stringops is very peculiar, quite unlike that of a bird. I think it is when feeding that they indulge in a. series of the most perfect porcine squeals and grunts. It is really as like a young pig as any thing can be. Then their other, note, which I think answers more to a call or warning, is a very loud aspirated scream, with a sort of guttural sound mixed in with it, almost impossible to describe. Then, when pursued and caught by the dog, it emits a low harsh sort of croak; but some were perfectly silent to the last …… The food I found to consist of the bracken (Pteris aquilina), both frond-tips and roots, but chiefly the former. I examined six; and all were crammed with it; but what surprised me much was to find parts of two moderate-sized lizards in the gizzard of and old male. I think this is quite a new fact in the Stringops life-history”
Mr. Reischek says (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xvii. pp. 195–197):—“In April 1884 I found under the root of a red birch, in a burrow, two young Kakapos, covered with white down. During the same month I found several other young birds of this species. So late in the season as the 12th May, Mr. Docherty found a Kakapo’s nest containing a female sitting upon an egg, with a chick just
“The Kakapos leave their burrows after sunset and return before daylight. If they cannot reach their own home during the darkness, they will shelter in any burrow which may be unoccupied, as they travel long distances. They consume large quantities of food, which consists of grass, grass-seed, and other alpine vegetation. In July they are in splendid condition, those found having as much as two inches of fat upon them. I was much surprised and interested to find in the intestines of the old birds parasites from six inches to two feet long. These parasites are flat, about a quarter of an inch wide, milky white, and jointed very closely. I have found three of these parasites knotted together and many single ones tied in three or four knots.
“In the spring, when the sun begins to shed its warmth, the Kakapos emerge from their burrows, and select some favourable spots in the sunshine, where they crouch down and remain the whole day. In September I selected a suitable day for observing this peculiarity. The snow had disappeared from all the sunny places. I found three birds in different places, sitting upon low silver-pine scrub. They took no notice of my approach until I had them safely in my hand, when they endeavoured to release themselves by biting and scratching.”
On two occasions I have myself kept a live Kakapo, for the purpose of studying its habits. My first bird was somewhat vicious and would not allow itself to be handled. It had a great penchant for raw potato, of which it could stow away a surprising quantity. It was an adult bird when caught and did not long survive the complete change in its condition of life. My other Kakapo was brought to me as a young bird, being readily distinguishable as such by its dark cheeks, with little or no
To illustrate the extreme vitality of this Parrot, I may mention that on one occasion the Kakapo’s cage was left for a whole day in an outhouse where some painting operations had been carried on. The fumes of red lead and probably the absorption of the poison by the water which the bird had been drinking produced their natural effect; and at nightfall the Kakapo was found at the bottom of his cage, lying on his side quite helpless and to all appearance in articulo mortis. Restoration to fresh air, aided by a small quantity of spirit poured into his crop, brought the bird out of this state of asphyxia; and, although he continued very weak and tottery for twenty-four hours, he ultimately regained his full vigour and sprightliness.
On its general conduct I find the following entry in my note-book:—It is decidedly nocturnal in its habits, making for any dark corner or shaded recess immediately on being liberated from its cage. It walks in a measured deliberate way, and when hurried expedites its movements by flapping its wings. Sometimes it utters a scream not unlike that of the Kaka when excited or alarmed. It partakes freely of every kind of vegetable food: it nibbles grass, rolling up and detaching a blade at a time in a very deliberate manner; it devours with avidity lettuce, ripe tomatoes, apples, and raw potatoes; it sucks up the contents of ripe grapes with great relish; and it is at all times ready to make a substantial meal off fat mutton or soaked bread; so that, in point of fact, the bird is omnivorous.
It loves to move about among the herbage in our shrubbery, exploring with its bill and nibbling off the leaves, but never attempting to climb. In the evening it becomes more active in its movements, perambulating its cage when confined, and showing every inclination to be abroad. One night it succeeded in effecting its escape by twisting some of the wire bars, and after foraging about to its heart’s content it voluntarily returned before daylight to its prison-house, squeezing its body through the aperture it had made.
Its distinguishing characteristic, however, is its playfulness. When not permitted to climb one’s arm and “make-believe” at biting, it thrusts its head into the little tin drinking-vessel, visor-like, and struts about its cage, with every appearance of delight.
On examining my captive Kakapo at night, by the aid of a candle, I was much struck with the resemblance of its general contour to that of the Laughing Owl. It had the same habit of standing almost bolt upright, with the feathers of the head raised and the brows arched, as if in an attitude of contemplation. I mention this as among the many superficial characters justifying the appellation of Owl Parrot.
Mr. Kirk, the well-known botanist, informs me that this bird, as observed by him in captivity, evinces a great partiality for the male flowers of Pinus pinaster.
A specimen, sent to England by Mr. Murdoch, the Inspector of the Bank of New Zealand, lived for a considerable time in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, but in the same retired way as its predecessor, closely concealing itself in its box by day, exhibiting itself to the public only under coercion of the keeper, and then manifesting the utmost impatience to regain its dark retreat.
A life-sized drawing of this species was given in Gray and Mitchell’s ‘Genera of Birds’ (1842), admirably coloured, but placed in an attitude quite foreign to the habits of the bird. Mr. Gould gave a portrait of it in the Supplement to his ‘Birds of Australia,’ executed in his usual masterly style; and other figures, of less note, have appeared at various times. The coloured drawing of this bird in the ‘Student’ for 1870, as well as the woodcut in the ‘Field,’ although in other respects excellent pictures, possess a fault in common–namely, in having the tail broad and fan-like, instead of being compressed, narrow, and inclined inwards. This, as I have been informed, was owing to the damaged condition of the tail in the particular bird from which both of these figures were taken.
The egg of the Kakapo, of which there is a figure (from the pencil of Mr. Wolf) in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Zoological Society for 1852, is broadly ovoido-conical in form, and of pure whiteness till discoloured in the process of incubation. A specimen in the Canterbury Museum, much stained and slightly damaged, measures 2 inches in length by 1·4 in its greatest breadth: the surface of the shell is smooth, but without any gloss or polish; and on close inspection it is found to be finely granulate. Another in the Otago Museum is of almost exactly similar size, measuring 2 inches in length by 1·45 in breadth: this specimen is somewhat discoloured, probably by contact with the bird’s feet; the shell is minutely granulate, having a slightly rough surface to a sensitive touch. Another in my son’s collection is appreciably smaller, measuring 1·85 inch in length by 1·35 in breadth, and, originally of a greenish-white colour, is stained and discoloured, though somewhat unequally, to a pale yellowish brown.
A specimen from Preservation Inlet is rather larger than the last mentioned one, measuring 2 inches in length by 1·4 in breadth. It is yellowish white and somewhat soiled, the surface being without any gloss, and slightly granulate, or marked with extremely fine points.
New-Zealand Owl, Lath. Gen. Syn. i. p. 149 (1781).
Strix novœ seelandiœ, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 296 (1788, ex Lath.).
Strix fulva, Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 65 (1790).
Noctua zelandica, Quoy & Gaim. Voy. de l’Astrol. Zool. i. p. 168, t. 2. fig. 1 (1830).
Athene novœ seelandiœ, Gray, Voy. Ereb. & Terror, p. 2 (1844).
Athene novœce zealandiœ, Gray, Cat. Brit. Mus. Accipitr. p. 52 (1844).
Noctua venatica, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 75 (1848).
Spiloglaux novœ seelandiœ, Kaup, Isis, 1848, p. 768.
Ieraglaux novæ zealandiæ, Kaup, Tr. Zool. Soc. iv. p. 218 (1852).
Ruru, Koukou, and Peho; “Morepork” of the colonists.
Ad. suprà chocolatinus, scapularibus maculis fulvis plus minusve celatis notatis: loris, genis anticis et supercilio distincto fulvescentibus: regione auriculari chocolatinâ: tectricibus alarum medianis et majoribus extùs fulvo vel albo maculatis: remigibus brunneis, extùs albo maculatis, et saturaté brunneo transfasciatis: caudâ suprà brunneâ, subtùs pallidiore, fasciis distinctis saturatè brunneis transnotatâ: collo laterali et corpore subtùs toto Iætè fulvis, medialiter latè brunneo striatis: abdomine imo, hypochondrüs et subcaudalibus pulchrè albo marmoratis: cruribus et tarsorum plumis Iætè ferrugineis: rostro nigro, culmine albicante: pedibus flavis, digitis setis nigricantibus indutis: iride aureo-flavâ.
Adult male. Crown of the head and all the upper parts dark umber-brown, obscurely spotted on the scapulars and wing-coverts with fulvous white; lores and region of the bill white, with black produced filaments; forehead, fore neck, and upper part of the breast light fulvous, mixed with brown; underparts generally fulvous, with triangular spots of dark brown disposed in rows and blending; under tail-coverts fulvous barred with white; quills and tail-feathers dark brown obscurely banded, the former touched on the outer webs with fulvous white; feathers covering the tarsi fulvous. Irides golden yellow; toes yellow, with dark hairs; bill black, white on the ridge. Length 12·5 inches; extent of wings 25; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 5·75; bill, along the ridge l, along the edge of lower mandible ·75; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·25.
Female. The female is slightly smaller, and the markings of the plumage are less distinct than in the male.
Nestling. A nestling obtained at Westland (and apparently a fortnight old) is covered with thick, fluffy down, of a sooty-brown colour, with loose white filaments; inclined to tawny on the underparts, and whiter on the sides of the head and neck; bill dark brown, with a whitish ridge; legs and feet yellow. They assume the full plumage before quitting the nest.
Fledgling. In my collection there are two specimens of different ages:–
No. 1 has the forehead, chin, and sides of the face destitute of feathers; the crown of the head and all the upper surface sooty brown, or almost black, without any light markings; the plumage extremely soft and fluffy, with the downy white filaments still adhering to it, and more abundantly on the head, neck, and rump; underparts sooty brown, mixed with fulvous; on the thighs thick fluffy plumage of a dull tawny
No. 2, which is apparently ten days or perhaps a fortnight older, is in a condition to leave the nest: plumage as in the adult, but duller, and mixed with dark-coloured down on the breast; head well-feathered, but with less white about the chin and facial disk; feathers very fluffy and with downy filaments still adhering on some parts of the body; white spots on wings more regular than in the adult, forming two parallel diagonal series, following the order of the coverts; bill dark brown.
Varieties. Examples from different localities present slight but uniform differences of plumage. Specimens from the Nelson district are, on comparison with those from the north side of Cook’s Strait, invariably found to be more largely marked with white around the eyes and on the feathers surrounding the bill. As we proceed further south the variation is still more apparent, the whole plumage partaking of a lighter character. There is also considerable variation in size; and a specimen received by me from Mr.
In Mr.
Every New-Zealand colonist is familiar with this little Owl, under the name of “Morepork” “This bird gave rise to rather an amusing incident in the Hutt Valley during the time of the fighting with Mamaku and Rangihaeata, and when, in anticipation of a morning attack, a strong piquet was turned out regularly about an hour before daylight. On one occasion the men had been standing silently under arms for some time, and shivering in the cold morning air, when they were startled by a solemn request for ‘more pork.’ The officer in command of the piquet, who had only very recently arrived in the country, ordered no talking in the ranks, which was immediately replied to by another demand, distinctly enunciated, for ‘more pork.’ So malapropos a remark produced a titter along the ranks, which roused the irate officer to the necessity of having his commands obeyed, and he accordingly threatened to put the next person under arrest who dared make any allusion to the unclean beast. As if in defiance of the threat, and in contempt of the constituted authorities, ‘more pork’ was distinctly demanded in two places at once, and was succeeded by an irresistible giggle from one end of the line to the other. There was no putting up with such a breach of discipline as this, and the officer, in a fury of indignation, went along the line in search of the mutinous offender, when suddenly a small chorus of ‘more pork’ was heard on all sides, and it was explained who the real culprits were. “At the attack in the Bay of Islands by Heke and Kawiti, the native parties, in moving to their positions about the blockhouses and town before daybreak, commnnicated their whereabouts to one another by imitating the cry of this bird, which the sentries had been so accustomed to hear of a morning that it did not attract their notice.” (Captain Power’s ‘Sketches in New Zealand,’ 1849.)
When discovered in its hiding-place during the day, it is found sitting upright, with the head drawn in, the eyes half closed, and the feathers of the body raised, making the bird appear much larger than it really is. It will then allow a person to approach within a few yards of it, and, if disturbed, will fly off noiselessly for a short distance and attempt to secrete itself. It will often
remain many days, or even weeks, in the same piece of bush. In the volcanic hills or extinct craters that surround the city of Auckland there are numerous small caves, formed by large cracks or fissures in the ancient lava-streams, the entrance to them being generally indicated by a clump of stunted trees growing up among loose blocks of scoria. These gloomy recesses are a favourite resort of the Morepork in the daytime.
On the approach of night its whole nature is changed: the half-closed orbits open to their full extent, the pupils expand till the yellow irides are reduced to a narrow external margin, and the lustrous orbs glow with animation, while all the movements of the bird are full of life and activity. It then sallies forth from its hiding-place and explores in all localities, preferring, however, the outskirts of the forest, where nocturnal insects abound, and the bush-clearings in the neighbourhood of farms, or the ruins of Maori villages, these places being generally infested with rats and mice, on which it chiefly subsists. Like other birds of prey, it afterwards regurgitates the hair and other indigestible parts of these animals in hard pellets. That the Morepork also preys on small birds there can be no reasonable doubt, although it has been frequently called in question. Captain Mair has seen one, at sunset, seated on the branch of a tutu bush (Coriaria ruscifolia) with a live Korimako in its claws, and in the act of killing it; and a native once told me that he had seen one of these Owls killing and devouring a Parrakeet. Mr. Drew, of Wanganui, informs me that the stomach of one which he skinned contained the entire body of a House-Sparrow. Captain Robinson, of Manawatu, further attests the fact; for on one occasion, when walking in his garden after sunset, he saw a Morepork emerge from a blue-gum and spring upon a Kingfisher, firmly grappling it in its claws. The bird uttered a cry of pain or terror; and on my informant advancing towards the spot, the Owl released its victim and flew off, but immediately afterwards made a second attack, securing the Kingfisher firmly in its grasp, and only relaxing its hold at the moment of being seized.
Mr.
I have been informed by Sir George Grey that, of nearly a hundred Diamond-Sparrows which he liberated on the island of Kawau, very few survived the ravages of this little Owl, and that some other importations suffered in like manner. Sir
“The aviary is constructed in the usual manner, on the model of a bird-cage, of wire netting over a wooden framework, with a sloping roof, also of wire netting. Attached to the framework
comprising the wall-plates, on either side, there are wooden ledges, resembling shelves, on which the Larks rest at night, while the Chaffinches roost upon twigs planted within the aviary, and reaching within a few inches of the wire netting of which the roof is composed. During moonlight nights the Moreporks have been seen to fly upon the roof of the aviary, and after making, as it were, a reconnaissance of the defences, to pounce repeatedly against the wire, causing a loud vibration, and startling the feathered inmates. These, in their fright, fly towards the light, dashing themselves against the wire netting, until the Morepork, by hopping about on the roof, succeeds in fastening upon one of them, and, of course, making short work of him.”
In addition to the above evidence, sufficient of itself before any common jury to convict the culprit, I may mention that on one occasion in Christchurch I saw a Morepork, towards the cool of the evening, enter the verandah of the house in which I was staying and boldly attack a Canary whose cage was suspended there, vainly endeavouring to clutch it as it fluttered against the wires. I heard of another instance in which the depredator actually succeeded in tearing off a limb of the occupant in its efforts to pull it through the bars.
There has, in consequence, been a crusade against the Morepork in many parts of the country. But whether this wholesale destruction of an indigenous species, on account of these predatory habits, is wise, or even prudent, may be seriously questioned. The Morepork, as we have already shown, not only preys on rats and mice, but is also a good insectivorous bird, with a voracious appetite. Its habit of feeding largely on the nocturnal lepidoptera is of itself an inestimable benefit to the agriculturist, as it tends to check the spread of the caterpillar, whose ravages are becoming more severely felt every year. It is a dangerous thing to disturb the balance of nature by violent means; and, in a new country especially, we must be careful that in removing one evil we are not opening the door to an immeasurable greater one. For my own part, I consider the killing of a single Owl a positive injury to the farming industries of the country, and scarcely compensated for by the introduction of a score of soft-billed insectivores in its place.
I have sometimes found this species, at night, among the rocks along the sea-margin, from which it may be inferred that crabs and other small crustacea contribute to its support. In the stomachs of some I have found remains of the large wood-beetle (Prionoplus reticularis); and those of others I have found crammed with moths of all sizes, or with nocturnal coleoptera. I examined some castings of the Morepork in the Canterbury Museum. They are hard pellets, of an oval form, and of the size of a Sparrow’s egg, composed chiefly of the hard elytra and heads of various coleopterous insects, among which I noticed particularly the shining covering of the mata (Feronia antarctica), a handsome ground-beetle which is found on the Canterbury plains, but does not occur in the North Island.
I have noticed that individual birds are very local in their disposition, often fixing on a particular roost or hiding-place by day, to which they will regularly resort for weeks or perhaps months together, the ground immediately below the perch becoming at length quite foul with their accumulated droppings.
Judge Munro informs me that some years ago on opening a bird of this species he found in its stomach a specimen of the weta-punga, or tree-cricket (Deinacrida heteracantha), with a body as large as a magnum-bonum plum; and the stomach of another which I obtained in the Rimutaka Ranges, in the month of March, was filled with broken remains of the small weta (D. thoracica).
The flight of the bird is light, rapid, and so noiseless that, I verily believe, it could surprise and capture a mouse at the very entrance to its burrow. On examining the feathers of the wing, it will be found that they are furnished with a soft or downy margin, and are specially adapted for this manner of flight. From an examination of the orifice of the ear we are led to infer that the power of hearing in this Owl is very acute. It is therefore the more surprising that, on two occasions after dark, I have succeeded in seizing this species with the hand, when perched on the eaves of a verandah,
According to Maori legend, this bird was one of the first winged inhabitants of New Zealand:—“He kopara te manu nana i noho tuatahi te puhi o te rakau; he ruru to te po; no muri nga manu nunui i noho ai ki te motu, te kaka me te kereru, me nga manu katoa.”ke-e-e-o ke-e-e-o, repeated several times; and when disturbed or excited a scream, which is not unlike the alarm-cry of the Australian Rosehill. Parrakeet (Platycercs eximius), but louder and more shrill. At dusk also, before leaving its retreat, it utters a low croaking note, quickly repeated, which is responded to by the other Owls within hearing. This note resembles the syllables kou-kou, uttered from the chest; and among the northern tribes the bird is usually called by a name resembling that cry. It is, however, more generally known as the “Ruru,” and in some districts as the “Peho”
At night two rival males may be heard answering each other from neighbouring woods, or, as Longfellow expresses it,
Although habitually nocturnal I have occasionally seen it abroad in the daytime, but only during very dull weather. On the occasion of my last visit to Auckland, about 5 o’clock one afternoon, I observed a Morepork, in broad daylight, sail across the public highway, in the very midst of the busy traffic, and take refuge in some trees in the old College grounds, in a spot where (although it no longer forms part of the school enclosure) thirty years before I had played cricket and football with the friends of my youth. A few evenings later I heard another screaming among the chimneytops in Shortland Crescent, in the very heart of the city—facts showing conclusively, I think, that this species has not been much affected by the spread of civilization in its native country.
Although naturally very fierce, I have known at least one instance of its becoming quite tame in confinement and taking food from the hand of its keeper.
It nidificates, as a rule, in hollow trees; but in the Mackenzie country, where there is little or no timber, nests have been found under the shelter of loose boulders. The young leave the nest about the beginning of January, and may be heard during every night of that month uttering a peculiar, sibilant, snoring sound, sometimes sufficiently sharp to resemble the stridulous song of the native cricket. But the breeding is occasionally delayed to a much later period of the year; for I have heard young Owls in the woods at Palmerston North on the 6th March, and on one occasion, at the North Shore (Auckland), I both heard and saw a young bird so late as the 11th of April. On the other hand, there are sometimes very early broods; for the downy nestling, of which a figure is given on the opposite page (and which is now in my collection), was taken from the cavity of a tree near Dunedin in the month of November.
Mr. “Once the writer had an unusual adventure with one of these birds. It was early evening in the summer-time. The Owl was sitting on a gate. Anxious to watch and study its motions we sat down close by it; soon it left its perch, making a sudden swoop at the intruder. This manæuvre it continued to repeat time after time, most perseveringly, and with great gravity and deliberation. Only once was a blow felt; after each attack the bird resumed its perch on the gate. After a while the writer rose and walked up a dark ferny gully at some distance, when the Owl followed and again attacked him. This is the only instance we have met with in which this species has shown any symptoms of boldly resenting an intrusion on its privacy.” —Out in the Open.Vitex litoralis), containing three young birds. The Owls continued to breed there for three successive seasons. Captain Mair found a nest of this species in the hollow of a dry hinau tree
Elæocarpus dentata), containing two very young birds, which were “covered with soft white down, plumbeous beneath.” In a clump of wood on the banks of the Wairoa river I found a nest, also containing two fully fledged young ones. I sent my native lad, Hemi Tapapa, up the tree to capture them; and while he was so engaged the parent birds came forth from their hiding-place, and darted at his face with a low growling note, making him yell with fear
There are two eggs of this species in my son’s collection. One of these is almost spherical, the other is slightly ovoid, measuring 1·5 inch in length by 1·2 in breadth; they are perfectly white, with a very slight gloss on the surface.
Inadvertently named Sceloglaux novæ zealandiæ on the accompanying Plate.
Athene albifacies, Gray, Voy. Ereb. & Terror, p. 2 (1844).
Sceloglaux albifacies, Kaup, Isis, 1848, p. 768.
Ieraglaux albifacies, Kaup, Tr. Zool. Soc. iv. p. 219 (1852).
Athene ejulans, Potts, Trans. New-Zeal. Inst. vol. iii. p. 63 (1870).
Whekau, Ruru-whekau, and Kakaha; “Laughing-Jackass” of the colonists.
Ad. suprà lætè fulvescens, plumis omnibus medialiter latè nigro striatis: uropygio lætiùs fulvo: scapularibus et dorso postico brunnescentioribus, latè albido marmoratis: tectricibus alarum magis ferrugineo tinctis, fulvo marmoratis: remigibus brunneis, extùs ferrugineo lavatis et fulvo maculatis: caudâ brunneâ, fasciis fulvis conspicuè transnotatâ: fronte, superciliis, gulâ cum collo laterali grisco-albidis, angustè nigro striatis: regione oculari et auriculari brunnescentibus: corpore reliquo subtùs lætè aurantiaco-fulvo, plumis media-liter brunneo striatis: tarso plumulis albidis induto: rostro nigro, versus apicem corneo: pedibus corneo-brunneis, setis fulvescentibus ornatis, unguibus nigricantibus: iride rufescenti-brunneâ.
Adult. Forehead, throat, ear-coverts, and sides of the head greyish white, with black shafts and hair-like filaments; sides of the neck white, each feather having a narrow central streak of black; upper parts dark brown, the feathers of the crown and nape broadly margined with yellowish brown towards the tip; those of the lower part of the back streaked, spotted, and barred with fulvous and white; lower part of the fore neck and the whole of the breast dark brown, each feather narrowly margined with bright fulvous or yellowish brown; on the abdomen, sides of the body, and under tail-coverts the latter colour predominates, the centre of each feather being dark brown; the soft ventral feathers and the short plumage covering the thighs and tarsi light fulvous, without any dark markings; primaries dark brown, marked on the outer web with equidistant angular spots of white, and on the inner web with obsolete bands; secondaries dark brown, with broad transverse bands of white, and clouded in the centre; scapulars dark brown, handsomely variegated with ocellated spots of white. The feathers forming the mantle are all differently marked, some having two broad approximate lateral bars of white, others a double series of spots on each web, while others again have a narrow lateral bar of white on one side of the shaft, and broad angular spots on the other; a few of them are transversely barred and margined with a narrow terminal crescent; upper wing-coverts dark brown, with numerous oval spots of fulvous white more or less distinct; tail-feathers dark brown, with five equidistant transverse bands and a terminal margin of fulvous white. Irides dark reddish brown; toes fleshy brown, and covered with coarse yellow hairs; bill black, horn-colour towards the tip; claws black. Extreme length 19 inches; wing, from flexure, 11; tail 6·5; bill, along the curvature to anterior edge of cere, 2·75; cere 25; middle toe and claw 1·6; hind toe and claw ·75.
Obs. The above description is taken from one of the specimens in the Colonial Museum. In the British-Museum example, figured in my former edition, there is less of the spotted character on the upper surface, and the plumage is stained with ferruginous. The accompanying drawing is from a fine specimen, in my own collection, obtained near Timaru in 1874.
Nestling. When freshly hatched the young bird is sparsely covered with coarse yellowish-white down, the abdomen being bare.
Varieties. Examples differ from each other in the minute details of their colouring. The two specimens in the Canterbury Museum have less white about the face; the soft feathers forming the facial disk are tawny white, with black shaft-lines and hair-like filaments; and along the exterior edge of the disk there is a narrow crescent of pure white, each feather marked with a narrow brownish streak down the centre. In one of these examples the lengthened spots or fusiform markings on the upper surface are less distinct, while in the other they are wholly wanting; but in the latter the fulvous-white bars on the primaries are very conspicuous, and add much to the beauty of the plumage. In this specimen the feathers of the upper surface are blackish brown, with a broad tawny margin, those forming the mantle, scapulars, and upper wing-coverts having, on each web, a broad oblique oar of fulvous white. A specimen more lately received at the Canterbury Museum, and forwarded to Europe, and another in my own collection are sufficiently white about the face to justify the specific name bestowed by Mr.
A specimen obtained from the Albury Rocks is inclined to albinism, there being a number of white feathers on the head, shoulders, and mantle, giving the bird a very pretty appearance.
On this point Mr. Smith writes to the ‘Journal of Science,’ vol. ii. pp. 86, 87:— “The suggestion of Dr. Buller that the kiore maori (native rat), before its extermination, may have constituted the principal food of this Owl, is an important one; and my researches among the rocks at Albury, and experiments with the living birds in captivity, are greatly in support of this. In several of the crevices where I captured them, I found an ancient conglomerate of exuviæ ranging from three to twelve inches thick. From the under surface, and through the mass to nearly the upper surface, this conglomerate is thickly studded with Owl’s castings, composed entirely of light brown hair (which is unquestionably that of the kiore maori) and small bones. The castings more recently deposited among the rocks are composed of elytra and legs of beetles.” Of the examples in the Canterbury Museum, one was procured from the Kakahu Bush, near Arowhenua; and the other, killed at the Levels Station, near Timaru, was presented to the Museum by Mr. This bird was originally described by Mr. Athene albifacies; and Dr. Kaup afterwards made it the type of his genus Sceloglaux, of which it still remains the sole representative. Mr. Gould, in treating of this singular form, has already pointed out that its prominent bill, swollen nostrils, and small head are characters as much Accipitrine as Strigine, and that its short and feeble wings indicate that its powers of flight are limited, while its lengthened tarsi and shortened toes would appear to have been given to afford it a compensating increase of progression over the ground; and it does, at first sight, appear strange that a bird specially formed by nature for preying on small quadrupeds should exist in a country which does not possess any. It must be remembered, however, that when the Laughing-Owl was more plentiful than it now is, New Zealand was inhabited or, rather, overrun by a species of frugivorous rat, which is now almost, if not quite, extinct. The kiore maori, which has been exterminated and replaced by the introduced Norway rat (Mus decumanus), formerly abounded to such an extent in the wooded parts of the country that it constituted the principal animal food of the Maori tribes of that period. It was a ground-feeder, subsisting almost entirely on the fallen mast of the tawa, hinau, towai, and other forest-trees; and it would therefore fall an easy prey to the Sceloglaux. The fact that the extinction of the native rat has been followed by the almost total disappearance of this singular bird appears to warrant the conclusion that the one constituted the principal support of the other
My first acquaintance with this Owl in the live state was made in the Acclimatization Society’s Gardens at Christchurch. Unfortunately this Owl, which had lived in the Gardens for upwards of two years, was stone-blind, and its large eyes had a dead, glassy appearance; but I saw quite enough to satisfy me that, in its natural state, it is strictly a ground-feeder. Its appearance was very full and rounded, the feathers of the head and neck being puffed out to a considerable extent. Although it had the freedom of a commodious shed, I observed that it remained constantly on the ground, standing high on its feet, the strong, feathered tarsi being vrey conspicuous. It manifested much impatience or, rather, restlessness, striding with rapidity along the ground, or sometimes moving by a succession of hops, and generally in a rotatory manner, which may have been due to its blindness. The keeper informed me that this bird was a very poor eater, refusing fresh meat, and taking nothing but newly killed birds and live mice. A young mouse, quite paralyzed with fear, was crouching near the ground awaiting its fate, but the Owl took no heed of it; and in another part of its shed there was lying the half-devoured body of a hen Pheasant. I remarked of this bird that the feathered tarsi were much broader and stronger than they appear to be in the dried specimens. It walks quickly and with long strides, the body being held very erect; and when its speed is increased, the wings are raised with a quivering motion. During the whole time of its confinement, the keeper had never heard it utter a sound, except once, when it startled him with its loud mocking cry.
It should be mentioned that this bird, which was obtained near the source of the Cass River, in the county of Westland, was much darker in plumage than the specimens in the Canterbury Museum, and more nearly resembled the North-Island example mentioned above. As the colours underwent no change during its long confinement, it is sufficiently clear that the dark plumage is not a condition of immaturity.
The late Sir J. von Haast believed latterly that the large Owl captured by his dog amongst the rocky precipices in a creek near the Lindis Pass, and noticed by me, on his authority, under the provisional name of Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute, vol. i. p. 162 (1868).Strix haasti Procellaria affinis); for during the very long periods that captive birds were kept by Mr. Smith and myself, although habitually noisy, they were never guilty of this “convulsive shout of insanity.” That they do, however, when on the wing produce a sound not unlike laughter, is beyond question; and when several of them are hunting together they seem to laugh in unison. This is specially noticeable on very dark nights.
Mr. Enys informs me that it has been seen at the Bealey Police Station (in the Southern Alps), and that it sometimes utters a note “something like that of the Morepork, but just as if he had his mouth full.”
Mr.
“February 8, 1882. In compliance with your request I have much pleasure in writing a short account of my experience in trying to breed the Laughing-Owl. The drawing of the bird made a great impression on me when I saw it for the first time in your ‘Birds of New Zealand,’ and since then I had been searching for over five years, trying to procure a specimen; but I was never successful until April of last year, when I succeeded in finding a very handsome one. In June I found another pair; and again in September I found two more. They have been a great source of pleasure and instruction to me. I found the birds in fissures of the limestone rocks at this place (Albury), but they are certainly very difficult to find. I first discovered that they were about the rocks by finding several fresh pellets, and being anxious to secure a specimen, I procured long wires and felt in the crevices, but with no good results. I, however, discovered a plan which proved successful. I collected a quantity of dry tussock grass and burned it in the crevices, filling them with smoke. After trying a few crannies, I found the hiding-place of one, and, after starting the grass, I soon heard him sniffing. I withdrew the burning grass, and when the smoke had partly cleared away, he walked quietly out, and I secured him. I obtained four birds by this means. I explained in a former letter how very tame they became in a short while after being captured. I also mentioned their call, which varies considerably during the year. When I captured the second pair (male and female) their call for a long time, in waking up in the evening, was, as formerly stated, precisely the same as two men ‘cooeying’ to each other from a distance. The voice of the male is much harsher and stronger than that of the female, and he is also a much larger and stronger bird. During the period of hatching he is very attentive in supplying his mate with food, as no sooner had the food been put into the large apartment of their house, than he would regularly carry every morsel into the dark recess; when feeding her she would utter a low peevish twitter and rise off her eggs. I may here correct a mistake which I made in writing to you on a former occasion. I stated that ‘the male sits by day, the female by night.’ I only saw the male twice on the eggs, and it was at this time I wrote the letter; but I certainly was mistaken, as the female performs most of the duty of hatching. I also
Sceloglaux inhabits the dry warm crevices of rocks. All the birds I captured I found in such places, generally five or six yards from the entrance, perfectly dry, and where no wet could possibly enter. One thing surprised me much- the very narrowness of the entrance to their cranny. In some instances the birds must have forced themselves in. I noticed, however, that the crevices widened as they extended into the rock. The bottoms are covered with soft sand crumbled down from the sides, and affording comfortable resting places.
“Regarding the nidification of this bird, I am no longer surprised that so little is known, and likewise of its natural habits, considering that it conceals itself in such inaccessible places, and where few would think of searching for it. As a rule they could lay their eggs and hatch their young unseen and unmolested.
“The breeding-season may be said to extend over September and October. I found the bird mentioned in my last letter sitting on an egg on the 25th September; but it must have been laid about the beginning of the month, as it contained the chick I sent you. I discovered the bird by reaching a long stick with a lighted taper into the crevice. My captives laid on the 23rd, 27th, and 29th September, and again on the 20th and 22nd October “There is an error in the account given by Mr. Potts in his article ‘On Oology’ published in ‘Nature’ in regard to this species. He describes an egg in the possession of Master C. Richardson as having been ‘laid early in January.’ As I procured the specimen I may state that it was laid on the 4th of October. The writer of the above-mentioned article was evidently misinformed.-W. W. S.”
From Mr. Smith’s further notes I have extracted the following account, merely modifying it for convenience of narrative:-
“I first heard the Laughing-Owl on a very dark, damp night; and I frequently afterwards found its castings before I was able to discover the bird. After repeated searches I was at length fortunate enough to capture a very handsome one. He had secreted himself in a deep fissure in the rocks, from which I dislodged him by burning some tussock grass at the entrance-in fact I smoked him out. I think I was never so pleased at capturing any bird. I brought it home and put it in a comfortable cage, where its demeanour was very quiet. It was in beautiful plumage, with the facial disk grey, shading off to white on the outer edges. I remarked that the eyes were conspicuously large, and the iris bright hazel. From the blunted condition of its claws it was evidently a fully matured bird, and to all appearances a male. During the first night of his incarceration he remained perfectly quiet, and refused to take any food. On the following night he moved restlessly about his cage, and once in the evening uttered a loud hailing call, as if wishing to communicate with an absent mate. By this time hunger had overcome his scruples, and before morning he had devoured two live mice which I placed in his cage, besides several pieces of mutton. After a few days’ confinement he appeared to become more reconciled to the restraint, ceased to run about when approached with food, and indulged in a loud calling note when waking up in the evening. On one occasion I placed four live mice in the cage, and cautiously watched the result. After intently looking at the mice for a time, the Owl seized one of them, and, after bruising its head, tore it from the body, and swallowed it, and then devoured the other parts, tearing them to pieces before swallowing. After a pause of a few minutes he repeated the same operation on another mouse; but, although quick in despatching its prey, it is not so active as the nimble little Morepork. The latter species, instead of tearing a mouse to pieces, will reduce its head to a soft state and then swallow the animal whole. I tried my captive with some large lizards, which he immediately began to consume. I then offered him some beetles. After a long pause he commenced to eat them, with a quick snap of the bill. It was interesting to observe the rapidity with which he caught and swallowed them in succession, the elytra flying from the bird’s mandibles like sparks from a blacksmith’s forge. Eleven days afterwards I picked up in the cage a hard pellet composed of mouse-hair and the wings and legs of beetles: the rejectum of this savoury feast. On a subsequent occasion I gave the Owl three live mice: he treated two of them in the manner described above, and swallowed the other whole. I tried my bird with a live rat, but he failed to kill it after many attempts. I then despatched the rat and cut it up into small pieces, which the Owl readily devoured. At the end of a fortnight he had become quite tame, would watch all my movements very attentively, and with every appearance of confidence.
“On the 19th April I was lucky enough to capture two more birds. These were together, in one fissure of the rock, and were undoubtedly male and female. I had considerable trouble in dislodging them from their hiding-place. When I caught the female bird (the smaller of the two) she uttered a peevish twitter, and bit my hands severely. I placed them in a roomy cage, with a good supply of beetles and lizards. On the following morning I found that they had consumed all the food, and that they had already settled down to their new quarters in a spirit of contentment. I then gave them some pieces of mutton, two live mice, and a lizard, all of which they disposed of during the night.
“I placed all three Owls together, and although for a few days they appeared to agree very well, they afterwards commenced fighting; so I removed my first captive to a separate house, and left the pair together. The latter seemed perfectly happy in each other’s company, and on waking up every evening, both of them joined in the peculiar hailing-call already mentioned.
“On the 26th July I made a fresh excursion among the rocks, in the evening, in the hope of seeing this Owl in its native haunts, but without success. Later in the night I heard the laughing call from several birds simultaneously. They evidently fly a considerable distance from the rocks, as
“On the evening of August 23rd, when I went as usual to attend to my captives, I noticed that one of them did not come out to be fed, and on looking into their dark recess I found the female sitting on an egg. On the next evening when I dropped the food into the cage the larger bird was alone; and picking up a piece of the meat, he walked into the dark recess with it, uttering all the while a low, hoarse, croaking sound. I gently looked in and saw that as he approached the sitting female she rose from the nest with a very peevish twitter, and taking the meat from his bill dropped it at her side. This operation was repeated over and over again, till all the pieces of meat were strewed around the nest. On the 27th I found a second egg in the nest, scarcely equal in dimensions to the first one laid, and more oblong in form The following further observations on this case are from Mr. Smith’s diary:-“Sept. 28. Bird sitting closely on the eggs. To-night I found the female in the outer house, and the male in the recess, standing over the eggs. I retired for an hour, and on my return I found, to my surprise, that the male was sitting on the nest. 29th. To-night I found in the nest a third egg, which I removed. Again the male bird relieved the female in the task of sitting. 30th. The female resumed her duty on the nest, and the male bird carried every piece of meat into the dark recess, his mate responding with a weak call, and, taking the meat from him, dropped it again on the stones close to the nest, but did not leave the eggs. Oct. 7. To-night both birds were in the outhouse, and on looking into the recess I found the two eggs forsaken and perfectly cold. I attribute this to the intense inclemency of the weather on the previous night. Oct. 8. I confined the female to the dark recess in the hope of inducing her to sit, but to no purpose. Oct. 9. Eggs still cold, and I accordingly removed them. Oct. 20. On feeding the birds to-night I observed the male acting precisely as he did a month ago, and on opening the lid of the recess I found that the female had laid another egg. Oct. 21. Female sitting closely, and male carried every morsel of food to her. Oct. 22. Examined nest, and to my delight found a second egg. Oct. 23. Owl still sitting on eggs, but becoming exceedingly timid. Oct. 28. Nest abandoned, and on removing the chilled eggs, found that they contained well-developed embryos.”
On the 22nd September Mr. Smith found a nest containing one egg in a deep natural fissure near Rocky Peninsula. The parent bird was in the nest, and he left it in the hope of getting a chick, as the Owl was incubating. He continued, at frequent intervals, to visit the nest till the 17th of the following month, when, for some unaccountable reason, the bird had abandoned it.
A fine male bird received from him lived for a considerable time in my aviary, and afforded me much interest. During the spring months it was accustomed to make a peculiar barking noise all through the night, just like the yelping of a young dog. At times the cry changed, resembling that of a Turkey calling in the peculiar key that denotes it is about to roost. It was a melancholy cry, and is perhaps aptly described as that of a “disconsolate Owl seeking a mate.” But it ceased altogether at the end of December.
Subsequently two more examples (male and female) were received from Mr. Smith, and were placed in the aviary with the previous occupant, who manifested his pleasure, but not in a very demonstrative way, at seeing old faces once more.
They seemed in perfect health, and partook readily of all the food offered to them. I contemplated, with some degree of certainty, being able to forward them to the Zoological Society of London, but my hopes were destroyed. Through an unfortunate accident to the temporary cage in which these birds were being removed to my new residence on Wellington Terrace, they both escaped one
Owing to my absence from home when the last-mentioned pair arrived, I never had an opportunity of studying them; but my son has furnished me with the following interesting note:-
“The three birds agreed very well together from the first; but after the first few days I noticed that our old bird was scarcely considerate enough to the lady, ‘wolfing’ all the meat and leaving her to take her chance. So I separated them, placing the new couple in the adjoining compartment, with only wire netting between. It was interesting to see them come out of their boxes towards dusk, which appears to be their favourite feeding-time, and take up their station on their respective rocks. On a piece of meat being thrown to one of them, it will stoop down and gaze very reflectively at it for a minute or more, and then march off to its perch to devour it. I have noticed that they frequently make a whistling noise, and sometimes a note very much like a Turkey chuckling. Another sound they produce is exactly like the mewing of a cat. Solemn as they are, they seem to be inquisitive birds. If you make a whispering noise, all three of them will turn round and gaze steadfastly at you, remaining as motionless as a statue, until the whispering has ceased, when they immediately relax. During the day they remain concealed in the boxes, but they appear to keep up a constant low chatter with each other. Altogether they are very amusing birds in an aviary.”
There are two specimens of the egg in my son’s collection. One of these is almost spherical, measuring 1·70 inch in length by 1·55 in breadth; the other is broadly oval, measuring 1·9 by 1·5. They are perfectly white, and the spherical one has some minute granular papillæ on its surface. I have examined several other specimens, and the former seems to be the more typical one.
The two forms of Dr. Finsch says:—“Mr. Sharpe includes “Amongst the desiderata of our public collections, a very small Owl (Strigidæ described above are the only ones inhabiting New Zealand of which we have, as yet, any positive knowledgeStrix delicatula, Gould, in the avifauna of New Zealand (‘Erebus and Terror,’ 2nd edition, p. 23) on account of my statement (Journ. für Ornith. 1867, p. 318). But I long ago stated (Journ. für Ornith. 1870, p. 245) that I had made a mistake on this point.”Strix parvissima Athene parvissima) has for some time held a place. Many doubt its existence, few have seen it, fewer still have formed any note or observation concerning it. From the information that has been gleaned about this rare bird, it would appear that one of its habitats used to be the woods about the Rangitata river. One was captured with the hand on the bank of a creek, at no great distance from Mount Peel forest.”-Out in the Open.Spiloglaux novæ zealandiæ.
In the British Museum Catalogue (Birds, vol. ii. p. 43) Mr. Sharpe refers Strix parvissima, Ellman, to Scops novæ zealandiæ, Bonaparte; but I can find no evidence that the unique specimen of the latter in the Leiden Museum ever came from New Zealand, the only authority for this being a label in Temminck’s handwriting, “Nouvelle Zélande,” but without locality.
Circus assimilis, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 2 (1844, nec J. & S.).
Circus gouldi, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 34 (1850).
Falco harpe, Haast, Layard, Taylor (nec Forst.), 1859–1861.
Falco aurioculus, Ellman, Zoologist, 1861, p. 7464.
Circus approximans, Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 36 (1869).
Kahu and Manutahae; in some districts Kahu-maiepa and Kahu-komokomo; also Kahu-korako and Kahu-pango Mr. Gurney has sent me the following note:—“The circumstance which you mention (page 11 of 1st edition) of Circus gouldi being called by the natives ‘kahu-pango’ strikes me as very curious, as C. macroscelis bears the name of ‘papango’ in Madagascar, and C. maillardi in Réunion (vide Ibis, 1863, p. 338 and note). The fact of the Réunion Harrier being called ‘papango’ was also mentioned to me by a resident there.”
Ad. suprà brunneus, sub certâ luce cuprco nitens, dorsi plumis plus minusve fulvo lavatis et terminatis: pilei plumis medialiter et longitudinaliter nigris, ferrugineo marginatis: nuchâ cum collo postico et laterali clariùs fulvescentioribus: regione oculari nigrâ: facie laterali brunneâ, plumis medialiter nigris: radio faciali saturaté brunneo, ferrugineo tincto et fulvescenti mixto: dorso postico brunneo, plumis laté fulvo terminatis: uropygio imo et supracaudalibus albis, his fasciâ fulvâ anteapicali transnotatis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, minimis fulvo et albo lavatis: alâ spuriâ cinereo lavatâ: remigibus brunneis, ad apicem saturatioribus, extùs argenteo-cinereo lavatis, saturatè brunneo transfasciatis: caudâ cinereâ, rectricibus exterioribus ferrugineis, plus minusve albicantibus, pennis centralibus distinctè, exterioribus irregulariter brunneo transfasciatis, omnibus ad apicem albis: caudâ subtùs albicante, fasciis brunneis interruptis notatâ: subtùs lactescenti-albus, paullò fulvescens: gulâ brunneâ, plumis medialiter nigris: pectore toto distinctè brunneo longitudinaliter striato: cruribus paullò ferrugineo tinctis, suprà angustè ferrugineo striatis: subalaribus albis, maculis ferrugineis et brunneis notatis: cerê et pedibus flavis: rostro et ungulis nigris: iride lætè flavâ.
♂ mari paullò major et ferè pallidior: scapularibus rufescenti-albo terminatis.
Juv. chocolatinus, cupreo nitens, pileo vix nigricantiore: nuchâ albicanti-fulvo notatâ: subtùs ferrugineo tinctus: caudâ subtùs albicante, suprà chocolatinâ, ferrugineo marmoratâ: remigibus subtùs ad basin lactescentibus, plus minusve brunneo marmoratis: cerâ et pedibus flavis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
Adult male. Upper parts dark brown, the feathers of the head and neck broadly margined with reddish fulvous, the wing-coverts and scapulars terminally edged with pale rufous brown; quills black, with the outer web silvery grey, obscurely banded; tail, when closed, light silvery brown, with interrupted, transverse bars and a subterminal band of dark brown; the lateral tail-feathers washed with rufous; the bars more conspicuous when the tail is spread; upper tail-coverts pure white, barred near the tip with rufous brown; superadjacent feathers tipped with rufous. Underparts generally pale fulvous, with a broad dash of rufous brown down the centre of each feather, these markings being thickest on the breast and sides; tibïal plumes paler fulvous, with the central streak much reduced; the axillary plumes, which are remarkably long, pale rufous, barred
Adult female. Slightly larger than the male, but differing very little in plumage. The tints generally are lighter, the edges of the scapulars are rufous white instead of brown; and the wings are varied with rufous and white, especially towards the flexure. Length 23 inches; extent of wings 54.
Young. In the young bird the whole of the plumage is chocolate-brown, darker on the upper parts, and edged with paler brown; hind part of the neck varied with white, and tinged with rufous; upper tail-coverts rufous brown, with paler tips and fulvous at the base, sometimes white barred with rufous brown. Cere and legs yellow; irides dark brown.
Nestling. Covered with very thick or woolly down of a buffy white or pale yellowish cream-colour, darker on the upper surface. Bill and legs yellow. The feathers appear first on the shoulders, wings, and tail; these are blackish brown, the tail-feathers with rufous tips.
Fledgling. Has the plumage of the underparts much suffused with brown, the primary wing-coverts and the scapulars with a filamentous fringe of rufous; a similar fringe on the secondaries but paler; tail-feathers and their upper coverts largely and somewhat irregularly marked at the tips with rufous; feathers of the nape edged with darker rufous.
A well-feathered fledgling in my collection, with rectrices more than four inches long, has still some fulvous-white down adhering to the crop, flanks, and upper edges of wings. Claws well developed and very sharp.
Progress towards maturity. Upper parts dark brown with a purple gloss; the tail with five rather obscure bars of black about half an inch apart, and darkest towards the tip; upper tail-coverts delicate fawn-colour, with the centre of each feather brown, shaded off on the sides. The wing-coverts have a coppery hue, and the longer ones, together with the scapulars, are narrowly tipped with rufous white. Underparts bright chocolate-brown, tinged with rufous, especially on the neck and abdomen; tibial plumes rufous brown. Cere and legs yellow; beak and claws black; irides bright yellowish brown.
My eldest son, writing to me from Horowhenua on the 6th of May, 1881, says:—“I shot a beautiful Harrier yesterday, winging it when very nearly out of range. The plumage is handsomely mottled, and on the upper surface of the wings there is a steel-blue lustre; the breast yellowish white; lower part of body and tibials nearly pure white. Instead of the unpleasant odour peculiar to these carrion-feeders, it has a ‘woody’ smell like that of the Kaka.”Obs. It must be noted that individuals differ, more or less, in the details of their colouring during their progress towards maturity
Dr. Finsch writes:—“A comparison of specimens in the Leiden Museum from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and New Caledonia has fully convinced me of their identity. The specimen from New Caledonia (The present species is spread over a wide geographical area; for not only is it found in all parts of our own country, but it also occurs in Australia and Tasmania, and extends eastward to the Fiji Islands. Mr. Circus assimilis. The true Circus assimilis of Jardine and Selby (III. Orn. ii. pl. 51) has proved, however, to be only the young of Circus jardinii, also figured in the ‘Birds of Australia’ (pl. 27); and therefore the New-Zealand Harrier bears the name of Circus gouldi, Bonap. (l. c.) C. wolfii, Gurney) does not show a single character by which it can be specifically distinguished. As the true C. assimilis, Jard. & Selby, is undoubtedly the same as C. jardinii, Gould (which, therefore, must bear the former appellation), the New Zealand Harrier must stand as approximans, Peale.” But Mr. Circus gouldi.
It is a very common bird in New Zealand, being met with on the fern-covered hills, in the plains, among the marshes of the low country, and even along the open seabeach, where it feeds on carrion. It is seldom, however, found in the dense bush, although I once surprised one there in the act of picking a large Wood-Pigeon I am indebted to Mr. kiore maori). This exodus, strange to say, was the signal for the appearance on the island of the Harrier, which came over in large numbers from the mainland, as many as seventy having been counted on the wing together in one spot alone.
Like all the other members of the genus, it hunts on the wing, performing wide circles at a low elevation from the ground, and sailing over meadows, fern-land, or marshes in quest of lizards, mice, and other small game. Its flight is slow but vigorous and well sustained. The small size and specific gravity of its body, as compared with the great development of wings and tail and corresponding muscles, enable it to continue these wanderings for a whole day without any apparent fatigue. When sailing, as it often does, at a high elevation, the wings are inclined upwards so as to form a broad obtuse angle (with the tail half spread), and there is no perceptible motion in them, except when the bird alters its course. A pair may often be seen sailing thus in company, mounting higher with each gyration, and emitting a peevish whistle as they cross each other’s course. On these occasions I have sometimes seen the birds close in upon and attack each other, the upper one making the first swoop, and the lower one instantly turning on its back, with upstretched talons, to receive him, and, after thus parrying the attack, wheeling upwards and becoming in turn the assailant. Whether it be the angry meeting of rival males, or the amorous gambols of raptorial lovers, I have never been able to determine; but this aerial encounter, whether in earnest or in play, has a very pretty effect. A correspondent informs me that he once observed five of these birds engaged together in this manner, at the commencement of the breeding-season, and that it was one of the prettiest sights of the kind he had ever witnessed.
It is worthy of remark that the birds of the first year are apparently incapable of the peculiar sailing flight which I have described, their locomotion being effected entirely by slowly repeated flappings of the wings. This circumstance, taken in conjunction with the dark colour of the young bird (appearing perfectly black at a little distance), has led to the common belief that there are two distinct species.
When gorged with food, the Harrier takes up its station on a rising knoll, a projecting stump, or the naked limb of a detached tree standing in the open, when it assumes an erect posture, with the head drawn closely in and the wings folded (as represented in the accompanying Plate), and remains perfectly motionless for a considerable time. When thus reposing, it is possible to get within gun-range of a “Kahu-korako,” or very old bird; but at other times it is extremely difficult to obtain a shot. Hawks are known to be long-lived; and they appear to gain more experience of the world as they grow older. The dark-plumaged Harrier falls an easy prey to the gunner: it may be winged as it sails above him at an easy elevation, or it may be approached quickly and surprised when it descends to the ground to capture and devour a mouse or lizard. But the wary old “White Hawk” carries with him the experience of many dangers, and is not so easily
Besides dévouring carrion of all kinds, the Harrier subsists on rats, mice, lizards, feeble or wounded birds, and even grubs and spiders. One, which I had confined in an outhouse, subsisted for several days entirely on spiders, for which he made a systematic search among the cobwebs that covered the walls. At the close of each day I found him with a matted circlet of spiders’ webs surrounding the base of his bill. On my offering him the body of a Wood-Robin (Miro australis) he struck his talons into it, and, holding it firmly down, plucked off the feathers with his beak with remarkable rapidity, and then, tearing it to pieces, devoured it—the whole proceeding occupying only a few minutes. Captain Mair, who kept several of these birds in confinement for a considerable time, fed them frequently with freshwater fish, which they devoured with great avidity; and he assures me that he has observed them, in the wild state, capturing mullets in a shallow fish-pond.
The Harrier secures his prey by grappling it in his talons, sometimes bearing it off with him, but more generally remaining on the spot to devour it. On newly ploughed land he may occasionally be seen regaling himself on grubs and earthworms. It may be noticed that on these occasions, instead of walking, he moves by a succession of hops, the toes being turned inwards, in order, as it would appear, to protect the fine points of his grappling-instruments.
When the winter rains have inundated the low-lying flats and filled the lagoons, these places become the favourite resort of Wild Duck, Teal, Pukeko, and numerous other waterfowl; but this Hawk also puts in his appearance with the new comers, and is a perpetual terror to them. I have frequently seen one attack a full-grown Pukeko (Porphyrio melanotus), attempting to grapple it in its talons—its long tarsi and legs being stretched downwards to their full extent, accompanied by much noiseless fluttering of the wings. The Pukeko, anticipating the attack, springs upwards with open mouth and outstretched neck, and generally succeeds in warding off its assailant till it reaches cover and hides in the sedge. Audubon, in his ‘Birds of America,’ states that he has seen the Circus cyaneus attack the Marsh-Hen (Rallus crepitans) in the same manner. Young birds, and those wounded by the sportsmen, suffer most. On one occasion I fired at and disabled a large Pukeko, which at once took refuge in some rushes on the edge of the lagoon; but before I could get round to the spot, one of these Hawks had killed, plucked, and partly devoured it.
Once I saw a Harrier boldly attack a party of seven Pukekos. The birds crowded together, as if for mutual protection, on a dry clump in the midst of the swamp, and eventually succeeded in warding off their assailant.
But although, under press of extreme hunger, it will thus attack live birds, it is in reality a very cowardly representative of its tribe; for I have seen one chased by a pair of Australian Magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen) whose nest was in danger and driven ingloriously off the field, the pursuers assaulting it in a most determined manner and from opposite directions. An observant friend assured me that on one occasion he witnessed an attack made by four or five of these Magpies, acting in concert, and that the Harrier was not only vanquished but actually killed by them.
In the spring months it may be seen skimming low along the edges of the lagoons in pursuit of young Ducks, ever and anon swooping down among a swimming brood, but not always with success, the young birds instinctively diving under water on the approach of their natural enemy.
I have known the Harrier, when urged by excessive hunger, visit the poultry-yard and snatch up a chicken in its talons; and I have occasionally seen it attack both the wild and the domestic
Larus dominicanus) on approaching the nest of this bird, and put to an ignominious flight.
It is worth recording that the Harrier will sometimes pursue on the wing. Riding along the road near the Whenuakura river, on one occasion, I observed a Kahu pursuing a small bird (apparently a Ground-Lark) high in the air. The pursuit was continued for a considerable time, the Hawk making frequent swoops and the small bird eluding its grasp by suddenly altering its course and thus gaining on its pursuer. When nearly out of sight the Hawk was joined by another, both in pursuit of the same bird, from which circumstance I concluded that the raptor was foraging for hungry ones at home. This might account for the eagerness of the pursuit, and for a mode of chase which I had never observed before during a very long acquaintance with this species.
Mr. Hamilton, of Petane, states that he has on two occasions surprised the Harrier in the act of devouring an eel in the bed of a shallow creek.
When travelling through the Waikato district in July 1883, I observed one of these birds hawking in the rain. Although a heavy shower was falling the Harrier continued to hover without any apparent inconvenience, only occasionally shaking the raindrops off its tail.
It is said to be very destructive on the sheep-runs during the lambing-season; and I have been assured by eye-witnesses that three or four of them will sometimes detach a lamb from the flock, and then, assailing it from different points, tear out the animal’s eyes and ultimately kill it. I am of opinion, however, that these attacks are confined to the weakly or sickly lambs of the flock, and occur only in times of great famine. Be that as it may, the practice of poisoning Hawks in the lambing season has now become very general; and I have known upwards of a hundred of them destroyed in this manner, during that season, in a single locality. It is accomplished by rubbing a small quantity of strychnine into the body of a dead lamb or piece of offal, and leaving it exposed on the run. The poison takes immediate effect, and often eight or ten birds are thus destroyed in the course of an hour. As stated in my former edition, on one station alone in Canterbury upwards of a thousand Hawks per annum were destroyed in this manner during the preceding two or three years, and, as an almost necessary corollary of this, rats became excessively abundant on this particular sheep-run. I have always been of opinion that the wholesale killing of Hawks in a country like this is a questionable policy, from a utilitarian point of view, as it tends to alter the balance of nature, and to interfere with the general conditions of animal life, already too much disturbed by the operations of Acclimatization Societies. The rapacious birds have an important part to perform in the economy of nature; and species like the present, which are partly insectivorous, are too valuable to the practical agriculturist to be destroyed with impunity, although they may occasionally attack a sickly lamb in the flock, or swoop on an inviting young turkey. The damage to a flock where these Hawks abound is, no doubt, greatly overrated. It is true, however, that this species does sometimes hunt in packs, for I have counted as many as twenty of them at one time hovering over a small mob of sheep detached from the main flock; and three of them have been seen to attack a full-grown turkey, and, acting in concert, to overpower and kill their quarry.
The natives take this species by means of flax snares, arranged in such a manner that the bird, in attempting to grapple the bait, gets its legs entangled in a running noose, which its efforts to escape only serve to tighten. I have frequently taken it alive by means of a steel trap, with muffled edges, baited with a dead rat or chicken. When shot at, and wounded in the wing, it attempts to escape by a succession of leaps along the ground, and, on being overtaken, defends itself vigorously with beak and claws, its beautiful golden eyes sparkling with passion. In captivity it is at first fierce, throwing itself backwards when approached, and striking forwards with its long talons; but it soon becomes reconciled to the situation, and permits itself to be stroked with the hand. The late Captain
The peculiar whistling note already alluded to is only heard when two or more of these birds are in company. The young has a cry resembling the hoarse note of our Stilt-Plover. Professor Hutton informs me that the cry of this Hawk is very similar to that of the Govinda Kite of India, which he has frequently heard in that country.
I have observed that in very old birds of this species the feathers of the upper parts present a faded and ragged appearance, from which it may be inferred that the moulting-power becomes impaired as age advances. A specimen that came under my examination, in the flesh, presented the following singular condition, for which I was quite unable to account, although probably the result of disease. A space on the breast and the whole surface of the sides were entirely denuded of feathers, these parts being covered by a thick growth of white down; on the back also there was simply a narrow strip of feathers down the line of the spine. The head of this bird was greatly infested with parasitic ticks.
There is a very beautiful albino variety in the Nelson Museum, presented by Mr. Goodall, of Riwaka, where the bird was obtained. The whole of the plumage is of a very delicate white ash-colour, the underparts having a rosy-purple tinge. The primaries are ashy grey; and both these and the tail-feathers present, on the under surface, obsolete bands, as though they had been washed out. The shafts of all the feathers on the upper parts are dark grey, presenting the appearance of finely pencilled lines. The bill, as also a superciliary line of hairs and those covering the lores, black; cere, tarsi, and toes yellow. The taxidermist to whom this handsome specimen was entrusted, with a full appreciation of its value, charged the modest sum of eight guineas for stuffing it, and had to be compelled to give it up by process of law.
During a visit to the lake district, in the autumn of 1877, I saw another, apparently very like the last-mentioned bird, hovering over the fern ridges that close in the intensely blue waters of Tikitapu. As he swooped down upon a rat or lizard in the fern his underparts appeared to be perfectly white, and the upper surface of the body and wings ashy. Major Mair informs me that, in 1885, he observed a similar one at Lake Rotoiti.
This species prefers a swamp for its breeding-place, and generally builds its nest on the ground, though sometimes in a tussock. It often repairs to the same place for several successive seasons, the old nest forming a foundation for the new one, which is usually constructed of the dry blades of Mr. “In November 1884 in one of the large swamps in the Hind district, on the Canterbury Plains, a nest of this Harrier, built on a large tuft of coarse growing rushes (Arundo conspicua and the flower-stalks of the Spaniard-grass rudely placed together and overlaid with dry grassJuncus) was knocked over by a ‘mob’ of cattle. The nest being set up again and the eggs put back the Hawk returned and resumed incubation. The nest contained five eggs; another nest in the Horoatu district also contained five eggs.”—Zoologist, 1885 p. 421.
When there are two young birds in a nest there is often a remarkable disparity in their size. They are always very savage when molested, throwing themselves on their back and striking vigorously with their talons at the hand of the intruder.
A nest found by a Wanganui settler contained, in addition to two full-grown young birds, the remains of 11 Pheasants, 5 rats, 3 Quail, and a Weka.
The eggs are from two to four in number, but generally three, ovoido-conical in form, with a smooth or finely granulate surface, perfectly white, till stained by the bird’s feet during incubation, and measuring 1·9 inch in length by 1·5; my largest example measures 2 by 1·6. At first sight they appear to be disproportionately small for the size of the bird; but they are not so in reality, for the body of this Hawk, when stripped of the feathers, is almost ridiculously small. After being blown, if held up against the light, the interior of the shell presents a surface of a beautiful clear green.
Before passing on to the next group, I may mention that in a case of mounted Raptores which I had the pleasure of presenting, some years ago, to the Colonial Museum there is a fine specimen of the White-bellied Sea-Eagle (Ichthyaëtus leucogaster), which I received from the late Mr. Gould as having been obtained in New Zealand. This species has been observed along the whole southern coast of Australia, from Moreton Bay on the east to Swan River on the west, including Tasmania and all the small islands in Bass Strait; and as it is a powerful flier there is no physical reason why it should not occur sometimes as a straggler on the New-Zealand coast. Mr. Gould had satisfied himself that this specimen was obtained there, although unable to ascertain the precise locality. In corroboration of its presumed occurrence, I may mention that an officer of the 14th Regiment, who was a good sportsman and a tolerable naturalist, assured me that he had actually seen and fired upon a “Sea-Eagle” on the rocks near the entrance to the Wellington harbour.
Two other species of Accipitres, the Falco subniger (a rare bird inhabiting South Australia) and the Milvus isurus, or Australian Kite, have had New Zealand assigned as their habitat, on the authority of Mr. Falco subniger) was the veteran ornithologist, M. Jules P. Verreaux, who informed me that a New-Zealand specimen had passed through his hands. With regard to the latter (Milvus isurus), the Norwich Museum possesses a specimen, which I obtained from Mr. A. D. Bartlett, who assured me, at the time, that he had received it from New Zealand, and had satisfied himself that it had been killed in that country. Probably both these species, if not indigenous to New Zealand, may occasionally occur there as accidental visitors from the Australian continent.” In support of Mr. Gurney’s surmise, I may state that the account sent to me, many years ago, by Sir Julius von Haast, of a Hawk observed by him in the Southern Alps, although unfortunately not secured, seems to accord with that given by Captain Sturt of the Australian Falco subniger.
New-Zealand Falcon, Lath. Gen. Syn. i. p. 57 (1781).
Falco novæ seelandiæ, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 268 (1788, ex Lath.).
Falco australis, Hombr. et Jacq. Ann. Sci. Nat. 1841, p. 312.
Hypotriorchis novæ zealandiæ, Gray, Gen. of B. i. p. 20 (1844).
Falco harpe, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 68 (1844).
Hieracidea novæ zealandiæ, Kaup, Isis, 1847, p. 80.
Harpe novæ-zealandiæ, Bonap. Comptes Rendus, xli. p. 652 (1855).
Ieracidea novæ zealandiæ, Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 22 (1869).
Hieracidea novæ zealandiæ, Buller, Birds of New Zealand (1st ed.), p. 1 (1873).
Harpa novæ zealandiæ, Sharpe, Cat. Brit. Mus. Birds, vol. i. p. 372 (1874).
Karearea, Kaiaia, Kaeaea, Kakarapiti, Karewarewa, and Tawaka.
♂ suprà nigricanti-brunneus, pileo unicolore saturatiore: dorso fasciis irregularibus fulvescentibus transnotato: remigibus nigricanti-brunneis, pogonio interno albo transfasciato: secundariis extùs fasciis angustis albidis notatis: caudâ nigricanti-brunneâ, albido angustè et interruptè transfasciatâ: facie laterali nigricante, supercilio indistincto et genis imis rufescentibus: gutture fulvescenti-albo, scapis plumarum nigro indicatis: corpore reliquo subtùs lætùs fulvescente, pectoris plumis saturatè brunneo medialiter striatis et fulvo plus minusve distinctè ocellatis: hypochondriis imis cum cruribus et subcaudalibus lætisimè castaneis: subalaribus fulvescentibus, castaneo tinctis, his et axillaribus fulvescenti-albo ocellatis: rostro cyanescenti-nigro, ad basin mandibulæ corneo: cerâ pallidè flavâ: pedibus flavis: iride sordidè flavâ.
♀ mari similis, sed paullò major.
♂ juv. suprà fuliginoso-brunneus, pileo magis cinerascente: caudâ minùs distinctè transfasciatâ: gutture fulvescenti-albo, angustè brunneo striato: subtùs fuliginoso-brunneus, pectore paullò nigricante et hypochondriis cruribusque vix castaneo tinctis; pectore medio albido obscurè maculato: abdomine imo crissoque fulvescentibus: hypochondriis distinctè fulvo ocellatis: cerâ et plagâ oculari cyanescenti-albis: pedibus plumbeis: ungulis nigricantibus.
Pull. lanugine plumbeâ indutus.
Adult male. Crown of the head and nape glossy black; upper surface generally brownish black, barred on the scapulars and tail-coverts with rufous, and narrowly on the wing-coverts with rufous grey; a line over each eye, and sides of the neck, varied with rufous; facial streak and ear-coverts black; throat fulvous white, with narrow black shaft-lines, broadening out towards the breast; fore part of the neck and breast fulvous varied with rufous, and having the centre of each feather brown; sides of the body dark brown varied with rufous, and with large rounded spots of fulvous white; abdomen and vent rich fulvous; under tail-coverts and tibial plumes rufous brown, with narrow black shaft-lines; quills and secondaries obscurely marked on their outer webs with grey; tail with eight narrow interrupted bars of greyish white, and slightly tipped with rufous; under surface of quills and tail-feathers dusky, the former largely toothed and the latter
Adult female. The plumage is similar to that of the male, excepting, perhaps, that the spotted markings on the sides are more distinct; but there is a slight difference in the size. Extreme length 19·5; wing, from flexure, 11·5; tail 8·5; tarsus 2·75.
Young. Crown of the head and upper parts generally brownish black, glossed with grey in certain lights; line over each eye reddish fulvous; throat fulvous white, with a central line of brown on each feather; sides of the neck, breast, lining of wings, and underparts generally dark brown varied with fulvous; sides marked with rounded spots of fulvous white, very obscure in some specimens; tibial plumes reddish brown; lower part of abdomen, vent, and inner side of thighs fulvous; under surface of quills and tail-feathers dusky, with numerous transverse bars of white. Cere and bare space around the eyes bluish white; irides black; legs dark grey, with black claws.
Nestling. Covered with plumbeous-grey down.
Obs. The above measurements were taken from a pair of birds of this species formerly in the Christchurch Acclimatization Gardens, and now preserved in the Canterbury Museum, the sex in both cases having been carefully ascertained by dissection. The figure of the adult female is from a fine specimen obtained in the South Island, and now in my collection. Examples vary in the details of their colouring. In some the light spots on the sides are far more conspicuous and the tibial plumes are of a brighter rufous than in others. As a rule, the white bars on the tail-feathers, although interrupted in the middle, are conterminous on each side of the shaft. In a specimen, however, obtained by Mr. Travers in the South Island the bars are alternate on each web, as was also the case with another, shown to me at Ohinitahi; but this character is quite exceptional.
The synonymy given above will serve as a tolerably complete guide to the scientific and literary history of the present species; but much confusion has arisen at various periods with regard to the nomenclature employed, and a few words in further explanation of the subject appear to be necessary.
In Mr. ‘Catalogue of the Birds of New Zealand,’ by Falco harpe, Forst., and Falco brunneus, Gould, thereby intending, of course, to indicate the existence of two distinct species of true Falcons in New Zealand; but in this list there is no mention whatever of the Harrier (Circus gouldi), a common and well-known bird in our country. In adding the native names an unfortunate mistake occurred; for Falco harpe was stated to be the bird known to the inhabitants as “Kahu” and “Kahu-papango,” whereas these are in reality the native appellations for the Harrier, which, as already stated, had been omitted from the list. This will, no doubt, account for the mention of Gould’s Harrier, in the earlier writings of Layard, Haast, and Taylor, under the erroneous title of Falco harpe. Mr. Gray himself afterwards, in his ‘Birds of New Zealand’ (Voy. Ereb. and Terror), partially rectified this error by introducing the Circus in its proper place; but the misapplication of the native names was continued. In that work Mr. Gray substituted the prior title of Falco novæ zealandiæ, Gmel., for F. harpé, Forst., with F. australis (Homb. et Jacq.) correctly added as a synonym; he likewise reduced Gould’s F. brunneus to the rank of a synonym; but in a subsequent list (Ibis, 1862, p. 214) he recognized it again as a distinct species, and equivalent to F. ferox of Peale (U. S. Explor. Exped. 1848), referring both forms to Kaup’s genus Hieracidea. Unfortunately Mr. Gould’s description of H. brunnea was founded on an
H. novæ zealandiæ. This circumstance, together with the great difference in size between the male and female, led me, among others, to the conclusion that the two birds were referable to one and the same speciesVide Trans. N.-Z. Instit. vol. i. p. 106 (1868).H. brunnea was the female of H. novæ zealandiæ—a decision based (as he has since informed me) on Forster’s account of the bird; but in a subsequent paper (op. cit. 1870), referring to my observations on the subject, he adopts the view of its being the young of that species, quoting, at the same time, Dr. Haast’s opinion to the contrary. In Captain Hutton’s ‘Catalogue’H. brunnea, in the Norwich Museum, marked ♀ (measuring 14·5 inches in total length, wing 9·25), is, no doubt, as Mr. Gurney suggests, incorrectly labelled; for I have never met with so small an example of that sex; and it must be confessed that conclusions based on a mere examination of skins, in the absence of a positive determination of the sex, are very unsatisfactory.
It will be seen, on reference to the measurements I shall give in treating of the smaller species, that the sexes differ very much in size, the female, as is always the case with members of this family, being the larger bird. The fact that a male of the present species (of which the sex was carefully ascertained by Dr. Haast) was actually larger than the female of H. brunnea appeared to me sufficient of itself to warrant a specific separation. Having, however, brought with me to England good examples of both forms for illustration in my former edition, I compared them with the fine series of specimens in the British Museum (about twenty in number) and with Forster’s original drawings, and came to the conclusion that there were in reality two distinct species, closely resembling each other in plumage in both the young and adult states, but differing appreciably in size. In this examination I was kindly assisted by Mr.
Mr. Sharpe afterwards pointed out (Ibis, 1873, p. 327) that the name of Falco brunneus of Gould had been preoccupied by Bechstein, who thus called the common Kestrel of Europe, and that consequently our small bird, if allowed to be distinct from H. novæ zealandiæ, must bear another title. He considers that this should be Hieracidea australis (Homb. & Jacq.); but it seems to me that this is only a synonym of the older species and that the right name to fall back upon for the former is Falco ferox of Peale. In his official catalogue of the Accipitres in the British Museum, under the generic name of Harpa, he not only gives H. australis the precedence, but commits (as I venture to think) the further error of making it a “subspecies,” or constant variety, of H. novæ zealandiæ. The two birds are either specifically distinct or they belong to one and the same species.
Professor Hutton contributed to ‘The Ibis’ for October 1879 a table of measurements for the purpose of showing that there existed only one species; but in my reply to that paper (Ibis, 1881, p. 453) I pointed out that his argument was quite inconclusive, inasmuch as “his ♂ specimen B gives a wing-measurement only ·25 of an inch longer than that assigned by me to the female of the smaller species.”
Since that time the question has received much attention at the hands of local ornithologists; and although there may be still some difference of opinion as to the propriety of keeping the birds distinct, nearly all the subsequent evidence is in support of my contention.
Apart from the manifest difference in size already mentioned, the Quail-Hawk may be distinguished from the smaller species by the colour of the irides, which become yellow in the fully adult bird, whereas in Harpa ferox they are dark brown.
This larger form is seldom if ever met with in the North Island, where the other is comparatively plentiful. The only specimen ever obtained by me there was shot in the Kaipara district, more than five-and-twenty years ago, and this is preserved in my old type-collection in the Colonial Museum. It is met with in suitable localities all over the South Island.
Its food consists of birds, rats, mice, lizards, and the larger kinds of insects. It often takes its prey on the wing, swooping down on its terrified quarry with the rapidity of an arrow. It never feeds on carrion or offal.
I have been informed by a credible eye-witness that on one occasion a Quail-Hawk swooped down upon a man who was carrying a dead Pigeon, and, striking the bird forcibly out of his hands, retired to its station in a puriri tree to wait the course of events. It unfortunately fell a victim to its intrepidity, as it was instantly shot.
The late Sir J. von Haast, who always believed in the existence of two species, stated that their habits differ in the manner of taking their prey; and his collector, the late Mr. Fuller, assured me that he had invariably found the large birds paired together in the plains, and the small ones in the bush.
Mr. Reischek, who has been collecting for eight years in every part of the country, declares that all the examples obtained by him in the North Island were undoubtedly referable to the smaller form. He has collected both species in the South Island, where he invariably found the Quail-Hawk on the plains and lower ranges of hills, and the Bush-Hawk near the summits of the wooded ranges. Even on the Hen Island (in the Hauraki Gulf) he found the latter species frequenting only the tops of the hills. Having studied the birds in their native haunts and shot and compared scores of specimens in every condition of plumage, he unhesitatingly affirms that the two forms are specifically distinct.
Mr. Smith, whose full notes on the subject were communicated by me to the Wellington Philosophical Society Trans. N.-Z. Instit. vol. xvi. pp. 318–322.H. ferox never attained to the size of H. novæ zealandiæ, although he kept them four months longer. In disposition, too, they differed, being fiercer and more untamable than the larger form.
Mr. Potts, who also recognizes two species, makes the following pertinent remarks:—
“If the cabinet ornithologist will not permit the fauna to possess two species, Falco ferox= F. brunnea must be the young state of Falco novæ zealandiæ. In this case we must try to believe that the greatest boldness and audacity in attacking, the greatest activity and swiftness of wing in pursuing, is exhibited by the Quail-Hawk before it has reached the adult state; neither may we have regard to the difference of size which specimens of either sex very often present.
“In November 1868 two sets of young Falcons were found on Lake Coleridge by Mr. Oakden’s shepherd; they were taken from the nesting-place and presented by Mr. Oakden to the Canterbury Acclimatization Society. He stated to the writer that the birds from one nest were readily distinguishable from those of the other nest even from the first. In size there was a marked difference,
“We once had the gratiflcation of witnessing a most interosting trial of powers between a Sparrow-Hawk and the Brown Parrot (F. ferox) looks flatter about the head and carries the wings more prominently forward, this carriage giving the bird a less rounded appearance than is observable in the larger species. The smaller Falcon is more savage and resolute, and swifter in flight than its congenerNestor meridionalis). It was near the shore of that most romantic sheet of water Lake Mapourika. Standing just within the trees that fringe its margin, we heard the alarm-cry of the Kaka, and swiftly there came in sight, crossing a corner of the open space above the placid waters, two birds in active contest, the Parrot labouring heavily, wheeling and clumsily gliding aside, as its fierce pursuer drove at it with its talons. Then the rapid shifting of colours—now one saw the olive-brown of the Kaka’s back, then the blood-red markings of its soft under-plumage, almost hidden the next instant with the dark brown, blackish pinions of the Falcon. Borne downwards with the momentum of a lost stroke, the Hawk occupied some time in regaining ‘the air,’ whilst the terror-stricken Kaka hastened at its topmost speed towards the friendly cover of the wood. Once more its persevering enemy darted towards it with almost incredible swiftness, but the persecuted bird seemed to tumble amongst the trees that ensured its safety, quite regardless of appearances, so that it reached an asylum.”—Out in the Open.
“The Quail-Hawk exhibits great perseverance in pursuit of its prey, and almost unequalled audacity. I have known it pursue and strike down a large Spanish hen in a stockyard, not relinquishing its hold till killed with the blow of a stick. I have also known it pursue its prey into the inner room of a small cottage. When Quail-shooting, years ago, I have been on different occasions attended by this dauntless fowler, and have shot an individual in the act of pouncing on the flying Quail. I have seen a female of this species bear off a Tui trussed in her talons, and carry it some distance without a rest, the male bird apparently keeping watch and ward, soaring within easy distance. I remember also seeing a Quail escape the rapid pursuit of one of these Hawks by dropping like a stone, at the very instant that I expected to see it trussed up in the talons of its pursuer, so close was the chase before the Quail adopted its last resource for escape.”
On the breeding-habits of this species, the same observer has communicated the following particulars:—“At present it is in the ‘back country’ only that we can hope to find its breeding-place, which is usually in a ledge of rock commanding a prospect over some extent of country. Such an outlook gives an advantage of no little value, of which the Falcon is not slow to avail itself, should such a bird as a Tui or Pigeon appear in sight. Several of the breeding-places which we have had opportunities of examining have presented, in a remarkable degree, very similar conditions as regards situation. Amongst bold rocks, on the mountain-side, somewhat sheltered by a projecting or overhanging mass, appears to be its favourite site for rearing its young. The eggs very closely resemble those of Falco peregrinus of Europe in colour, size, and shape, are usually three in number, and are deposited on any decayed vegetable matter that wind or rain may have collected on the rocky ledge; for the efforts of this bird in the way of nest-building are of the feeblest description.” He gives October, November, and December as the breeding-months; and states that above the upper gorge of the Ashburton or Haketere River he discovered a nesting-place on the bare soil, sheltered by a large isolated rock. It contained two young Hawks covered with grey down; and the old birds were very bold in defence of their offspring.
From my brother, in Canterbury, I received a very handsome pair of eggs belonging to this species. Although taken from the same nest, they differ somewhat from each other, both in size and in the details of their colouring. One of them measures 2 inches in its longer axis, by 1·4 in diameter; is elliptical in form; mottled and blotched with dark brown on a lighter ground, and encircled at the larger end with a broad zone of very rich brown, varied with blotches of a paler or
The fine series of eggs of this species in the Canterbury Museum exhibit considerable individual variation. Two specimens, taken from the same nest, are more ovoido-conical than ordinary examples, having an appreciably smaller end. One of these is of a rich reddish brown towards the larger end, with darker blotches, and towards the other end pale brown, profusely sprinkled and mottled with dark reddish brown. The other is somewhat similar, but more blotched with dark brown in its median circumference, and with the ground-tint towards the smaller end reduced to a whitish cream-colour. In two other examples (also from one nest) the whole surface is reddish brown, stained, mottled, and blotched with darker brown; but one of them has the brown of a richer tint, and the mottled character more distinct.
Among the more recent additions to this collection there is a singular specimen of the egg of this species. It is very ovoido-elliptical in form, measuring 2·25 inches by 1·4, of a warm sepiabrown, prettily freckled and spotted, more thickly so in the middle, and confluent in a large patch at the larger end, with reddish brown varied with darker brown.
A very handsome specimen in my son’s collection (obtained at Oamaru) is broadly ovoido-conical, measuring 1·9 inch in length by 1·8 in breadth; it is of a rich cream-colour, thickly spotted, speckled, and freckled over the entire surface with dull reddish and chocolate-brown, these markings becoming entirely confluent at the larger end, which is entirely reddish brown smudged and daubed all over with chocolate-brown.
On the subject of the systematic position of this form, Dr. Finsch published the following remarks in the ‘Journal für Ornithologie’ for March 1872, which I have translated from the German:—“Falco novæ zealandiæ must be ranged among the Tree-Falcons, and follows next in order to Falco femoralis, having, like the latter, a long tail, which is only half covered by the wings…… Third primary longest; second shorter and somewhat longer than fourth; first and fifth equal. Tarsi covered in front with ten hexagonal scutes in double rows. Middle toe very long, being with the claw nearly as long as the leg; lateral toes equal, the points of their claws scarcely reaching to the base of the middle-toe claw. A subgeneric distinction appears justifiable.”
Mr. Sharpe, who contributed to ‘The Ibis’ (1873, p. 327) some critical notes on the subject, says:—“The New-Zealand Hieracideœ are rather abnormal members of the Falconine series; for it is rare to find a bird which, when young, is uniform above, and becomes barred when it is old; nor do they here closely coincide with their Australian congeners, excepting as regards their uniformly cloudy breasts when young.” He afterwards (Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. vol. i.) adopted Bonaparte’s genus for our bird, merely altering the termination, for classical accuracy, and making it Harpa.
In a communication to the Wellington Philosophical Society, in September 1878 Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xi. pp. 366, 367.Harpa in lieu of Hieracidea, although my Plate of the species, which had already been worked off, bears the latter name, being that by which the bird has been hitherto known in the Colony.
Mr. Gurney in his ‘Diurnal Birds of Prey’ (p. 95) says, in reference to the smaller species:—“Mr. Sharpe applies to this Falcon the specific name of ‘australis’ proposed by MM. Hombron and
H. novæ zealandiæ. I therefore agree with Dr. Buller in considering ‘Falco australis’ a synonym of the larger species.” He also questions Mr. Sharpe’s right to sink the specific name of brunnea, for he argues that “its having been proposed for a species of the genus Tinnunculus does not render its employment illegitimate when it is applied to a bird belonging to another and distinct genus.” As will be seen, however, I have followed Mr. Sharpe in this respect, so as to avoid all possible confusion of names in the future.
Mr. Gurney, after a careful study of the series of specimens in the Norwich Museum, wrote to me saying, “I am sure you are right about the distinctness of the two New-Zealand Hieracideœ”; but Professor Button, who still adheres to the contrary opinion, says in one of his last letters:—“I examine and measure carefully every specimen of H. novæ zealandiæ that comes in. So far as my present measurements go they indicate one species only.”
Before passing on, however, to my account of Harpa ferox, I will give here the results of a comparison of two carefully selected birds which I exhibited at a meeting of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, as recorded in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute’:—
“Among Hawks generally—and the genus Hieracidea is no exception to the rule—the female is both larger and more handsomely marked than the male. Such being the case, let us for our present argument compare an adult female of Hieracidea novæ zealandiæ with an adult female of H. ferox. This will afford us the fairest mode of determining their relative size, and the best means of ascertaining any differences in the plumage of the two species.
“For this purpose I shall lay before the meeting two specimens selected from the type collection in the Canterbury Museum. The larger of these birds was obtained at Castle Hill, and the other on the Bealey—well known localities within this province—and both individuals proved on dissection to be females. The following is a comparative statement of their measurements:—
“It will be seen from this that Hieracidea novæ zealandiæ is a considerably larger bird than H. ferox. It has a proportionately powerful bill, while its legs and feet are decidedly more robust. In the colours and markings of the plumage there is a general similarity between them; but on a close comparison of the two examples exhibited it will be seen that H. novæ zealandiæ has the bars on the upper surface far more distinct and numerous besides being of a brighter rufous, the tail-coverts are more conspicuously marked, the bars on the tail are broader and whiter, and there is a larger amount of white on the throat, breast, and abdomen. In the present example of H. ferox the breast is much darker than in the other bird, the middle portion of each feather being occupied by a broad lanceolate mark of blackish brown, and there is less of the buff and rufous stains which impart so warm an effect to the breast of H. novæ zealandiæ. There are other minute points of difference, but these may be mere individual peculiarities. Enough has, however, been pointed out to show that the two species may be readily distinguished from each other; and this is the only point at issue.
“Of course the whole value of this evidence depends on the accuracy of the ‘sexing’ in each case. I think this, however, is placed beyond all doubt, for the larger bird was determined by Mr.
Falco brunneus*, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 139.
Preoccupied by Bechstein, as mentioned on page 215.
Falco ferox, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 67 (1848).
Hieracidea brunnea, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 215.
Harpe brunneus, Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 22 (1869).
Hieravidea brunnea, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 6 (1873).
Harpa australis, Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. vol. i. p. 373 (1874).
The same as those applied to the preceding species; but sometimes distinguished as Karewa rewa-tara. “Sparrow-Hawk” of the colonists.
♂ similis H. novæ zealandiæ, sed valdè minor: suprà magis cinereus: caudæ fasciis angustioribus et obscurioribus: subtùs pallidior, distinctiùs striatus et maculatus.
♂ maris staturam conspicuè superans.
Juv. a specie præcedente haud distinguendus, sed subtùs obscurior.
Adult male. Upper parts generally greyish black, darkest on the head and nape; shoulders, scapulars, and small wing-coverts narrowly barred with greyish white, the back and upper tail-coverts with small crescentic bands of rufous; throat yellowish white; ciliary bristles, ear-coverts, and the facial streak black; a line over each eye, and the sides of the neck, reddish brown, varied with fulvous and black; breast and sides fulvous, varied with reddish brown, and largely marked with black. On the breast each feather has a central dash of black; and on the sides these markings assume a triangular form, giving a spotted character to the surface of the plumage. The wing-feathers are marked, on their outer web, by narrow transverse bands of greyish white; and the tail-feathers, which are black with a purplish reflection, have a series of seven narrow white bars disunited at the shaft, and are tipped with rufous brown; axillars dark rufous brown, with a series of round white spots on each web; abdomen and vent pale fulvous; tibial plumes rufous, with black shaft-lines. Bill black, white at the base of lower mandible; irides very dark brown; cere, lores, and eyelids bright lemon-yellow, slightly tinged on the cere with green; legs and feet paler yellow and more tinged with green; claws black. Extreme length 16 inches; extent of wings 26·5; wing, from flexure, 9; tail 6·5; tarsus 2·25; middle toe and claw 2·3; hind toe and claw 1·3; bill, along the ridge ·85, along the edge of lower mandible 1.
Adult female. Differs from the male in its somewhat larger size and in the darker and richer colouring of its plumage; but in other respects the sexes are alike. Extreme length 16·75 inches; wing, from flexure, 10; tail 7·7; tarsus 2·4.
Young. The young of this species bears a general resemblance in its plumage to that of the preceding bird; but on a close comparison it will be observed that the brown of the underparts is darker, while the spotted markings on the sides are rather more conspicuous. The tibials, moreover, are of a brighter rufous, and are crossed with numerous arrow-shaped marks of brown.
Nestling. Covered with bluish-grey down; bill black; tarsi and toes leaden grey.
Var. Individuals exhibit the usual variation in the details of their markings. A young example from the Bay of Islands, which I had the opportunity of examining, was peculiar in being largely marked with pale fawncolour on the throat, breast, and abdomen, the lower part of the body being entirely of that colour.
A beautiful adult male specimen, from the Seventy-mile Bush, which came into my possession alive, differed slightly in its dimensions from that described above. Total length 15·5 inches; extent of wings 27·26; wing, from flexure, 9·5; tail 6·5. Another, from Wainuiomata, measured 16 inches in length; 28·5 in extent; tail 7.
Obs. This species closely resembles Harpa novæ zealandiæ, but is decidedly smaller, and has more slender legs and claws; otherwise it would perhaps be impossible to distinguish the two birds.
Although not so common as it formerly was, the Bush-Hawk is more frequently met with than its congener. The high wooded lands of the interior appear to constitute its favourite haunts; and on the southern mountain-ranges of the North Island, as well as in the subalpine woods of the Canterbury provincial district, I have found it comparatively abundant. The skin of a Hawk from Macquarie Island, sent to me by Mr. Bourne of the Otago Museum, proved on examination to be identical with this species.
It is a spirited little hunter, and subsists by the chase, its food consisting principally of mice and small birds. During the breeding-season it is more than usually bold and fearless, assailing with fury all intruders upon its nest or young. Some remarkable instances of its courage are mentioned by the late Sir J. von Haast in his interesting ‘Journal of Explorations in the Nelson Province’ Report of a Topographical and Geological Exploration of the Western Districts of the Nelson Province, New Zealand, undertaken by the Provincial Government. Nelson: 1861.
“One day,” says this traveller, “walking along near the margin of the forest in Camp Valley, my hat was suddenly knocked off my head, and at the same time I heard a shrill cry. On looking up, I found it was one of these courageous little Sparrow-Hawks that had attacked me, and which, after sitting for a moment or two on a branch, again pounced on me; and, although I had a long compass-stick in my hand, with which I tried to knock it down, it repeated its attack several times…… We met with another instance of the courage of these birds in the Matakitaki Plains. A White Crane, of large size, standing in the water, was attacked by three of them at once; and they made frequent and well-concerted charges upon him from different quarters. It was admirable to behold the Kotuku (White Crane) with his head laid back, darting his pointed beak at his foes with the swiftness of an arrow, while they, with the utmost agility, avoided the spear of their strong adversary, whom at last they were fain to leave unmolested. Another day, in the same neighbourhood, a Cormorant (Graculus varius) passing near a tree on which two of these Sparrow-Hawks were sitting, was pounced upon by them and put to hasty flight with a shrill cry of terror, followed closely by his small but fierce foes; and all three were soon out of sight.”
The ordinary flight of this Hawk is direct and rapid; but it may sometimes be seen soaring high in the air, with the wings almost motionless and the tail spread into a broad fan. On the wing it often utters a prolonged petulant scream. Thia is the signal fora general outcry among the small birds within hearing; and the Tui and Korimako will often rise in large flights and follow him into the air. But the little Hawk, heeding not their menaces, pursues his course, and the excitement among the feathered fraternity gradually subsides till all is quiet again. The appearance of an Owl in the daytime produces a similar commotion among the small birds of the forest; and I have often been guided to the hiding-place of the unfortunate “Morepork” by the clamour of the persecuting mob.
Besides the prolonged shrill note which is generally uttered on the wing, this species has also a low peevish cry, exactly like the squealing of a young pig, which is peculiar, I believe, to the breeding-season.
It is well known, as already stated, that birds are good natural barometers. The height to which they rise in the air renders them susceptible to the slightest change in the temperature of the atmosphere; and they are thus warned of approaching changes in the weather. Thus the continuous screaming of the Bush-Hawk is understood by the natives to be a sure indication of change; and they have a common saying “Ka tangi te Karearea &c.” (If the Karearea screams in fine weather, ‘twill soon rain; if in rainy weather,’ tis about to clear). Wilson, the American ornithologist, in treating of the Fish-Hawk (Pandion haliaëtus), states that when these birds are seen sailing high in air, with loud vociferations, “it is universally believed to prognosticate a change of weather, often a thunder-storm in a few hours.… On the faith of the certainty of these signs, the experienced coaster wisely prepares for the expected storm, and is rarely mistaken.” I have met with some remarkable instances of this unerring instinct in the species under consideration, and this, at times, when the glass gave no indication of a coming change.
The Bush-Hawk is generally met with on the outskirts of the woods or among the dead timber of native “wairengas,” these localities being favourable for mice, on which it largely subsists. I once observed a young male of this species playing in the air with mice, after the manner of a cat; and the sight was as pretty as it was novel. When I first observed the bird, he was perched on the naked limb of a tree, apparently engaged in examining his quarry. Then mounting in the air with a mouse in each of his talons, and expanding his wings and tail to their full extent, he dropped first one mouse and then the other, and instantly darted after them, catching them in his talons before they reached the ground, then mounting high in the air again to renew the feat. Ultimately losing one of the mice, he discontinued his play, and, returning to the tree, killed and devoured the remaining one.
Formerly this spirited little Hawk was very common in the Hutt Valley and in the wooded suburbs of Wellington; now it is rarely, if ever, seen there. The last instance I know of was in April 1883, when a Sparrow-Hawk, after sailing inquisitively over the city and hovering for a time above the Colonial Museum—uttering all the time its shrill cry, as if in defiance of taxidermists and naturalists in general—eventually settled in the blue-gums in my garden, where it remained for half an hour; and then, after another rapid survey of the town, disappeared over the hills in the direction of Makara. A few years more, and the clarion cry of this fierce little hunter will be a thing of the past! Its appearance on this occasion was quite unusual, for my gardener, who is an old Wellington settler, declared he had not seen or heard the bird for more than ten years before.
I may mention that this species, unlike the generality of Hawks (so far as I am aware), may be attracted by an imitation of its cry. Riding along alone one fine autumn evening through the country at the northern end of Lake Taupo, on my way to Ohinemutu, I saw what appeared to be a Bush-Hawk come out of the woods at some distance and descend into an old or deserted Maori garden. By way of experiment I imitated the clamorous cry of this bird when on the wing; and in a few minutes the Hawk (a fine young male) came sailing up to me and performed several circuits in the air immediately overhead, and then took up his station on the dry limb of a tree close by the road, where he remained till I was out of sight.
The natives state that this little Hawk usually builds its nest in a bunch of puwharawhara, often at a great elevation from the ground, forming it rudely of loose materials; that it lays generally two, but sometimes three eggs; and that the young birds remain on the tree for several days after quitting the nest. The puwharawhara ( Astelia cunninghamii) is a parasitical plant, with short, thickly set flag-leaves, radiating upwards from a clump of roots by which it adheres firmly to the parent tree. These plants, which often attain a circumference of many feet, are very common on the forks and naked branches of aged or withered trees on the outskirts of the forest, a single tree sometimes supporting twenty or more of them. A better situation for a Hawk’s nest than the centre of one of these plants could hardly be selected, combining as it does the requisites of warmth, security,
In the summer, however, of 1867, during a visit to Taupo, I was fortunate enough to find the nest of this species. We had fixed our bivouac for the night on the banks of the Waitangi Creek, only a few miles from the base of the grand snow-capped Ruapehu. Our native companion soon detected the old Hawks carrying prey to their young, and on the following morning he discovered the nest Captain Mair, writing to me in February 1880, says:-“The Sparrow-Hawks still build at the cliff on the Waitangi Stream where we obtained our young birds in 1867.”
The result of my observations is, that the Bush-Hawk attains the mature livery during the second year, the plumage being liable to some slight variations as the bird gets older. The irides had undergone very little perceptible change at the time of the bird’s death, but the eyes were large and somewhat sparkling.
This bird, a stranger to liberty from the very nest, had become quite attached to its aviary. It never attempted to escape when the door was accidentally left open; and on one occasion when it did get out it remained perched on the dome of its house, and voluntarily re-entered it. It partook readily of all kinds of meat, cooked or raw, although preferring the latter. Beef, pork, or mutton were alike acceptable; but a preference was always shown for birds. On a live bird being offered to it, the Hawk would eye its quarry intently for a short time and then make a sudden swoop upon it, seizing with the talons of one or both feet, according to the size and strength of the object. It would then proceed cautiously to destroy life by crushing the head of its victim in its powerful beak, only relaxing its hold when life was quite extinct. While thus employed, its eyes were full of animation, and its whole body quivered with excitement.
A pair of these birds bred for two successive seasons on a rocky crag at Niho-o-te-kiore. They guarded their nest with great vigilance, fiercely attacking all intruders; and on both occasions brought up their brood in safety.
The description of the male is taken from a fine specimen shot in the Karori Hills, near Wellington, in 1859, and of which I sent, at the time, a descriptive notice to the Linnean Society. Its much smaller size led me to suppose that it was distinct from Harpa novce zealandice; and it was not then known that Mr. Gould’s H. brunnea was founded on an immature example. That such was really the case is sufficiently proved by the account given in the foregoing pages, and previously recorded in the Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute (1868, vol. i. p. 106).
The eggs resemble those of H. novce zealandice, but are somewhat smaller and lighter in colour. There are three examples in the Canterbury Museum, differing in the details of their colouring; but they may be defined as yellowish brown, stained and mottled with reddish brown, and having a rather soiled appearance. In one of them the blotched character is more apparent at the smaller end; in another it is equally dispersed, while in the third the dark brown markings present a smudgy character over the whole surface. They measure 1·9 inch in length by 1·45 in breadth.
In the same fine collection there is a beautiful specimen of the Bush-Hawk’s egg from the Chatham Islands. It is of a rich or warm reddish brown, freckled and slightly smudged with darker brown, presenting a close resemblance to the Merlin’s egg, broadly ovoido-conical in form, and measuring 1·95 inch by 1·5 inch There is another egg of the same species, from Paringa River (South Westland), differing very perceptibly in being of a dull cream-colour, freckled and stained all over with brown. It is of the same size as the Chatham-Islands specimen, but is slightly more oval in form.
A specimen brought by Mr. Reischek from Martin’s Bay, in the South Island, measures 1·8 inch in Iength by 1·5 in breadth, being of a regular ovoid form; the whole surface is pale reddish brown, blackish brown, and cream-colour mixed together in an irregular way, being decidedly darker at the larger end, and the light markings at the smaller end having the appearance of abrasions or scratches on the surface. The nest from which it was taken was placed in the leafy crown of a high forest tree.
Coturnix novæ zealandiæ, Quoy et Gaim. Voy. de l’Astr. (Zool.) i. p. 242, pl. 24. fig. 1 (1830).
ad. supra rufescenti-brunneus: dorsi plumis medialiter fulvo striatis, utrinque nigro marginatis, plumis quibusdam nigro irregulariter maoulatis aut vermiculatis: pileo saturatius brunneo, supercilio et linea verticali fulvescentibus: collo postico et laterali fulvescente: facie laterali et gutture toto castaneis, genis et regione auriculari paullo nigricante variis: tectricibus alarum minimis et medianis dorso concoloribus, his magis fulvescentioribus: remigibus nigricantibus, secundariis anguste fulvo vermiculatis: rectricibus nigris, fulvo transfasciatis, scapis etiam rufescenti-fulvis: subtus albioans, pectore superiore et abdomine imo fulvescentibus: pectoris plumis nigro marmoratis, fascia latâ nigrâ transfasciatis, abdominis plumis fasciis sagittiformibus nigris notatis: hypochondriis rufescenti-fulvis nigro transversim irregulariter fasciatis, et conspicue medialiter albo striatis: crisso et subcaudalibus nigro notatis et fasciatis: subalaribus albidis, anguste brunneo marginatis, margine alari brunneo vario: rostro nigro, versus apicem dilutiore: pedibus pallide carneis: iride pallide brunneâ.
♂ ad. mari similis, sed paullo major, ubique dilutior: facie castaneâ et pectore nigro absentibus: facie laterali guttureque fulvescenti-albis, illâ brunneo maculatâ: corpore reliquo subtus rufescente, abdomine medio albicante, plumis omnibus nigro marginatis, pectoris plumis et hypochondriis medialiter albo lineatis.
♂ juv. similis feminae, sed facie laterali et gutture pallide rufescentibus: corporis subtus plumis latius nigro marginatis.
♂ juv. similis feminæ adultæ, sed corporis subtus plumis magis distincte nigro marginatis.
Adult male. Crown of the head and nape dark brown edged with paler, a series of feathers down the centre and on the sides marked in the middle with yellowish white; shoulders, mantle, and all the upper surface rufous brown, beautifully varied with black, and marked with numerous Ianceolate stripes of white. On closer examination it will be found that this effect is produced by each feather having a broad lanceolate mark of white down the shaft, bordered on each side with black, dark brown on the webs, fancifully rayed, or banded transversely, and largely tipped with rufous brown. Lores, line over the eyes, sides of head, and throat rufous, with a lunar mark from the ear-coverts on each side, and an anterior edging or border of black; lower part of the neck mottled or obscurely spotted with black and white, the former preponderating; examined separately, however, each feather is black crossed by irregular bands and largely tipped with white; sides and long plumage overlapping the thighs rufous brown, each feather margined and marked down the centre with white, and handsomely streaked and barred on the webs with brownish black; abdomen fulvous white, the under tail-coverts barred with black; primaries and outer secondaries dark brown, the latter rayed on their outer webs with zigzag lines of paler brown; inner secondaries and all the wing-coverts, as well as the tail-feathers, greyish brown, varied with pale rufous, each feather with a narrow shaft-line of white. Irides light hazel; bill black, paler at the tip; tarsi and toes pale flesh-brown. Total length 8·5 inches; extent of wings 14; wing, from flexure, 4·25; tail 1·5; bill, along the ridge ·5, along the edge of lower mandible .6; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 1·25.
Adult female. In the female there is no rufous colour on the face or throat; the upper surface is light ferruginous brown mixed with fulvous, and handsomely varied with black; the lanceolate stripes are yellowish
Young male. In the young male the prevailing colour of the upper surface more nearly approaches that of the adult female. The rufous colouring on the cheeks and throat is very pale, and the lunate marks are less distinct than in the adult. The plumage of the underparts is largely washed with fulvous, and the dark crescents are broader and more conspicuous.
Young female. The only perceptible difference in the markings of the young female is that the dark crescents on the under surface are better defined and less blotched than in the adult bird. In my old collection (now in the Colonial Museum) there are two young females from the same nest, in one of which the prevailing tint of the plumage resembles that of the adult female, while in the other it approaches very near to that of the adult male.
Very young state. Crown of the head light fulvous varied with dark brown; ear-spots black; back and upper surface of wings yellowish brown, with dull black markings, each feather with a lanceolate stripe of fulvous white down the centre; throat and fore neck buffy white; breast and underparts pale buff, each feather marked near the tip with two converging elongate spots of a dull black colour. Bill, tarsi, and toes pale brown.
Obs. A beautiful male specimen obtained many years ago at Whangarei, in the North Island, and presented to me by Major Mair, differs from all my South-Island examples in having the whole of the plumage darker, the breast being almost entirely brownish black, relieved only by a few touches of fulvous white; the rufous colour on the face and throat is brighter, the lanceolate markings on the upper surface are very distinct, and the abdomen is fulvous.
To these may now be added the Swamp-Quail (This handsome species—the only indigenous representative in New Zealand of the order Gallinæ—was “on the verge of extinction” when I published my former edition. It is probably now extinct, for no specimen has been heard of for at least twelve years. In the early days of the colony it was excessively abundant in all the open country, and especially on the grass-covered downs of the South Island. The first settlers, who carried with them from the old country their traditional love of sport, enjoyed some excellent Quail-shooting for several years; and it is matter of local history that Sir Phasianus colchicus), the Chinese Pheasant (P. torquatus), the Partridge (Perdix cinerea), the Californian Quail (Ortyx californicus), and the Australian Quail (Coturnix pectoralis)Synoïcus australis), which has rapidly spread itself over the North Island, being plentiful even in the Taupo country. Three specimens of this bird (obtained at Tauranga) were sent to me by the Hon.
According to the Maoris, even in the North Island it was formerly very abundant, certain grassy plains, like the Murimotu, in the Taupo district, being noted for them. Even at the present day, in the investigation of title in the Native Lands Court, the older generation of Maoris, when giving their evidence, often refer to the Quail preserves of former times in support of the tribal title Extract from Aporahama Te Kume’s evidence in the Tokoroa case, at Cambridge, June 1880:—“Wahineiti died at Tauranga. He said to Ngatikes, Don’t take me to Maungatautari but to Tokoroa, that the rushes of my land may grow over me, and that my body may drink the dews of Tokoroa.’ This occasioned the name of Horohau: hence, too, the proverb ‘Nga wi o Tokoroa.’ These plains were famous for the abundance of Quail.”
Sir
Sir
A specimen was shot by Major Mair at Whangarei in 1860; Sir
In the autumn of 1860 I met with a bevy of nine on a dry grassy ridge in the midst of some shallow swamps about two miles from Kaiapoi (in the provincial district of Canterbury); and having with me a good pointer, I fortunately succeeded in bagging the whole of them. They afforded capital shooting, rising quickly and, after a low rapid flight of fifty yards or more in a direct line, dropping suddenly into the grass again. The stomachs of those I opened contained green blades of grass and a few bruised seeds, as well as some small fragments of quartz. The bevy consisted of an adult male and female, with seven birds of the first year; and as we may infer from the circumstances under which they were found that they comprised a single family, we have some evidence that this species is not less prolific than the other members of the extensive tribe to which it belongs.
Mr. Potts, writing of the bird before it had become rare, says:—“They often give utterance to a low purring sound that one might suppose to proceed from an insect rather than from a bird. The
It may be interesting to mention, as showing the value attaching to extinct or rapidly expiring forms, that a skin of this bird (and that, too, a female) sent from the Canterbury Museum to Italy fetched as much as ·75. My own collection contains an adult male and female (from the North and South Islands respectively), a young male of the first year, and another in the “very young state” described above. The last-named bird was one of a clutch of four, and I am indebted for this, among other rare specimens, to my lamented friend Sir Julius von Haast, the announcement of whose death in New Zealand reached me whilst these pages were passing through the press.
There is a specimen of the egg of this species (probably the only one in Europe) in Professor Newton’s fine collection at Cambridge; and there are five examples in the Canterbury Museum which exhibit a slight variation in form and a considerable difference in colour. Two of them (presumably from the same nest) are of a regular oval form and of equal size, measuring 1·3 inch in length by in breadth; these are of a pale yellowish-brown or buff colour, thickly marked with umber, the dark colour often preponderating and having the appearance of daubs or smudges on the outer surface of the shell. Two others (also exactly alike) are of a slightly larger size and of a thicker or broader form; these are of a dull cream-colour, sprinkled and minutely dotted all over with blackish brown. In one of them the spots are confluent at the larger end, forming a greyish-brown patch nearly half an inch in diameter; and in both the more conspicuous spots have a light or faded centre. The fifth egg is smaller and more rounded than any of the rest; it is of a yellowish-white colour, covered all over, but more thickly at the ends, with small smudgy spots of umber; and it has likewise a more glossy appearance than the others. On comparing the eggs of this species with those of Coturnix pectoralis, of Australia, there is a manifest difference, those of the latter bird being, as a rule, creamy white, with very obscure surface-spots.
After the above article had been sent to press, I received from the Colony the welcome intelligence that the last refuge of this well-nigh extinct species had lately been discovered. During the recent expedition of the Government steamboat ‘Stella’ to the Kermadec Islands, for the purpose of annexing them to New Zealand, Captain Fairchild, on his return voyage, landed on the Three Kings, a group of small islands situated about 32 miles W.N.W. of Cape Maria Van Diemen, the largest of them being only 1 ¾ miles long by ¾ of a mile in width, and rising about 900 feet above the sea-level. There is no “bush” on this island, but the surface is covered with stunted Leptospermum, fern, flax, and sedges, with here and there a grassy flat. Notwithstanding the scantiness of the vegetation, no less than five plants were discovered entirely new to the New-Zealand flora, and these have since been described and named by Mr. Cheeseman, F.L.S., not the least interesting one being Pittosporum fairchildi. But, from an ornithologist’s point of view, the most important discovery made was the existence there of several bevies of New-Zealand Quail, which were comparatively tame and fearless; and the explorers being fortunately without firearms they were left unharmed.
It is to be earnestly hoped that prompt steps will be taken by the Government to save and perpetuate this last remnant of an expiring race!
New-Zealand Pigeon, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 2, p. 640 (1783).
Columba novæ seelandiæ, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 773 (1788).
Columba zealandica, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 603 (1790).
Columba spadicea, Less. Voy. Coq. i. p. 710 (1826).
Columba spadicea leucophæa, Hombr. & Jacq. Ann. Sci. Nat. xvi. p. 319 (1841).
Carpophaga novæ seelandiæ, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 194 (1843).
Columba argetræa, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 80 (1844).
Hemiphaga novæ-zealandiæ, Bonap. C. R. xxxix. p. 1077 (1854).
Ad. dorso æneo-ferrugineo: pileo antico lætè metallicè viridi, posticè cum nuchâ et colli lateribus magis æneo nitentibus, his cyanescente tinctis: dorso postico et uropygio nitidè viridibus cyanescente lavatis, supracaudalibus olivascenti-viridibus æneo lavatis: tectricibus alarum minoribus et majoribus dorso proximis æneo-ferrugineis dorso concoloribus, majoribus et medianis exterioribus nitidè viridibus: remigibus nigris suprà cyaanescenti-viridi nitentibus, secundariis æneo lavatis: caudâ nigrâ suprà saturatè viridi lavatâ, subtùs nigricante, pennis omnibus versùs apicem cinerascentibus: facie laterali cum gutture toto et pectore superiore lætissimè metallicè viridibus: corpore reliquo subtùs purè albo: subcaudalibus cinerascentibus: subalaribus cinereis: rostro coccineo, versus apicem flavicante: pedibus coccineis: iride coccineâ, annulo ophthalmico pallidè rubro.
Adult male. Head, neck, and fore part of breast shining gold-green, changing according to the angle of view; nape, shoulders, and upper surface of wings, as far as the carpal joint, coppery purple, with bright metallic reflections where this colour blends with the green of the surrounding parts; back and rump greyish green, with dull metallic reflections; quills and their coverts bronzy green, with the inner webs dusky, the secondaries tinged with coppery purple; an obscure band of grey (more conspicuous in the young bird) crossing the outer webs of the primaries, being widest on the fifth and sixth quills; tail-feathers black, with blue reflections on their edges, and terminally margined with brown; under surface of tail-feathers silvery grey towards the base, especially on the outer ones, blackish in their apical portion, with lighter tips; their upper coverts dull shining green; underparts from the breast downwards pure white, the lower tail-coverts tinged with yellow; lining of wings delicate ash-grey. The line of demarcation between the lustrous green and the white is well defined, crossing the breast with an easy curve and terminating immediately above the insertion of the wings, so that when the bird is at rest a narrow margin of white appears over the bend of each wing. Irides and feet carmine-red; soles yellow and covered with small flattened papillæ; claws black; bill carmine-red in its basal half, changing to yellow towards the tip; eyelids pale red, with a reticulate margin, imparting to the brilliantly coloured eyes a very soft expression. Total length 21 inches; extent of wing 32; wing, from flexure, 10.75; tail 8.5; bill, along the ridge .75, along the edge of lower mandible 1.4; middle toe and claw 2.25; the lateral toes equal, being .75 shorter; hind toe 1.4.
Female. Hardly distinguishable from the male, but with the metallic tints of the plumage somewhat duller.
Young. The bronzy plumage of the neck and breast has much less iridescence than in the adult, but the hind neck and smaller wing-coverts are of a rich metallic purple shot with blue and changing in different lights;
Fledgling. A specimen in my collection has the chin and upper part of throat greyish brown, the feathers minutely tipped with whitish grey; the white plumage of the underparts washed with cream-yellow; the under tail-coverts stained with pale rufous; nape and hind neck shaded with coppery and vinous brown; lining of wings clear ash-grey.
Nestling. A very young chick, which I examined as a dried specimen, was covered sparingly with yellowish-White down, looking very much like flax tow, and perfectly bare on the abdomen.
Obs. Before arriving at full maturity the plumage is subject to slight variations. It is not unusual to find the under tail-coverts pale rufous and the white plumage of the underparts clouded or marked with grey.
Varieties. There is a lovely albino in the Colonial Museum, from the Wairarapa, the entire plumage being of a pure milk-white, the small wing-coverts alone presenting a slight tinge of yellowish brown; bill and feet carmine-red. Partial albinos, or light-coloured varieties, are occasionally met with. A specimen presented to me by the late Mr. Edward Hardcastle, R.M., has the head, neck, fore part of the breast, and all the upper parts pale yellowish brown, more or less glossed with purple; the wing-coverts and scapulars stained towards the tips with coppery brown; the quills and tail-feathers uniform pale yellowish brown, tinged with vinous, the tips of the latter paler. In another specimen, shot at Maungakaramea, near Whangarei, and for which I was indebted to the late Mr.
There is a very curious example in the Auckland Museum (marked ♂) and obtained from the Waikato in June 1884:-The head, neck, breast, upper surface of wings and tail pale vinous brown, relieved by touches of creamy white; the hind neck shaded with darker brown with a very faint gloss; shoulders, mantle, and smaller wing-coverts bright coppery brown, shaded with ashy brown, the central part of each feather being of that colour; this darker colour prevails on the scapulars, which are entirely dark brown with paler tips, delicately glossed with purple, and with whitish shaft-lines; primaries and tail-feathers dark vinous brown on their inner vanes, and paler brown shading off into creamy white on their outer; the larger wing-coverts pale vinous brown with whitish margins. Underparts pure white. Irides, bill, and feet as in the normal bird. The distinguishing feature is the bright eoppery brown mantle, which is very conspicuous. The outer tail-feathers are much abraded and worn.
Mr. Cheeseman showed me a very finely coloured specimen shot by himself in the neighbourhood of Auckland. In this bird all the colours were highly iridescent, even the tail-feathers having a fine edging of metallic blue Mr.
Differing again from all the foregoing is a partial albino obtained at Ngunguru and sent to me by Capt. Mair. In this bird the shoulders, back, rump, and upper tail-coverts have a rich appearance, the white predominating. Some of the wing-feathers and their coverts are wholly white, with bronzed edges and clouded with grey, while others again present the normal coloration. The distribution of colours, however, is quite irregular, the white largely predominating in the right wing.
In the Natural History Museum of the Jardin des Plantes there is a curious variety, from the collection of MM. Hombron and Jacquinot, marked “Akaroa, ♀.” In place of the bronzy green the general plumage is dark cinnamon-brown, shaded with vinous brown on the smaller wing-coverts; underparts white with a slight wash of cinnamon which is darker on the under tail-coverts. The wing-feathers are uniform cinnamon-brown; so are the tail-feathers, but these are darker in their central portion and have whitish tips. Bill and feet yellow. This is, I believe, the type of Carpophaga spadicea leucophtsa of those naturalists. This was suggested by me in my former edition (p. 158), but I had not at that time examined and identified the bird, as I have since done.
Remarks. The head is small, the neck of moderate length, and the body full, with a prominent and rounded breast; the primaries graduate upwards to the third and fourth, which are generally of equal length; the fifth is slightly shorter, and the rest are rapidly diminished; the secondaries are broad and rounded; the tail-feathers large and even, forming together an ample fan when the tail is expanded. The plumage is thick and compact, and each feather is furnished with a dense undergrowth of downy plumules of extreme fineness, which branch laterally from both sides of the shaft. This peculiarity is most fully developed in the long plumage of the back, where only the tips of the feathers assume the surface character. By this wise provision of nature, the bird is perfectly clothed in a thick undercovering of soft down, and much warmth imparted to the body. The tarsus is completely concealed. On moving the lowest feathers, however, two broad scutella are exposed; on the middle too there are 11 scutella, on the outer toe 10, on the inner toe 7, and on the hind toe 4.
On some specimens, particularly young birds, a fine white powder, like pulverized chalk, is observable on the feathers of the head and hind neck. I noticed this in a very pronounced degree, and extending to the back, in a bird which I shot on the Pirongia Range in the month of November—so much so as to leave a distinct chalk-mark on any dark object brought into contact with it. It is evidently an emanation from the skin, and doubtless serves some useful purpose in the natural economy of the bird.
Of the large and well-defined group of fruit-eating Pigeons found dispersed over the sea-girt lands of the southern hemisphere, the single species inhabiting New Zealand is undoubtedly one of the finest both for size and brilliancy of plumage.
In its native country it is less esteemed for its beauty than for its value as an article of food; and to both Maoris and colonists, in every part of New Zealand, pigeon-shooting, at certain seasons of the year, affords agreeable recreation, while to many it is a source of profitable employment. Owing to the loud beating of its wings in its laboured flight it is readily found, even in the thickest part of the bush, and being naturally a stupid bird it is very easily shot; so that in a favourable locality it is not an unusual thing for a sportsman single-handed to bag fifty or more in the course of a morning. In some districts the slaughter has been so great during a productive season that the Pigeons have never afterwards recovered their numbers; but in most of our woods, notwithstanding this persistent persecution, they reappear in each successive year in undiminished plenty. The
It is to be met with on the Little Barrier, and more plentifully on the Hen and Chickens, just before the large-leaved parapara (Pisonia umbellifera) has ripened its fruit. This bird seems to be fond of the green berries; and it is accordingly very difficult to obtain ripe seed of this valuable tree.
It is said to have made its first appearance at the Chatham Islands about the year 1855. Be that as it may, it is now comparatively plentiful on all the islands of the group, and has been found breeding on Mangare.
In the spring and early summer it is generally very lean and unfit for the table; but as autumn advances and its favourite berries ripen, it rapidly improves in condition, till it becomes extremely fat. It is esteemed most by epicures when feeding on the mast of the miro, which imparts a peculiar richness to the flesh. In January the berries of the kohutuhutu, poroporo, kaiwiria, puriri, mangiao, and tupakihi constitute its ordinary bill of fare. From February to April their place is supplied by those of the tawa, matai, kahikatea, mapau, titoki, and maire. It is worth remarking that in localities where it happens to be feeding exclusively on the pulpy fruit of the kahikatea, it is not only in very poor condition, but acquires a disagreeable flavour from the turpentine contained in the seeds. Towards the close of this period also, the ti-palm, which comes into full bearing only at intervals of three or four years, occasionally supplies this bird with an abundant feast. These tropical-looking palms often form extensive groves in the open country or in swampy situations; and when the Pigeons resort to them they are speared and snared in great numbers by the Maoris, an expert hand sometimes taking as many as sixty in a single day. In May and June it feeds chiefly on the miro and pate, when it reaches its prime and is much sought after. From July to September it lives almost entirely on taraire in the north, and on hinau, koeka, ramarama, and other smaller berries in the south. During the months of October, November, and December it is compelled to subsist in a great measure upon the green leaves of the kowhai ( Sophora tetraptera), whauhi, and of several creeping plants. It also feeds on the tender shoots of the puwha, a kind of sow-thistle; and the flesh then partakes of the bitterness of that plant. When the bird is feeding wholly on the dark berries of the whao the colour of its flesh is said to become affected by that of the food.
The Pigeon-season, however, is to some extent contingent on locality; for example, in the spring of 1863 I found these birds in the Upper Manawatu living on kowhai-leaves, and so lean in body as to be scarcely worth powder and shot, while in the low timbered flats under the ranges, where they were feeding on the ripe berries of the karaka (Corynocarpus lœvigata), they were in excellent condition.
At the Rev. Mr. Chapman’s old mission station at Te Ngae (Rotorua), formed in 1835, and now much out of repair and overgrown, there are several hundred acres of sweet-briars, run wild and presenting quite an impenetrable thicket. During the autumn months, when the red berries of the briars are fully ripe, large numbers of the Wood-Pigeon resort to these grounds to feed on this fruit, and at this season become exceedingly fat.
Captain Mair, who kept a winged bird in his possession for about eight months, informs me that it fed readily on boiled potato, rice, wheat, and berries of every kind, and that it ultimately died of sheer fatness. It continued shy and untamable to the last, and on being handled would strike fiercely with its wings. The late Dr. Allison, of Wanganui, however, succeeded in rearing a young one which became perfectly tame and associated with his domestic Pigeons. I may also mention
There is probably no New-Zealand bird that could be domesticated to greater advantage than this Pigeon. Some years ago a tame, healthy, and remarkably handsome one was exhibited at the Wellington Pigeon and Poultry. Show, and carried off the palm against every competitor in that department. Another, which lived for many months in the Acclimatization Gardens at Christchurch, was shipped home to the Zoological Society, but did not long survive the change of climate.
The New-Zealand Pigeon is strictly arboreal, and appears, as a rule, to prefer the densest foliage. When not engaged in filling its capacious crop with fruit or berries, it generally reposes on a thick limb, with the tail drooping and half-spread, the wings closely folded, and the head drawn in; but on the slightest alarm it stretches up its lustrous neck, and gently sways its head to and fro, uttering a scarcely audible coo, slowly repeated. It rises with an awkward flapping, and flies direct, with a rapid opening and closing of its wings, producing the sound so familiar to the gunner’s ear. In the bush it generally flies low, but when settling it habitually makes a graceful upward sweep in its course.
When seen from the front its ample white breast is a very conspicuous object in the bush, and the woodcut at the end of this article (from one of my own sketches) will recall its showy appearance to those who are familiar with the bird in its native haunts.
I have remarked a peculiar soaring habit which this bird indulges in during the breeding-season. Mounting high in the air, in a direct upward course, it suddenly opens its wings and tail to their full extent, and glides slowly downwards in an oblique direction, and without any apparent movement of those members. I very frequently observed this peculiar soaring flight during my ascent of the Upper Wairoa river, north of Auckland, where the solitudes of the endless pine-forests afford this species a secure and quiet breeding-place.
On the wing the whiteness of the underparts is very conspicuous, owing to the manner in which the body is swayed from side to side.
This species retires to the high wooded lands of the interior to breed; and its nest is therefore seldom met with. It is a very rude, flat structure, composed of twigs loosely placed together, and containing generally only one, but sometimes two eggs. These are perfectly oval in form, measuring 1·9 inch in length by 1·4 in breadth; the surface is smooth without being glossy, and of the purest white. Mr.
A nest in the Canterbury Museum (received from Milford Sound) consists merely of a layer of dry twigs, so loosely put together that the eggs are visible from beneath.
There is another nest, from Little River (April 1873), which forms a very pretty object. It is placed on the lateral fork of a branch of totara, supported underneath by an epiphytic growth of native mistletoe ( Loranthus micranthus), which, although dried, still retains its leaves. The nest (which contains a single egg) is very slight, and admits the light through its foundations, being formed of slender dry twigs of
In the Rev. Mr. Spencer’s fine old garden at Tarawera, where well-grown specimens of English oak, elm, and walnut mingle in rich profusion with almost every kind of native tree and shrub, a pair of these birds some time ago took up their abode and bred for two successive years, at a spot
Some colonists are of opinion that this fine Pigeon is less plentiful than it was formerly; but I do not think there is much fear of its becoming extinct so long as the native forests remain.
Its relative abundance may be inferred from the fact that in July and August 1882, Rawiri Kahia and his people snared no less than eight thousand of them in a single strip of miro bush, about two miles in extent by half a mile in width, at Opawa, near Lake Taupo. The birds thus snared are preserved in their own fat and potted as “huahua kereru.” Food of this kind is esteemed a great delicacy and elaborately carved kumetes are sometimes used for serving it at the tribal feasts.
Notwithstanding its uncertain seasonal movements, there is perhaps no bird so characteristic of the native woods, for, at one time or another, it is met with everywhere. But there are certain tracks of forest which the Pigeon specially affects, the preference being of course due to the predominance of particular fruit-bearing trees. One of these favourite districts is the extensive forest track known as the “Forty-mile Bush,” lying between the townships of Masterton and Woodville, and extending thence eastward towards Napier under the name of the “Seventy-mile Bush.” A good macadamized road passes through this bush-land, a great portion of which is perfectly level; and perhaps in no part of New Zealand can the transcendent beauty of the native woods be seen to greater advantage. Coming from the Wairarapa side, you first of all pass through some magnificent clumps of rimu, many hundreds of acres in extent, with just a sufficient admixture of kahikatea and rata to set off the peculiar softness of the former, with its “fountain of foliage” and its uniform tint of yellowish green, the young trees gracefully drooping their tasselled branchlets of still paler green. Then, fringing the road on the upper or hill-side, for miles together are glorious beds of Lomaria procera, their fronds from three to five feet long, on gracefully pendent stalks, and so closely set that a whole regiment of soldiers might lie in ambush there; then a sudden turn in the road brings you into dense bush again, with its ever-varying shades of green and yellow and brown, blended together in one picturesque and harmonious whole. The tree-fern with its spreading crown is always present—the shapely form of Cyathea dealbata with its large umbrella top, the taller
As we approach the river-banks, the low bushes are covered with a thick mantle of convolvulus, closely studded or spangled with the pure white flowers, like innumerable luminous stars on a cloth of vivid green; and the tree night-shade ( Solanum nigrum) grows in wild luxuriance, its pale blue bells having a pretty effect against the sombre foliage.
But the principal charm of these woods is the rapid change in their aspect as one season succeeds another. In the autumn months, when the berries of various trees have ripened, they are swarming with Pigeons, especially in the more fruitful seasons which occur at intervals of two or three years. In the winter they are deserted, and you may travel for a whole day without seeing or hearing a bird of any kind, except those that commonly frequent the road. But this lifeless season is of short duration, and is followed by the gladness of the early spring-time. The whole bush is then decked out with the beautiful star-like Clematis, hanging in garlands round the trees, festooned in clumps among the lower vegetation along the open roadside, and displaying its petals of snowy white in great profusion. The pukapuka, which is abundant everywhere, supports on its poisonous stems a crown of creamy blossoms in clusters so thick as quite to conceal the leafy top; the kowhai, having shed its leaves, is transformed into a glory of golden yellow, each branchlet bending under a cluster of horn-shaped flowers of uniform pale yellow with a green peduncle.
Visit these woods again at the commencement of summer and the whole scene has changed. The hanging festoons of Clematis have disappeared and in their place may be seen bunches of green silky tassels, containing the seed-vessels of this plant and possessing a characteristic beauty of their own; and underneath the golden kowhai trees the ground is carpeted with fallen petals. But the crowns of Cordyline are now bearing, in rich plenty, their drooping branchlets of fragrant flowers; the tawhero, of which the lower forest is largely composed, is covered with bottle-brush flowers of delicate waxy white; the miro is one mass of whitish inflorescence, intermixed with the pale green foliage of that tree; whilst clinging to the underwood and hanging from almost every branch the kohia creeper exhibits its minute pearly bells in rank profusion. Then every here and there may be seen, placed high up in some sturdy fork, a bunch of Loranthus ablaze with its crimson flowers and forming a picturesque object amidst its green surroundings. The rata, or Christmas-flower, as it is called, is just making its appearance; here and there a vigorous young tree in advance of the rest has swathed itself in colour, but for the most part the only indication at present is a crimson blush on some of the branches. Before the ides of December have passed these noble rata trees will be enveloped in a mantle of flery red. But the whole woodland already seems abloom and the air is laden with a faint but pleasant perfume. As a consequence of this, and the abundance of insect life which it betokens, the bush is again alive with Tuis and other birds.
We rest for awhile in a lovely wooded valley which is illumined by the bright afternoon sun and exhibits some wonderful effects of light and shade. The road lies before us, straight as an arrow, through a wooded vista nearly two miles in length; fringing it, where we stand, is a grove of the beautiful silver-leaved Pittosporum, with shapely tops as if specially trained for some ornamental garden; beyond this a clump of its broad-leaved cousin (Pittosporum undulatum) closely commingled with the ramarama and many other stately shrubs, whilst in the shaded hollow below us are some splendid specimens of the native fuchsia, attaining to the size of veritable trees, some having trunks two feet in diameter and branches laden with moss; then behind comes the low forest all abloom as described, and beyond that, far and away, the rolling “forest primeval” of rimu and rata and Zosterops, quite concealed from view, are warbling a low, pathetic lay; a solitary Warauroa from a lofty tree-top emits his plaintive call, with none to answer; and heedless of all the rest a tiny Riroriro, hiding in a bramble-bush, trills its silvery note with untiring energy. Then, as we move forward, a Parrakeet, startled by our approach, rises from the low underwood with laboured and zigzag flight and settling on a branch near the roadside adds its lively chatter to the other sounds of this sylvan valley. As the sun goes down and the shades of evening advance all these voices are silenced; but the Tui continues still to flit across our path, and the Flycatcher to display its pretty fan as it hawks for invisible flies. Then comes the scream of the Kaka as it wings its distant way high above the tree-tops; after which, with scarcely a moment of twilight between, the woods are plunged in gloom, the Owl comes out from its hiding-place, and the glow-worms shine on the damp roadside.
Such is the New-Zealand bush, replete, as it is, with a flora entirely its own-charmingly green in summer and winter alike-the pride and glory of the land and the natural home of the birds whose life-history I have endeavoured to portray in the foregoing pages.
The following additional notes on some of the Families treated of in the present volume may be of interest to the general reader.
Fam. CORVIDÆ.—The only representative of this family in New Zealand belongs to the somewhat aberrant genus Glaucopis. At page 4, in my account of G. wilsoni, I have stated my reasons for placing this form at the head of the New-Zealand Avifauna; and at p. 30 I have given the result of Dr. Gadow’s careful examination of a skeleton which I had submitted to him.
Fam. TURNAGRIDÆ.—At pp. 26–30 I have given what may be considered the final record of the North-Island Piopio, a species now on the verge of extinction. Its South-Island representative (Turnagra crassirostris) is still to be met with in certain wooded districts, but in rapidly diminishing numbers, and, with other interesting forms that still linger, its doom is sealed.
As recently as December 1887 last one of my New-Zealand correspondents, writing to me from the west coast, says:—“Since I came here I have formed the acquaintance of several old gold-diggers, from whom I have gathered much information on the haunts and habits of many of the species. All of them agree that certain birds are disappearing fast, viz. the Crow, the Saddle-back, the Thrush, the Robin, the Kakapo, the Woodhen, and the Kiwi. Fifteen years ago all these birds existed here in abundance. Every digger keeps a gun and a dog, besides, as a rule, having one or more cats in their huts. All the birds I have mentioned, either from their tameness, their incapacity for flight, or their habit of feeding on the ground, would fall an easy prey to dogs and cats, both of which animals often stray away from the diggers’ camp and become wild. Man also contributes to the work of wholesale destruction. Last Sunday I dined on stewed Kiwi at the hut of a lonely gold-digger, who, besides the three cooked for dinner, had four other fat Kiwis hanging on the wall, to serve through the week. My host informed me that he varied his bill of fare with Wekas and Kakapos. These men lead lonely
Fam. STURNIDÆ.-The Saddle-back (Creadion carunculatus), which was extremely common in all suitable localities fifteen to twenty years ago, has now disappeared from the North Island, and is becoming scarce in the South, although both this and the allied species (C. cinereus) are still plentiful on certain small islands in the Hauraki Gulf. Professor Hutton was the first to discover the nest of this bird on the Little Barrier Island, Where he found it lodged in the hollow stem of a tree-fern.
The accompanying figure appeared in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute’ (vol. v. pl. 17), together with the following descriptive notes by Mr. Potts:—
“For its nesting-places a hollow or decayed tree is usually selected; sometimes the top of a tree-fern is preferred. The first nest we know of was found by an old friend in a hole about four feet from the ground in a huge white pine (Podocarpus dacrydicides), close to the bank of the Ahaura river; it contained three eggs hard-set. We fonnd a nest in a dead tree-fern not far from Lake Mapourika, Westland. This was of slight construction, built principally of fern-roots, deftly woven, into rather a deepshaped nest with thin walls; for as the structure just filled the hollow top of the tree-fern thick-walls were unnecessary. Another nest (the one figured), found in a small-sized decayed tree in the Okarito bush, was in a hole not more, than three feet from the ground. It was roughly constructed, principally of fibres and midribs of decayed leaves of the kiekie ( Freycinetia banksii), with a few tufts of moss, leaves of rimu, lined with moss and down of tree-ferns; it measured across from outside to outside of wall 12 inches 6 lines, the cavity 3 inches in diameter with a depth of 2 inches.”
Fam. SYLVIIDÆ.—When I was engaged on my former edition, Mr. Miro australis), which differs from the typical form in its more slender walls and thinner foundation. Mr. Potts, who has collected a large number of these nests, says:—“Its nest is wider and larger altogether than that of Myiomoira macrocephala, but not so closely interwoven; moss, sprays, leaves, fine fibres, and grass enter into its construction. Diameter of nest from 5 to 6 inches, of the cavity 3 inches, with a depth of 1 inch 3 lines. A favourite situation appears to be behind such protuberances as are to be found on the huge gnarled trunks of Griselinia litoralis, very often not more than 3 feet from the ground.”
The South Tomtit (Myiomoira macrocephala) is somewhat eccentric in its mode of nidification. Among the sketches mentioned above there are representations of four of the nests of this species from one locality, near Ohinitahi, and as they exhibit very different types of architecture I have given woodcuts of all of them.
No. 1 was built of dry sprigs of climbing-plants intermixed with grass-bents and strengthened by means of split shreds of ti-palm leaf, the cavity being lined, as usual, with soft moss. This structure, which appeared to be more loosely put together than usual, was discovered in the head of a ti-palm and contained, in addition to two unfledged young birds, three bad eggs. No. 2 was composed almost entirely of dry moss with a few slender strips of bark fixed to the outer surface, in order to give it stability, and in the lining of the cup could be seen a few green Parrakeet feathers. This nest was placed in a mossy recess on a rocky ledge in thick bush, and when found contained four eggs.
Figures 3 and 4 represent very unusual forms—one of them having an exact resemblance to a moss-basket, with a profusion of tree-fern down in the centre and cavity; the other being of a long tapering form and measuring fully fifteen inches in length from the rim of the cup to the lower extremity of the nest.
I have given, at page 48, some pocket-book sketches showing a considerable amount of variation in the nests of Gerygone flaviventris. The following are further illustrations of the kind, the one exhibiting a side view being ornamented with Acœa-burrs.
At p. 50 I have stated my reasons for giving Gerygone sylvestris (erroneously referred to in the first paragraph of that article as G. flaviventris) a place among the birds of New Zealand, although, so far as is known, no specimen of it exists. Mr. Potts, who described the species under that name, seems very positive that the bird which he killed in the dense bush between Okarito and Lake Mapourika was quite distinct from our common species; and Mr. Reischek’s report of a small bird on the west coast whose notes he could hear, although he could not see it, may perhaps be confirmatory of its existence.
Fam. TIMELIIDÆ.—I have given, at page 58, my reasons for insisting on the association of Clitonyx albicapilla and C. ochrocephala in one and the same genus. The subjoined woodcuts of the nests show very plainly that the architecture of both species is the same.
As already stated at p. 60, the Grass-bird (Sphenœacus punctatus) attaches its slender nest to thin reed-stems standing in close proximity to each other, but it is sometimes placed on the ground under shelter of a tussock or tuft of rushes. One of the latter kind (formed entirely of dried grass-leaves) is here depicted.
Fam. He mentions the further circumstance that the House-Sparrow, the Linnet, and the Blackbird have all come over to the Chatham Islands from New Zealand (a distance of 300 miles) and are now so numerous as to threaton to become a nuisance to the agriculturist.MELIPHAGIDÆ.—Mr. Zosterops (to which he applies the name of Fish-eye) appeared there and on Chatham Island about three weeks after the great Australian fire known in local history as Black Thursday
As fully explained at pp. 83, 84; the nests of this species exhibit a considerable amount of individual variation, but the typical character is always the same, and this is well illustrated in the subjoined drawing of one of these pensile cups fixed in a sprig of fern.
As will be seen from the accompanying sketches, the Tui and the Korimako construct their nests on the same principle; but the fondness for gaily coloured feathers (as specially mentioned at p. 91) is confined to the latter bird.
The Stitch-bird (Pogonornis cincta), which less than fifteen years ago was comparatively plentiful
Fam. XENICIDÆ.—The recent discovery of the true relations of the New-Zealand genera Xenicus and Acanthidositta is extremely interesting from a biological point of view; and my own belief is that as we become better acquainted with the anatomy or internal organs of our many endemic forms other equally important alterations will require to be made in our present classification of the genera. In my account of Xenicus longipes I have given all the information I have been able to collect respecting it. I have shown, I think, conclusively that Xenicus stokesii is a myth, the creation of this new species having been due to an erroneous figure. In company with the late Mr. G. E. Gray, I examined the original drawing at the British Museum, in which I found the bill depicted as straight, and a mere indication given of the white superciliary streak. Mr. Gray told me that his artist was responsible for the alterations in the published figure, and that his own description of the species was inadvertently taken from the latter.
The nest of Xenicus gilviventris mentioned at page 112 is now in my collection, and on account of its extreme rarity I have had it photographed and carefully drawn for reproduction here; but, being to a larger scale than the other woodcuts, I have placed it at the end of these ‘Notes on page 250.
At page 115 I have described some peculiar conditions under which the nest of Acanthidositta chloris has been found at different times. By way of adding another curious instance, Mr. A. chloris under peculiar circumstances. One of the men in the garden, when moving some broken pipes formerly belonging to the hot-water apparatus in the vinery, noticed a nest in one of them. Thinking it to be the nest of a mouse, he tore it out, when the tiny egg dropped upon the ground, but escaped injury. I am sending you the specimen, together with the materials composing the nest.”
Earn. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1830–32, pp. 23, 24.PLATYCERCIDÆ.—As will be seen at page 149, an interesting addition has been made to our Avifauna by the rediscovery on Antipodes Island of Platycercus unicolor, a species hitherto without any known habitat. The unique specimen upon which Mr. Vigors founded the species was more than half a century ago living in the Zoological Society’s Menagerie at Regent’s Park. On the 11th January, 1831, the above-named naturalist exhibited the bird at a Meeting of the Society and made some remarks upon it, stating that, although its native place had not been ascertained, “from the more graduated form of the tail and the plumbeous colour of the bill it was conjectured to have belonged to some of the Australian islands, the Parrakeets of which are distinguished by these
Platycercus, of the Australian continent.” The lively and active gait of this bird, as distinguished from the slow and climbing motions of the Parrots, was particularly noticed
On the death of this rarity it was skilfully mounted and placed in the bird-gallery at the British Museum, where it has remained to the present day. Its bill is conspicuously larger than in the specimens recently brought by Captain Fairchild from Antipodes Island, but this was doubtless due to its having been kept for a long time in confinement. In other respects it corresponds exactly with the specimen forwarded to me by Sir Platycercus unicolor, after so long a lapse of time, is just one of those events in Ornithology that serve to stimulate and reward the labours of our naturalists abroad.
The subjoined figures of the heads (natural size) of Platycercus novæ zealandiæ (fig. 1) and P. unicolor (fig. 2) will show, at a glance, how much these species differ from each other in size; whilst the uniform green plumage of the latter readily distinguishes it from all other members of the group. Fig. 2 is taken from the British Museum specimen, in which the bill is rather larger than in mine, owing perhaps to the long captivity of the bird, and the consequent tendency to abnormal growth.
I stated at page 149, on the authority of Sir George Grey, that the northern Maoris have a tradition of some very remarkable kind of Parrot as inhabiting Cuvier Island, a high wooded islet near the entrance to the Hauraki Gulf. It may be of interest to mention that this locality has very recently been thoroughly explored by Mr. Adams, a collector employed by the Auckland Museum, and that, although he met with the common New-Zealand Parrakeet and several other familiar species, he found no strange birds there.
Fam. At the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886, a painting in oils of considerable merit was exhibited by Mr. George Sheriff, of Wanganul, showing a pair of Keas at work on a sheep; but the artist has made the mistake of substituting a dead animal for a live one, thus falsifying the record in its most essential feature. As mentioned at p. 170, a pen-and-ink sketch, by Mr. Potts in ‘Out in the Open’ represents the incident correctly in this respect, but the figure of the animal operated upon is devoid of all expression, just as if the sheep submitted to the vivisection as a matter of course or treated the whole thing as a joke. A large drawing in my possession, from the talented pencil of Mr. J. Wolf, gives an admirable idea of the subject. The scene selected is the gorge of the Rangitata, under moonlight, showing the far-off snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps, flanked by enormous glaciers; and the middle distance is veiled in mist, partly obscuring the stunted NESTORIDÆ.—It will be seen that I have given a full account of the Kea, or Sheep-killing Parrot, with a history of its development into a carnivorous bird. The extraordinary habit which it has so speedily acquired of attacking live sheep, for the purpose of feasting on the kidney-fat, has been the subject of much discussion among naturalistsFagus-forest which clothes the lower ranges. In the foreground, below the gorge, a sheep attacked by a Kea is writhing its body in agony and kicking up the loose snow from the ground in its frantic efforts to rid itself of this cruel tormentor, which clings tenaciously to its back. Two other Keas on the wing are coming to assist in this work of torture. A small mob of sheep are huddled together under a projecting cliff, trying to obtain a little warmth, whilst one sheep, more inquisitive than the rest, has advanced a hundred yards or more towards the suffering victim, and is looking on, in silent wonderment, showing that these animals have hardly yet learnt to regard this Parrot as their natural enemy.
Mr. Walter Chamberlain, of Harborne Hall, Birmingham, in an interesting paper read before the Largo Field-Naturalists’ Society last year, makes the following observations on this remarkable Parrot:—
“Between 1865 and 1870 the shepherds who were pushing their flocks in the south further and further up the slopes of the central range began to complain that the Keas visited their huts and ate the hanging meat, more particularly the kidneys and fat. Here, then, we have the first evidence of the pernicious and, to them, fatal taste for kidneys which has since so rapidly developed. They found the meat hanging with the kidneys in situ. They took a special liking to the latter and sought for them high and low, all the more zealously no doubt that the shepherds took counter precautions to preserve the delicacies for themselves. It is most likely that they soon began to find and tear open with their strong bills the sheep that died among the hills, and were thus guided by degrees to the actual seat of the kidneys in the living animals and the readiest way of approaching them. At any rate, about the year 1875, the first sheep—still in the far south—were found wounded just over the loins. There was much puzzling over these wounds, and not unnaturally they were at first, ascribed to wild dogs, that is dogs run wild; but at last all doubts were set at rest by a shepherd actually catching a bird on the back of a live sheep hacking at its loins in order to reach the kidneys. Gradually since then the habit has travelled northwards, until only in 1885 the first sheep was attacked in the Rakaia district, not very far south of the extreme northern range, as at present known, of the species. In the meantime the southern birds that had already learnt the trick, commenced to follow the flocks lower down during the winter, and to carry on their devastations more systematically…… Now, this sudden acquisition of an altogether strange habit by birds in a state of nature is, I think, absolutely unique, and it is certainly a case of great interest to naturalists everywhere as well as to New Zealand run-holders. I cannot call to mind any instance that I have heard or read of which at all runs parallel with it. New habits when they are acquired by species in a natural state have always hitherto, so far as I know, been very slowly developed, and the habit itself, as a rule, is little more than a modification of some previous one performed by instinct, as for instance the painfully acquired experience which teaches wild creatures to avoid a new form of danger, or the easily made experiments which teach them that some crop newly grown by man near their haunts is suitable for food as it stands.
“Consider for a moment the sequence of events and the extraordinary change of habit involved to the parrot. Between 1865 and 1870 the Kea first comes in contact with the shepherd, and commences to steal his meat with a marked preference for the kidneys. This is natural enough, and any other parrot with a tendency to animal food might do the same, but here the matter would ordinarily rest. The shepherds would protect their meat, and the parrots would return to their usual food. Not so with the Keas. Between five and ten years later they have found out not only that kidneys are somewhere inside living sheep, but whereabouts inside and the nearest point on the back from which to reach them. A few years more and they have learnt further, not only that sheep are incapable of defence and unable to hurt their aggressors, but that they are singularly stupid animals, and may be reduced to a still further state of impotence by the simple expedient of worrying, and, moreover, they have worked out a plan of thus worrying the sheep by combining together and attacking the unfortunate animals one after another in succession.
“In the first part of these notes I have stated that I see no reason to rate the intelligence of the Psittacidæ generally above the average of other families of birds, but certainly if we were to meet with a few more instances among the former of habits acquired by a process which bears such a striking resemblance to inductive reasoning, or at least to the putting of two and two together, we should not be able to deny them possession of intelligence which, were they a more powerful family, might be dangerous to man himself…… I have stated elsewhere on the authority of Dr. Karl Russ, and as a matter of common observation, parrots are not flesh-eaters, and in confinement even the Nestor can be kept in health without it, whilst a moderate amount only is apt to cause disease. Yet the Kea seems able suddenly to abandon to a large extent its natural food and to gorge itself incessantly on raw meat, like a Hawk. Altogether the matter is one well worthy the attention of ornithologists, and it is to be regretted that the too probable extermination of the species may prevent the present or succeeding generations of naturalists
“In conclusion, I may remark that the Kea has not yet taken to flesh-eating throughout its range—possibly only from want of opportunity. Further north it still keeps well up in the mountains, and seems content with the diet that satisfied its predecessors; but as the habit commenced in the south and travelled northwards, so fresh cases keep occurring one beyond another, and it seems certain that the necessary information is passed onwards and northwards.”
Fam. STRINGOPIDÆ.—At page 180 I have mentioned some structural peculiarities in the osseous frame of Stringops habroptilus. I have since had the pleasure of presenting a skeleton of this bird to the British Museum, and it is now exhibited in one of the wall-cases in the main hall of the Natural History section. The subjoined woodcuts (after Meyer) will show how widely it differs from the skeleton of Nestor.
Fam. STRIGIDÆ.—It has long been supposed that an Owl of much smaller size than the well-known Morepork exists in New Zealand, but I have never myself met with any positive evidence respecting it. Mr. Ellman, as far back as 1861, describing it as “not larger than a Starling,” gave it the name of Strix parvissima, and Mr. Sharpe, in the British Museum Catalogue (Birds, vol. ii. p. 43), refers the species, without any apparent hesitation, to Scops novae zealandiæ, Bonaparte, of which he gives a full description.
I have stated at p. 205 that the only authority for regarding the unique specimen in the Leyden Museum as a New-Zealand bird is a label in Temminck’s handwriting. Deeming this, in itself, insufficient evidence, I sent Mr. Keulemans over to Leyden to make a drawing of the bird in water-colour. He brought back a beautiful picture, of life-size, showing the mottled markings of its plumage in marvellous detail. But I saw, at a glance, that this Scops equalling in size small examples of Spiloglaux novæ zealandiæ, and with strikingly prominent “horns,” could never have been the bird intended by those who have described an Owl “about the size of a Kingfisher.” The occipital tufts, characteristic of the genus Scops, are so strongly developed in this species that they could not have
“Another specimen was procured by a gentleman in one of the forests far above the Rangitata gorge; on being observed on a branch of a treo, it was knocked down and caught during its fall. There was fur on its beak, as though it had not long before devoured a mouse. This bird also was set at liberty.
“It has been taken at the Waimate, where it remained for a day in the roof of a hut. Mr.
“The late Mr. Phillips, of Rockwood, one moonlight night captured a specimen by taking it quietly off a bough of an apple-tree. Mr. Phillips, like Mr. Studholme with his bird, carried it between his hands and allowed it liberty. He described it as being about the size of our Kingfisher. Note that each observer of this pretty Owl was impressed with its gentleness and its fearless confidence. Both had enjoyed long colonial experience, were accustomed to birds, men of position and well-known beyond their own districts. Athene parvissima must not be given up, even to satisfy the most erudite of ornithologists.”
Professor Newton, to whom I submitted the drawing, writes to me:—“I certainly admit that your caution has been justified, for it is almost impossible to suppose that the wonderful Strix parvissima (!) could have been a bird of the same species.” And Mr.
“I have carefully compared Mr. Keulemans’s drawing of the type specimen of Scops novæ zealandiæ with the series of Scops Owls preserved in the Norwich Museum, and after doing this, and also referring to the late Professor Schlegel’s descriptions of the specimen in his ‘Muséum des Pays-Bas,’ Oti, p. 27, and ‘Revue,’ Noctuæ, p. 13, and to Mr. Sharpe’s description in a footnote at p. 44, vol. ii. of his ‘Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,’ I concur in the belief there expressed by Mr. Sharpe, that Scops novæ zealandiæ is a distinct species; but if it be so, two questions will still remain undecided—1st, whether the locality of New Zealand assigned to the Leyden specimen by Temminck’s label is correct; and 2nd, if so, whether the species is, or is not, identical with the New-Zealand bird for which Mr. Ellman proposed the name of ‘Strix parvissima.’
“The type specimen of Scops novæ zealandiæ, judging from the materials before me, appears to approach most nearly to Scops morotensis, Sharpe, a native of the islands of Morty and Ternate, described and figured in Mr. Sharpe’s Catalogue of Birds, vol. ii. p. 75, pl. 7. fig. 1; but it would seem to differ from that species in having a somewhat conspicuous nuchal collar, in the under wing-coverts being ‘almost entirely ochraccous,’ and (to quote Schlegel’s words). ‘
“I return Mr. Keulemans’s beautiful portrait of the Leyden specimen by parcel-post and thank you much for the opportunity of examining it.”
In my account of the Laughing-Owl (Sceloglaux albifacies) I have mentioned a tendency to variation in the plumage. I have since examined very carefully Mr.
Fam. FALCONIDÆ.—Mr. Circus approximans=C. gouldi, but
Cf. also Gurney’s ‘Diurnal Birds of Prey,’ p. 22, footnote. As mentioned in the Introduction to my former edition, Mr. Gurney having sent to the Norwich Museum for a specimen of his Circus wolfi of New Caledonia (P. Z. S. 1865, p. 823) for my inspection, I felt no hesitation, after comparing it with adult examples of Circus gouldi, in accepting it as a good species, notwithstanding the opinions to the contrary of Professor Schlegel and other continental ornithologists. It appears to me to be readily separable from our bird by its blackish crown and ear-coverts, and likewise by the much darker colour of its wing-coverts. In the otherwise excellent drawing, from the pencil of Mr. Wolf, which appeared in the ‘Proceedings’ (l. c.), these distinguishing features are not sufficiently shown; nor does Mr. Gurney give the necessary prominence to them in his descriptive account, his object having been (as he has sinces informed me) to point out the distinguishing characters of the species as compared with C. maillardi (Verreaux), rather than with C. gouldi.
I have given an exhaustive account of this fine Hawk because it is one of our most conspicuous birds, being met with in all localities; but, I am sorry to say, it is becoming perceptibly scarcer in many parts of the country, owing to its wholesale destruction by farmers. On one occasion I counted no less than ninety-six heads nailed up in imposing rows against the wall of an outhouse on a small sheep-station. This crusade arises from the popular belief that the Harrier attacks and kills young lambs. That it occasionally does so in the case of weaklings is beyond doubt, but I am of opinion that the mischief done is very much exaggerated. In my history of the species I have endeavoured to vindicate its character as a useful bird.
Fam. The late Mr. CUCULIDÆ.—Of this family we have in New Zealand one representative of each of the two well-known genera Eudynamis and Chrysococcyx. Like Cuckoos in general, both of these species are parasitic in their habits of nidification, and, as a rule, both of them find their dupe in the Grey Warbler (Gerygone flaviventris), the builder of a pensile, dome-shaped nest. Mr. Potts has called attention to the frequency with which torn nests of this species are met with, and suggests that this may be due to the endeavours of the Cuckoo to make these nests available for their purpose; yet this view is hardly compatible with the fact that whenever the Cuckoo’s egg is found among those of the Warbler, the nest is always in perfect condition. But how the intrusive egg is deposited by its owner is certainly a mystery, particularly in the case of such a bird as the Long-tailed Cuckooin its foot and deposits it in the nest of its victim. The process, he argues, cannot be satisfactorily accounted for in any other way. In connection with this I may mention the circumstance that a friend of mine in New Zealand shot a Long-tailed Cuckoo which appeared to be carrying some object in its bill. On picking up the bird, he found a broken egg, of a creamy-white colour and, so far as he could judge, of a size corresponding to its own.
Mr. Rainbow’s view seems to find confirmation in the following statement, which appeared in ‘The Ibis,’ 1867, p. 374:—“The long-presumed opinion of the Cuckoo first laying her egg on the ground and then carrying it off for deposition in the nest of some other bird, has of late been singularly confirmed by actual observation. In the German periodical ‘Der Zoologische Garten’ for 1866 (pp. 374, 375) appears a note by Herr A. Müller, stating that the author watched a Cuculus canorus through a telescope, saw her lay an egg on the grass, take it in her bill, and deposit it in the nest of a
The feeding of the unwieldy young of the Long-tailed Cuckoo by the diminutive foster-parent and the appropriation of the Warbler’s nest by the young of the Shining Cuckoo are such droll phases of bird-life that I have introduced both incidents into the Plates illustrating those species.
One of my best correspondents says:—“It is not a difficult task to find the Warbler’s nest when the Long-tailed Cuckoo is about to lay her egg or immediately afterwards. It is laid very early in
Gerygone occasionally builds its nest. Of course you have seen the grand old white-pines whose trunks are thickly ‘bearded with moss.’ Selecting a spot where this moss is four or five inches thick, it constructs its nest among it, leaving the entrance just flush with the outer fringes. I was shown one by an old gold-digger, who assured me that during the last 25 years he has on frequent occasions found the nest of the Warbler in such situations.”
It is singular that in the same way that the Tui persecutes this Cuckoo in New Zealand, it is the victim in Samoa of another Honey-eater, a much smaller bird The bird is chiefly known to the Samoans as an example of arrant cowardice, owing to the fact that when seen it is almost always chased by a number of Iaos (Ptilotis carunculata), from which it tries to escape in the most precipitate manner. I scarcely ever hear the name of the Aleva mentioned by a native without some such remark as this:—“The big bird that is chased by the little Iao!”
Fam. A correspondent who has carefully noted the disappearance of the Quail writes to me:—“It seems to me to be of importance that the life-history of this bird should be correctly recorded; for the story of its rapid extinction will possess much interest for future naturalists. It cannot be said, as in other cases, that this species was exterminated by the introduction of other birds into its natural habitat, because it had almost disappeared before any acclimatized birds had reached the grass-covered downs where formerly it was so abundant. The tussock-fires have been the prime cause of the annihilation of this useful bird by destroying the seeds and insects on which it subsisted. So far as I have been able to discover, the last specimen seen alive was on the Raincliffe Station, in the year 1878.”TETRAONIDÆ.—The rapid and total disappearance of such a bird as the New-Zealand Quail is very remarkable, when we consider that the members of the restricted group to which it belongs have an almost universal diffusion, and continue to exist, under somewhat similar conditions, in other countries in undiminished plentyOcydromus australis), which, being utterly incapable of flight, is placed at a greater disadvantage even than the Quail; yet this species, instead of being exterminated, continues to thrive and multiply, and is even more numerous than formerly in the settled districts of the South Island. Some have endeavoured to account for the disappearance of the Quail on the theory of migration; but situated as New Zealand is in the great waste of the Pacific Ocean, such a theory seems to me quite untenable. It is true that, as stated at page 228, the bird has recently been found, apparently in considerable numbers, on the Three Kings; but I take it that this is a mere outlying refuge of the species, and that the birds to be found on these small islands are the only survivors of a race now extinct on the mainland, and not to be met with in any other part of the world.
The extreme fecundity of the Quail tribe ought, one would have thought, to have saved this species from such rapid extinction. Mr. J. R. Hill, of Christchurch, kept some California Quails (Lophortyx californicus) in his aviary, and was perfectly amazed with their productiveness. One of the hens laid in a single season no less than 80 eggs, forming several new nests during that period. At length she discontinued laying, and collecting 23 of the eggs into one nest commenced to incubate. She brought out all but one, and reared the 22 young ones to maturity.
Fam. COLUMBIDÆ.—The New-Zealand representative of this group is perhaps the finest of the whole. It is scarcely inferior in size to Carpophaga galeata of the Marquesas Islands, fully as large as C. goliath of the Isle of Pines, larger than C. concinna of the Moluccas, and far more beautiful in plumage than all three of them. The Nicobar Pigeon (Calœnas nicobarica), from the Louisiade Archipelago, is certainly more brilliant, but it is much inferior to our bird in size. The largest Wood-Pigeon in Australia, the Wongawonga (Leucosarcia picata), is not to be compared with the New-Zealand bird.
The genus Carpophaga is confined to the Philippines, New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand; the nearest ally of our bird being probably Carpophaga forsteri of the Celebes, on the western limit of the Austro-Malayan subregion.
In my account of the species I have mentioned (at p. 234) the immense numbers that are annually killed without any appreciable effect on their abundance, in suitable localities, on the recurrence of each season. In further illustration of this I may add that in a small area of bush between Nukumaru and Weraroa, places of historic interest in connection with the Maori war, four young settlers shot upwards of 400 in the course of two days!
“Birds, as most people know, or ought to know, form the most important part of the vertebrate fauna of New Zealand; and their importance is maintained not only when they are compared with their compatriots of other classes, but when regarded in reference to members of their own class in the world at large
“The birds of New Zealand, therefore, merit especial attention, and we are happy to say they receive it at the hands of the authors whose works are above cited. Taking the field in or about the year 1865, Mr. Buller, till then unknown to fame beyond the limits of his native colony, brought out an ‘Essay on the Ornithology of New Zealand,’ which at once attracted notice in this old world of ours. Some of his views were challenged by Dr. Finsoh, then of Leyden, who had paid attention to this extra-ordinary avifauna; and a controversy ensued. This, to the credit of the controversialists, was carried on in a spirit very different from that in which many another war in natural-history circles has been waged; and the happy result is that on most points the combatants have arrived at the same conclusion, thereby giving assurance to the general public of its being the right one. The essay we have mentioned may be regarded as the preliminary canter which a race-horse takes before he puts forth his full strength; and Mr. Buller’s book, or that part of it which is as yet published, shows what he can do now that the colonial authorities have allowed him to come to England for the express purpose of completing his design.
“Captain Hutton is known as an observer who, during several long voyages, had proved that some rational occupation could be found at sea even by a landsman; for, instead of devoting his energies to the ordinary time-killing amusements of shipboard, he watched the flight of the various oceanic birds which presented themselves, and speculated on the mode in which it was performed and the forces it brought into operation—to some purpose, as the Duke of Argyll and Dr. Pettigrew have testified. The pamphlet whose title we give is in some respects a not less significant, if a less ambitious, work than Mr. Buller’s; and though to the last must belong the crown of glory, we by no means wish to overlook the useful part which Captain Hutton’s publication will play. If here we do not notice it further, it is because its value will be most appreciated in the colony itself, while Mr. Buller’s beautiful book appeals to a larger public.
“Of the Kakas (Nestor) Mr. Buller admits three species—Nestor meridionalis, N. occidentalis, and N. notabilis—the two first of which, we think, are barely separable. This very remarkable genus of Parrots includes some two or three other species, one of which, the N. productus of Phillip Island, is believed to have gone the way of so many animals that only inhabit small islands; and the same fate in all likelihood awaits its congeners. Most animals suffer from not being able to accommodate themselves to change of circumstances; but the very adaptability of the Mountain-Kaka, or Kea, will tend to its early destruction; for, though belonging to the group of Parrots distinguished by their brush-like tongue, and deriving a considerable portion of their subsistence in a manner worthy of the Golden Age, from the nectar of flowers, this wretched Kea (N. notabilis), since the introduction of sheep to New Zealand, has incurred the imputation of a fondness for mutton-cutlets à la Abyssinie; and the charge, whether true or false, is likely to bring about its doom, since the shepherd is apt to practise what in good old times was called ‘border justice,’ and the species will probably suffer extinction before its guilt is fully proved or extenuating circumstances admitted. The Common Kaka (N. meridionalis), on the other hand, is ably defended by Mr. Buller as one of the most useful birds in the country; yet this also is rapidly diminishing. ‘In some districts,’ he says, ‘where in former years they were excessively abundant, their cry is now seldom or never heard;’ and though he adds that ‘in the wooded parts of the interior they are as plentiful as ever,’ it requires no prophetic eye to see that, with the extension of settlement, the Kaka must succumb.
“Here we must pause. Mr. Buller’s book is in every way worthy of its subject; and we trust that we have shown that the subject is worthy of close attention—whether we regard the various forms of New-Zealand birds from the point of view of their intrinsic interest, or from that of so many being now on the verge of extinction. It is easy to be wise after the event, and ornithologists at home do not in these days look back affectionately towards their predecessors who have let so many species pass away without tracing the process of extermination.”—Nature (July 18, 1872).
“New Zealand is especially fortunate in the possession of many admirable Naturalists, including geologists, botanists, and zoologists. One of the latter (born and bred in the colony), a gentleman who has made many zoological contributions to the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute,’ and whose acquirements, more especially as an ornithologist, have been recognized by his having had conferred upon him the Degree of Doctor of Science, as well as the Fellowship of the Linnean, Geological, Royal Geographical, and Zoological Societies, is at present in London passing through the press a magnificent work on the Birds of New Zealand, one that cannot fail to bring prominently-into notice the present aspects of scientific culture in that colony.”—Constitutional (Nov. 18, 1872).
“It is not often that thorough practical knowledge, both in the field and at home, is possessed by the author of a work like the present; but Dr. Buller has studied his subject in both aspects, and the value of his book is clearly enhanced thereby. Moreover he has set about his task in a way that shows us that he thoroughly appreciates the difficulties surrounding it. His personal acquaintance with the birds themselves has been followed up by a critical and impartial investigation of the writings of previous authors; and, lastly, an independent examination of many of the typical specimens in England has placed him in a position to speak with great precision upon intricate points of synonymy. The consequences to many of the indigenous birds of New Zealand, arising out of its colonization by Europeans, seem likely to be so disastrous, that it is high time that authentic histories of them should be put on record before they finally disappear. Dr. Buller’s work, therefore, supplies what might have proved a serious omission in ornithological literature. It is not too late to write a full life-history of those New-Zealand birds whose numbers are rapidly diminishing; but a few years hence it is more than probable such a task could not be accomplished. Though the present active causes may be novel, the rapid destruction of the indigenous fauna of New Zealand dates back to far beyond historic times; for though Maori tradition may give an approximately recent time when the Moa still survived, numbers of other similar forms have succumbed whose remains are now found in a semi-fossilized state, and of these we have not another vestige of record. They, like the Dodo and the Solitaire, seem to have fallen victims to some enemy suddenly introduced into their domain, against which they were powerless to make successful resistance. The remains of these extinct birds have furnished the materials for Prof. Owen’s series of exhaustive memoirs on Dinornis and its allies. Dr. Buller’s will form a fit companion work, and thus provide us with a very complete record of the birds of New Zealand both past and present.”—The Ibis.
“The first work professing to give a complete account of the ornithology of New Zealand must needs be an important one. This ornithic fauna presents so many points of general biological interest, that only those of the islands east of Africa can be compared with it. It was high time that a complete account of this fauna should be given by a competent naturalist. Some of the most interesting forms have already become almost, if not quite, extinct; others are fast expiring, or obliged to accommodate themselves to the changed conditions of the country. We do not say that the majority of the native species will not survive, though in diminished numbers of individuals; but it is quite probable that some of these survivors will be preserved by accommodating themselves to the new state of things, modifying in a more or less perceptible manner their nidification, food, or some other part of their mode of life; and if such changos should occur, the student of a future generation will find in Dr. Buller’s work the means of comparing the birds of his time with those of the past. The author has shown unremitting care in adducing all the information that can possibly throw light on his subject; he has spared no pains in illustrating it in the most perfect manner; and the result is that a most valuable work is placed before the student of ornithology, which will offer to every lover of natural history real and permanent enjoyment, and which, by its attractive form, will allure many a young man in that colony from the pursuit of other branches into the camp of ornithology.”—Annals and Magazine of Natural History.
“A mind may be so imbued with the views of Darwin as to be blind to the evidence of his eyesight, deaf to the logic of facts; but there is no proof that Dr. Buller is either: he is evidently friendly to Darwin’s celebrated hypothesis, but sees, hears, and thinks for himself. Happily for Science, the author for twelve years has held an official position in New Zealand which has enabled him to visit every part of the country, while his frequent intercourse with the natives has greatly assisted him in acquiring the information required for making such a work complete. It contains a vast amount of the soundest natural-history teaching, and seems to combine in an eminent degree the new with the true. The illustrations in the first number, the only one yet published, are excellently drawn by M. Koulemaus, who always aims at the representation of living birds rather than the conventional attitudes of birdstuffer’s specimens. They are well coloured by hand, and thus the work is rendered as ornamental as useful. We cordially recommend the ‘History of the Birds of New Zealand’ to the readers of the ‘Zoologist,’ and we sincerely wish it every success.”—Zoologist.
“The accounts which naturalists from time to time have given to the world of the birds inhabiting New Zealand have been hitherto but fragmentary and incomplete; and although forty years have elapsed since the first of such publications made its appearance, the available sources of information on this subject are still so few in number, that they may be enumerated almost in a breath. The late Mr. George Gray might deservedly be regarded as the pioneer of New-Zealand ornithologists; for, although
“When Mr. Gould, in 1868, published his ‘Handbook to the Birds of Australia,’ he gave, by way of appendix to his second volume, an account of various New-Zealand species which were scarcely known to English readers, save in name; and in point of date this would seem to have been the latest publication on the subject in this country until a fow months since, when Part I. of Mr. Buller’s splendid work made its appearance. But, although so little, comparatively, has of late been published here, naturalists in New Zealand have been actively engaged for some years past in working out the natural history of their adopted country; and the transactions of two of their scientific societies contain many excellent contributions on ornithology from such able naturalists as Dr. Haast, Dr. Hector, Mr. Potts, and the author of the work now before us. Nor have our friends in Germany been behindhand in their zeal to become acquainted with an avifauna perhaps the most remarkable in the world.
“We recognise in Mr. Buller’s publication, however, the first attempt which has been made to give anything like a complete history of the birds of New Zealand; and it would not be easy to overrate the importance which attaches to such an undertaking.
“Those who had an opportunity of seeing the Huia, which lived for some time in the Parrot-house in the Zoological Gardens, could scarcely have noticed it without wishing to learn something of its haunts and habits; and to them Mr. Buller’s account of it will prove most entertaining. In the following extract we seem to get a peep of the country which it inhabits, as we search for and find this very curious bird. Such sketches as these go far to enliven a comprehensive work on birds, which, in other respects, is strictly scientific. As regards the illustrations Mr. Buller has been most fortunate; for, under his direction, his artist, Mr. Keulemans, has produced some of the most life-like and beautiful pictures of birds which we have seen. We understand the work is to be completed in five Parts, two of which have already appeared, and a third is in active preparation. It will assuredly become the text-book for all students of New-Zealand ornithology.”—The Field.
“Dr. Buller has just produced Part IV. of his great work on the ornithology of New Zealand; and we may now fairly say that the high anticipations we had formed as to the author’s capabilities have been fully realized. In the book before us we find the two great requirements of science combined—namely, a thorough appreciation of the necessary details which are expected of a scientific work in the present day, and the ability to write in appropriate and entertaining language the life-histories of the birds of which the author has to treat, So rarely are these two qualities found combined in a scientific writer, that the greatest credit is due to the learned author for the admirable manner in which he has performed his task.
“The ornithology of New Zealand is especially interesting, from the fact that the indigenous species are being gradually extinguished; and we read with regret that even within the memory of the author certain birds, which were formerly common, have almost ceased to exist.
“The work contains elaborate scientific diagnoses of the various birds, and a classification of the different names by which they have been known to different writers.
“The coloured plates are really exquisite examples of the lithographer’s skill. In every respect the work is a most valuable addition to the scientific student’s library, as well as to that of the more general reader, and seems to contain the fullest information on every point connected with this interesting study.”—Land and Water.
“Although several more of less complete treatises on and lisfs of the Birds of New Zealand have been published, they were rather of a tentative and preliminary character; and the work before us is the first which gives a full account of this ornithic fauna, which, in zoological interest, is not excelled by that of any other country. There can be no doubt that Dr. Buller, well known in Europe by his preliminary ornithological publications, is eminently qualified to fulfil this task. His long residence in the colony and his official position have given him rare opportunities of making observations and collecting materials; and by a lengthened visit to England he has derived the great advantages of studying typical examples and of availing himself of that typographic and artistic skill in which this country excels. To judge by the first part issued, Dr. Buller has succeeded in producing a work of real excellence. The text is clear, instructive, and not overloaded with unnecessary detail; while the illustrations are beautiful and life-like.”—The Academy.
“New Zealand may be congratulated on having outstripped the other colonies in the race for scientific honours. Even Canada, with all the resources at her command, has produced nothing at all comparable with the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute.’ Now we have before us something of a far more ambitious kind—namely, a complete life-history of the birds of New Zealand, adapted to the present advanced state of ornithological science, and most beautifully illustrated with coloured plates. The descriptive part of the text is very carefully worked out, both in English and Latin; and the history of each species is given in the most complete and exhaustive manner. The plates are extremely beautiful, and are rendored more attractive by the
Home News.
“The lamentable way in which the indigenous birds are expiring in that country before the progress of civilization and other natural causes, has rendered it a necessity that a work should be prepared that will rescue from oblivion the feathered denizens of those places which in a short lapse of time ‘shall know them no more.’ This it has fallen to Dr. Buller’s lot to accomplish; and it were small praise indeed to say that his task is executed in an admirable manner. Few ornithological works that have been written come up to the standard of the subject of this notice; and none have yet surpassed it, nor will it be possible to do so. Certainly the author brings to his aid unusual advantages; but even these might fail in the hands of a less conscientious’ person than Dr. Buller has shown himself to be. In the Part now before us the history is given of thirteen birds, ten of which are figured; and this brings us down to the end of Accipitres, Psittaci, and Picariœ. No one since the time of the late Professor Macgillivray has so successfully combined the two branches of cabinet and field ornithology as Dr. Buller; and his experiences, and those of his numerous coadjutors, are told in a pleasing and instructive manner, which cannot fail to interest and amuse his readers. Indeed it is seldom that we have seen a book which so thoroughly calls for unqualified praise as the present. We have only, in conclusion, to perform the pleasing duty of offering our congratulations to the inhabitants of New Zealand on their possession of so distinguished -a naturalist as Dr. Buller, and to, the author on the complete success with which his arduous task promises to be crowned.”—European Mail.
“This admirable work, which places New Zealand in the front rank of countries, from an ornithological point of view, does credit to all concerned in it. Nothing seems to have been spared to make it as good as possible: and this fact is the more gratifying as in a few years many of the native species will probably have become extinct, and the opportunity of observing their habits, which are in most cases very fully described, will be lost for ever. The selection of the species for illustration is judicious, and the Plates are good.”—Zoological Record.
“Before entering upon my own researches and a dissertation on the species, I will briefly refer to the Ornithological literature that has been published during the last two years; and on this occasion I scize with pleasure the opportunity of drawing attention to an undertaking which I desire to recommend most warmly to all friends of and experts in Ornithology. It is the beautiful work entitled ‘A History of the Birds of New Zealand,’ upon the publication of which my friend Dr. Buller is at present engaged, having come from New Zealand to London for that special purpose. This work, as is proved by the First Part, which I have now before me, very worthily links itself in with Sharps and Dresser’s ‘Birds of Europe,’ Sharpe’s ‘Kingfishers,’ and Marshall’s ‘Capitonidæ.’ As with the last-mentioned works, the execution of the Plates has been entrusted to the clever pencil of Keulemans, whose masterly work has long since gained universal acknowledgment, and does not stand in need of any further recommendation. Thus we shall before long be in the enjoyment of an exhaustive description of the Birds of New Zealand, equally perfect in text and illustration, and every person whose means will permit of it ought, without delay, to obtain possession of this beautiful book, the more so as its publication in Parts greatly facilitates the acquisition.”—Dr. Finsch in ‘Journal für Ornithologie,’ 1872.
“That New Zealand contains more than an average number of persons interested in the advancement of science is evident, not only from the large number of members belonging to the various scientific Societies in the Colony, but also from the liberal way in which the Legislature votes money for scientific purposes; and to all of those who wish to see an intelligent interest taken in the subject of Natural History by our rising generation, Dr. Buller’s beautiful work on the Birds of New Zealand cannot fail to be most welcome. A book of this nature can be looked at either from a scientific or from a popular point of view—the nomenclature, descriptions, &c. forming the strictly scientific part, and the life-history of the birds the popular part; each being, in its own way, of equal importance. It is very rare indeed to find the qualifications necessary for the pursuit of both branches of Ornithology combined in one individual; and although we do not consider Dr. Buller’s book irreproachable from either aspect, still we know of no other work on Ornithology, the product of a single author, in which both branches are so successfully combined, as in the book before us. Dr. Buller’s style is exceedingly good, clear, and to the point. Without wasting words, he brings out in a few graphic touches the salient points of whatever he may be describing, and it is easy to see that he is a real lover of nature and delights in a camp-out in the bush. The descriptions of the species are excellent. Indeed, we think that these are the best portions of the book; and it is evident that a great deal of labour has been expended over them. In very few books on Natural History do we get such detailed descriptions of the adult, the young, and the varieties of the species, and the methodical manner in which they have been drawn up adds greatly to their value.”—Review by Prof. Hutton in New-Zealand Magazine’ (January 1876).
“There can be no question as to the completeness with which the author treats his familiar subject, nor as to the excellence of the illustrations prepared by the pencil of Mr. Keulemans.”—The Ibis.
“The Plates are absolutely perfect…… The birds are reproduced in colours on as large a scale as practicable, and with a truth to nature which reflects great credit on the skill of the artist, Mr. Keulemans. So far as the letterpress goes, it ought to satisfy all wants. Sir The Times.
“When, in 1873, Dr. (now Sir Walter) Buller, brought out his first edition of the Birds of New Zealand, it took people in this country by surprise; for it seemed an extraordinary thing that a man who had lived the best part of his life at the Antipodes—far removed from the great scientific centres of thought, from the libraries and museums of Europe, and from all those opportunities of followship which are considered so necessary to scientific workers—should be able to produce a high-class book, strictly scientific and quite abreast of the time. It needs scarcely to be pointed out that any author, whatever his position, who essayed to produce such a work, without possessing the necessary qualifications—an intimate knowledge of his subjeot and a well-trained scientific mind—would have been promptly cut to pieces by the reviewers, who are rightly regarded as the guardians of science, in its more technical sense. So far from injurious comment, every science-review of acknowledged standing in London gave the book unqualified praise. Copious extracts from all these reviews were given at the end of the work, and are worth perusal. The author was elected F.R.S., the highest distinction open to a scientific man in this country, and Her Majesty conferred upon him an imporial distinction ‘in recognition of the great value of his work to science.’ But apart from the technical knowledge exhibited in this book, regarded from the scientist’s point of view, the author was exceptionally fortunate in being able to portray the life-histories of the various species in happy language, and thus to make what otherwise might have been a dry scientific dissertation, pleasant and attractive to the casual reader. The Daily Telegraph, in its leading columns, referring to this, described the author as ‘the Audubon of New Zealand,’ whilst another reviewer said of the life-histories that they were ‘quite as seductive as novel-reading’…… But undoubtedly the best proof that the book was appreciated by the general public was afforded by the rapid manner in which the edition of 500 was subscribed for, and the price to which it afterwards rose …… It will hardly be a matter of surprise, therefore, that Sir Anglo New-Zealander.
“The specimen Part is illustrated by the most perfect coloured figure of a beautiful bird that I ever saw in any work.”— Prof. Owen’s letter in ‘Australian Times’.
“That the author possessed the true instincts of a naturalist in his early days is shown by the excellent accounts of the habits of the birds, which proves that he must have spent a great deal of time in studying the different species in the field. There is, in fact, no more interesting portion of Sir R. B. Sharpe) ‘The Colonies and India’.
“I write to congratulate you on the admirable way in which you are carrying out the work. I must say that I envy you the opportunity which you are so well turning to account. There is no other Ornis in the world which so much needs an historian, and no other historian can ever again enjoy your opportunities of the past. Any naturalist who attempts to follow you must write largely on hearsay, and, as I always tell my friends, your book can never be superseded. The letterpress is all that a naturalist could desire, and in the Plates (though these are not unnaturally of unequal merit) Mr. Keulemans has, I think, exceeded by many degrees anything which he has yet done; and I speak from considerable experience of his Plates, since I dabble myself in Ornithological drawing in oils, and refer constantly to his work and that of other delineators of bird-life.”—Letter from a British Ornithologist to the Author.
ABBOT, J. E., Esq., Wanganui, N.Z.
ADAMS, C. F., Esq., Philo, Illinois, U.S.A.
ADAMS, C. W., Esq., Chief Surveyor, Survey Office, Dunedin, N.Z.
ADAMS, Thomas H., Esq., Carcoar, N.S.W.
ADVOCATES’ Library, Edinburgh.
AICKEN, G., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
AISLABIE, John H., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
AITKEN, W., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
AKROYD, W. E., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
ALLAN, Alexander S., Esq., Registrar Supreme Court, Wellington, N.Z.
ANDERSON, Messrs. J., and Sons, Christchurch, N.Z.
ANDREWS, Rev. J. C., M.A., Vice-Chancellor New-Zealand University, Nelson, N.Z.
APPLEBY, Arthur, Esq., Christchurch, N.Z.
ARBUTHNOT, George G., Esq., 4 Grosvenor Crescent, S.W.
ARGYLL, His Grace the Duke of, K.G., D.C.L., F.R.S., Argyll Lodge, South Kensington.
ARTHUR-WORSOP, William H., Esq., Naseby, N.Z.
ARUNDEL, Jonas, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
ASHER & Co., Messrs., 13 Bedford Street, W. (2 copies.)
ATKINSON, Arthur S., Esq., Nelson, N.Z.
ATKINSON, The Hon. Sir Harry A., K.C.M.G., Premier, Wellington, N.Z.
ATKINSON, William E., Esq., Nelson, N.Z.
AUCKLAND Institute, New Zealand.
AUSTRALIAN Museum, Sydney, N.S.W.
AXUP, Henry, Esq., Wanganui, N.Z.
BABER, James, Jun., Esq., J.P., Survey Office, Auckland, N.Z.
BAGOT, John, Esq., Adelaide, South Australia.
BAKER, C. Alma, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
BAKER, Henry J., Esq. (the late), Waipawa, N.Z.
BAKER, Hon. Rev. Shirley Waldemar, Premier of Tonga, (care of Messrs. Lennox & Co.), Auckland, N.Z.
BALLANCE, Hon. John, M.H.R., Wanganui, N.Z.
BALNEAVIS, J. H., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
BARKER, H. P., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
BARKER, Henry, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
BARKER, Henry J., Esq., 16A Cambridge Square, W.
BARKER, S. D., Esq., J.P., Kynnersley, Temuka, N.Z.
BARSTOW, R. C., R.M., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
BARTON, Elliott, Esq., Solicitor, Hawera, N.Z.
BARTON, W., Esq., B.A., LL.B., Wellington, N.Z.
BATGER, John, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
BATHAM, J. M., Esq., J.P., Barrister, Christchurch, N.Z.
BATHGATE, Alexander, Esq., Solicitor, Dunedin, N.Z.
BAYFIELD, A. D., Esq., Nelson, N.Z.
BEALE, Charles, Esq., Maple Bank, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
BEAMISH, W., Esq., Puketapu, N.Z.
BEILBY, William, Esq., Hastings, N.Z.
BELL, Sir Francis Dillon, K.C.M.G., C.B., Agent-General for New Zealand, 7 Westminster Chambers, S.W.
BELL, H. D., Esq., M.A., Barrister, Wellington, N.Z.
BENNETT, Dr. George, F.L.S., 167 William Street, Sydney, N.S.W.
BICKERS & Son, Messrs., 1 Leicester Square. (10 copies.)
BIRCH, Captain A. S., F.R.G.S., Erewhon, N.Z.
BIRCH, Paul A. F., Esq., Registrar Supreme Court, Napier, N.Z.
BIRD, Frank, Esq., R.M., Westport, N.Z.
BISHOP, Thomas, Esq., Hastings, N.Z.
BLAIR, J. R., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
BLAIR, Robert, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
BLAIR, William, Esq., C.E., Wellington, N.Z.
BLAKE, Captain R. T. (care of James B. Graham), Auckland, N.Z.
BLOOMFIELD, T. E. Read, Esq., Riverslea, Gisborne, N.Z.
BLOXAM, A. R., Esq., Registrar Supreme Court, Christchurch, N.Z.
BLUNDELL, Henry, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
BOARDMAN, Alfred, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
BODLEIAN Library, Oxford. (2 copies.)
BONE, Captain John, R.M.S. ‘Tongariro.’
BOOR, Dr. Leonard, Nelson, N.Z.
BOOTH, James, Esq., R.M., Gisborne, N.Z.
BOSTON Public Library, Mass., U.S.A.
BOURKE, J., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
BOUSFIELD, E. H., Esq., Rissington Station, N.Z.
BOWEN, Hon. Charles C., J.P., Middleton, near Christchurch, N.Z.
BOWERMAN, J. N., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
BOYD, John T., Esq., Owhaoko, N.Z.
BRAITHWAITE, A., Esq., J.P., The Hutt, Wellington, N.Z.
BRAITHWAITE, Robert, Esq., Havelock, Hawke’s Bay, N.Z.
BRANDON, Hon. A. de Bathe, M.L.C. (the late), Wellington, N.Z.
BRAY, Thomas, Esq., Wanganui, N.Z.
BREWER., H. Molyneux, Esq., F.L.S., Wanganui, N.Z.
BRIGHT, Frederick, Esq., Otaki, Wellington, N.Z.
BRITISH Museum, London. (2 copies.)
BRITTAN, F. H., Esq., Kelsie, Burnham, N.Z.
BROAD, Lowther, Esq., District Judge, Nelson, N.Z.
BROCKLEBANK, Sir Thomas, Bart., 20 Bixteth Street, Liverpool.
BROGDEN, James, Esq., F.G.S., Porthcawl, South Wales.
BROUGHTON, W. M., Esq., Hastings, N.Z.
BROWN, J. A. Harvie, Esq., Dampier House, Larbet.
BROWN, J. C., Esq., M.H.R., Lawrence, Otego, N.Z.
BROWN, Dr. W., Dunedin, N.Z.
BROWNE, W. G., Esq., Manager Union Bank, Wellington, N.Z.
BUCHANAN, W. C., Esq., M.H.R., Tupurupuru, Wairarapa, N.Z.
BUDDLE, Thomas, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
BULL, James, Esq., J.P., Rangitikei, N.Z.
BULLER, C. Wesley, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
BULLER, J. Fletcher, Esq., J.P., Bingera, N.S.W.
BULLER, W. B., Esq., Manager Bank of New Zealand, Dunedin, N.Z.
BURKE, Edward F., Esq., Gortmore, Dundrum, Co. Dublin. (5 copies.)
BURNE, Joseph, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
BURNES, Alexander P., Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
BURNETT, Herbert, Esq., Barrister, Woodville, N.Z.
BURNETT, W., Esq., J.P., Hawkden Station, Blackstone Hills, Otago, N.Z.
BURNS, Dr. Robert, Dunedin, N.Z.
BURTON, J. R., Esq., Museum, Wellington, N.Z.
BUTLER, W. J., Esq., Native Department, Wellington, N.Z.
CAHILL, Dr. Thomas, Wellington, N.Z.
CAIRNS, A., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
CAMERON, Charles, Esq., Turakina, N.Z.
CAMERON, John, Esq., J.P., Maraugai, Wanganui, N.Z.
CAMPBELL, Hon. Robert, M.L.C., Manawatu, N.Z. (2 copies.)
CANTERBURY Museum, Christchurch, N.Z.
CANTERBURY Philosophical Institute, Christchurch, N.Z.
CARKEEK, Morgan, Esq., Otaki, Wellington, N.Z.
CARLILE, J. W., Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Napier, N.Z.
CARLYON, Arthur S. G., Esq., Hampden Guavas, Hawke’s Bay, N.Z.
CARROLL, Joseph, Esq., Wairoa, N.Z.
CARTER, Charles R., Esq., J.P., Wairarapa, Wellington, N.Z.
CATLEIT, W. H., Esq., Burwood, N.S.W.
CAULTON, S. C., Esq., Waimate, Poverty Bay, N.Z.
CAUTLEY, Lt.-Colonel H., R.E., South Camp, Aldershot.
CHAMBERLAIN, Walter, Esq., Harborne Hall, Birmingham.
CHAMBERS, W. K., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
CHAMPTALOUP & COOPER, Messrs., Auckland, N.Z.
CHEESEMAN, T. F., Esq., F.L.S., Auckland, N.Z.
CHRISTIE, John, Esq. (Bank of New Zealand), Gisborne, N.Z.
CLARKE & Co., Messrs. J., Adelaide. (2 copies.)
CLARKE, J. M’Cosh, Esq., J.P., Auckland, N.Z.
CLARKE, Stephenson, Esq., F.Z.S., 4 St. Dunstan’s Alley, St. Dunstan’s Hill, E.C.
CLIFFORD, Sir Charles, Bart., Hatherton Hall, Cannock, Staffordshire.
COATES, James, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
COCK, John H., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
COLENSO, Rev. W., F.R.S., Pres. H. B. Phil. Institute, Napier, N.Z. (2 copies.)
COLENSO, W., Esq., 8 North Parade, Penzance.
COLLINS, Henry, Esq., Waikomiti, Auckland, N.Z.
COLLINS, Dr. William E., Wellington, N.Z.
COMBES, Edward, Esq., C.M.G., Sydney, N.S.W.
COMBES, F. H., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
COMISKEY, Patrick, Esq., J.P., Auckland, N.Z.
COOK, J. T., Esq., Survey Department, Sydney.
COOMBS, W., Esq., Palmerston North, N.Z.
COOPER, Sir Daniel, Bart., K.C.M.G., 6 De Vere Gardens, Kensington Palace, W.
COOPER, Colonel E. H. (per R. H. Porter, 6 Tenterden Street).
COOPER, James, Esq., Havelock, N.Z.
COOPER, William, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
CORNISH Brothers, Messrs., 37 New Street, Birmingham.
COTTON, R. M., Esq., Lake Coleridge, Canterbury, N.Z.
COUGHTREY, Dr. Miller, Dunedin, N.Z.
COUSINS & ATKINS, Messrs., Auckland, N.Z.
COWLISHAN, W. P., Esq., Solicitor, Christchurch, N.Z.
CRAIG, J. Wilson, Esq., Napier, N.Z.
CRAWFORD, J. C., Esq., F.G.S., Reform Club, London.
CRAWFORD, James Coutts, Esq., J.P., Miramar, Wellington, N.Z.
CRAWFORD, William G., Esq., Woodville, N.Z.
CREWE, David, Esq., Pahiatua, N.Z.
CROSLAND, H., Esq. (care of Messrs. Murray, Roberts, and Co.), Napier, N.Z.
CROWLEY, Philip, Esq., F.L.S., F.Z.S., Waddon House, Croydon.
CULLEN, J. J., Esq., 1 Copthall Chambers, Copthall Court, E.C.
DAKERS, William, Esq., M.D., Wanganui, N.Z.
DALGLEISH, John J., Esq., F.Z.S., 8 Athole Crescent, Edinburgh.
DANE, Major Henry C., Sydney, N.S.W.
DANKS, A. T., Esq., 42 Bourke Street West, Melbourne.
DAVIES, George Henry, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
DAVIES, John, Esq., Wirokino Station, Foxton, N.Z.
DAVIES, John M., Esq., Heatherlea, Egerton Park, Rock Ferry, Cheshire.
DE HARVEN, Em., Esq., Rue du Chěine, Antwerp.
DENNIS, John, Esq. (care of Hon.
DENNY, Mr. Alfred, Bookseller, 304 Strand, W.C.
DERBY, His Grace the Earl of, K.G., F.R.S., Knowsley Hall, Prescot.
DILLON, Philip Gerald, Esq., J.P., Leefield, Marlborough, N.Z.
DIXON, George, Esq., Astle Hall, Chelford, Cheshire.
DIXON, John, Esq., Omahu, N.Z.
DIXON, J. J., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
DOBSON, Robert, Esq., Napier, N.Z.
DODDS, W. T., Esq., Assistant-Inspector N.-Z. L. & M. Co., Dunedin, N.Z.
DOWNES, F. G., Esq., Chief Postmaster, Port Chalmers, N.Z.
DRANSFIELD, Joe, Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
DREW, S. H., Esq., Wanganui, N.Z.
DUBLIN University Library, Dublin.
DU CROZ, F. A., Esq., Courtlands, East Grinstead.
DUFF, Dr. Alexander Groves, J.P., Stoke, Nelson, N.Z.
DULAU & Son, Messrs., 37 Soho Square.
DUNN, J. Dove, Esq. (Wright, Stevenson, & Co.), Dunedin, N.Z.
DUTHIE, John, Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
EARL, William, Esq., Orongo, Thames, N.Z.
ECCLES, Dr. Alfred, F.L.S., Beverley, Torquay.
ECCLES, Dr. A. Leslie, S.S. ‘Arawa.’
EDGELL-HUNT, H., Esq., C.E., F.S.A., 1 Hyde Park Gate, S.W.
EDWARDS, W. B., Esq., Solicitor, Wellington, N.Z.
EDWIN, R. A., Commander R.N., Wellington, N.Z.
EHRENFRIED, L., Esq., J.P., Thames, Auckland, N.Z.
ELGAR, Charles, Esq., Longwood, Wairarapa, N.Z.
ELIOTT, George W., Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
ELWORTHY, Edward, Esq., J.P., Pareora, Timaru, N.Z.
ENYS, John D., Esq., F.L.S., Castle Hill Station, Canterbury, N.Z.
EVANS, William, Esq., Timaru, N.Z.
EVETT, J. O., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
EWEN, John A., Esq., 11 Bunhill Row, E.C.
FANNIN, Eustace, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
FARMER, James, Esq., J.P., 6 Porchester Gate, W.
FENNELL, Rowe, Esq., Woodville, N.Z.
FENTON, F. D., Esq., J.P., Auckland, N.Z.
FERARD, B. A., Esq., 67 Pevensey Road, St. Leonards-on-Sea.
FERRIS, Charles William, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
FIRTH, Josiah C., Esq., Auckland, N.Z. (2 copies.)
FISCHER, Dr. C., F.L.S., Sydney, N.S.W.
FISCHER, C. O., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
FITZGERALD, Robert D., Esq., F.L.S., Surveyor-General’s Office, Sydney.
FITZGERALD, William, Esq., Solicitor, Wellington, N.Z.
FITZHERBERT, H. S., Esq., Solicitor, Wellington, N.Z.
FITZHERBERT, Hon. Sir William, K.C.M.G., Speaker of the Legislative Council, Wellington, N.Z.
FITZHERBERT, William A., Esq., J.P., The Hutt, Wellington, N.Z.
FITZWILLIAM, the Right Honourable Earl, 4 Grosvenor Square, S.W.
FLINT, G. B., Esq., Wairoa, N.Z.
FLORANCE, R. Stone, Esq., Woodville, N.Z.
FORD, J. B., Esq. (Miles & Co.), Hereford St., Christchurch N.Z.
FRANCIS, Dr., F.L.S., Red Lion Court, Fleet Street.
FRASER, Donald, Esq., Rangitikei, N.Z.
FRASER, Hon. Captain, M.L.C., Dunedin, N.Z.
FREEMAN, Henry James, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
FRIEDLÄNDER & Sohn, Messrs., Carlst. 11, Berlin.
FRYER, James A., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
GALBRAITH, Erskine, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
GARDINER, Ralph, Jun., Esq., Shakespeare Road, Napier, N.Z.
GASKELL, Major J. B., Hill Cliffe, Woolton, Liverpool.
GEAR, James, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
GENERAL Assembly Library, Wellington, N.Z.
GEORGE, J. Rees, Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
GEROLD & Co., Messrs., Vienna.
GILLIES, Robert, Esq., F.L.S. (the late), Dunedin, N.Z.
GILMORE, John, Esq., Kilmaron Castle, Cupar, Fife, N.B.
GISBORNE, Hon. William, 26 Eaton Place, S.W.
GLASS, Benjamin, Esq., Te Kapu, Wairoa, N.Z.
GLENDINING, D., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
GODBY, M. J., Esq., Barrister, Timaru, N.Z.
GORE, R. B., Esq., Colonial Museum, Wellington, N.Z.
GOSWELL, Miss Louisa, Wairoa, N.Z.
GOULD, George, Esq., J.P., Christchurch, N.Z.
GOVETT, R. H., Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
GRACE, J. E., Esq., Taupo, N.Z.
GRAHAM, Andrew, Esq., J.P., Gisborne, N.Z.
GRAHAM, George S., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
GRAHAM, Robert, Esq., J.P. (the late), Auckland, N.Z.
GRAHAM, W., Esq., F.Z.Z., Manor House, Crayford, Kent.
GRANT, Baron Albert, D.L., Aldwick Place, Bognor, Sussex.
GRANT, Baroness Albert, Aldwick Place, Bognor, Sussex.
GREENIP, W. Mason, Esq., 1 & 2 George Street, Mansion House.
GREENWOOD, C. Winn, Esq., Napier, N.Z.
GREY, Hon. Sir George, K.C.B., D.C.L., M.H.R., Kawau, N.Z.
GREY, Walter, Esq. (Registrar N. L. Court), Gisborne, N.Z.
GRIMES, J. Watts, Esq., Lansdown Villa, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
GUDGEON, Thomas Wayth, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
GUDGEON, Major W. E., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
GUILDHALL Library, London.
GULLY, Hugh, Esq., Solicitor, Wellington, N.Z.
GÜNTHER, Dr. Albert, M.A., M.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., British Museum.
GURNEY, J. H., Esq., F.Z.S., Northrepps, Norwich.
HADFIELD, H. S., Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
HALES, F. W., Esq., Opawa, Christchurch, N.Z.
HALL, Hon. Sir John, K.C.M.G., Hororata, Canterbury, N.Z.
HALL, John W., Esq., Owen Street, Thames, N.Z.
HALL, W. H., Esq., Survey Office, Sydney, N.S.W.
HALL-HALL, Mrs., 65 Portsdown Road, Maida Vale.
HALLETT, Enoch, Esq., Havelock, N.Z. (2 copies.)
HAMERSLEY, A. St. George, Esq., Barrister, Timaru, N.Z.
HAMERTON, R. C., Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
HAMILTON, Augustus, Esq., Petane, N.Z.
HAMLIN, J. P., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
HANKINS, J. Herbert, Esq., Solicitor, Palmerston North, N.Z.
HARCOURT, E. W., Esq., Nuneham Park, Abingdon.
HARCOURT, J. B., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
HARDING, Edwin, Esq., Mount Vernon, N.Z.
HARDING, Miss Lydia, Rissington, Hawke’s Bay, N.Z.
HARPER, George, Esq., Barrister, Christchurch, N.Z.
HARPER, Leonard, Esq., M.H.R., Christchurch, N.Z.
HARRIS, C. A., Senior, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
HARRIS, E. F., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
HARRISON, Henry Shafto, Esq., J.P., Wanganui, N.Z.
HART, H. E., Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
HATCHARDS, Messrs., Piccadilly, W. (2 copies.)
HAULTAIN, Arthur T., Esq., Hastings, N.Z.
HAWKE’S Bay Philosophical Institute, Napier, N.Z.
HAWKINS, Bayley, Esq., Solicitor, Wairoa, N.Z.
HEATON, J. Henniker, Esq., M.P., 36 Eaton Square, S.W.
HEATON, William Henniker, Esq., St. David’s, Beckenham.
HECTOR, Sir James, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., Wellington, N.Z.
HENDERSON, E. H., Esq., J.P., Gisborne, N.Z.
HENDERSON, James, Esq., J.P., Fordell, Papanui, Christchurch, N.Z.
HENRY, Dr. J., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
HERBERT, Sir Robert, K.C.B., D.C.L. (Under Secretary of State for the Colonies), 42 Eaton Terrace, S.W.
HERBERT, William H., Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
HESKETH, Edwin, Esq., Solicitor, Auckland, N.Z.
HEWITSON, Rev. J. R., M.A., Woolwich.
HEYWOOD, J. M., Esq., Christchurch, N.Z.
HICKSON, C., Esq., Deputy Commissioner, Wellington, N.Z.
HILL, H., Esq., Inspector of Schools, Napier, N.Z.
HILL, Henry H., Esq., Mayfield, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
HINGSTON, W. B., Esq., Maraekakaho, Napier, N.Z.
HIRST, W. L., Esq., J.P., Palmerston North, N.Z.
HISLOP, William, Esq., Taradale, Napier, N.Z.
HOARE, Captain C. Noel, 6 Bolton Street, Piccadilly, W.
HOBBS, Richard, Esq., M.H.R., Auckland, N.Z.
HOCKEN, Dr. Thomas Morland, F.L.S., Dunedin, N.Z.
HODGE, W. A., Esq., Awanui, East Coast, N.Z.
HOGG, Allan B., Esq., Woodville, N.Z.
HOLDERNESS, R., Esq., Christchurch, N.Z.
HOLDSWORTH, John, Esq., Eccles, near Manchester.
HOLLANDT, Rechtsauwalt W., Esq., Brunswick.
HOLMES, William Howard, Esq. (the late), Wellington, N.Z.
HOPE, T., Esq., St. Ronans, Queen’s Road, Walford.
HOWARD, Robert J., Esq. (per R. H. Porter, 6 Tenterden Street).
HOWORTH, Henry H., Esq., M.P., Bentcliffe, Eccles, Manchester.
HÜG, Signer Otto, Med. Clair, Christchurch, N.Z.
HULL, Mrs., Josephine House, South Melbourne.
HULL, Frederick Onslow, Esq., M.B., Godalming, Surrey.
HULME, E. Patterson, Esq., Napier, N.Z.
HUME-WEBSTER, HOARE, & Co., Messrs., 25 Abchurch Lane, E.C. (20 copies.)
HUMPHRIES, H., Esq. (care of Wilson & Cotterill), Napier, N.Z.
HURREY, John R., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
HUTCHINS, James, Esq., Woodville, N.Z.
HUTCHINSON & Co., Messrs., 25 Paternoster Square, London; and Australia. (75 copies.)
HUTCHISON, George, Esq., Barrister, Wanganui, N.Z.
HUTTON, Professor F. W., F.G.S., Christchurch, N.Z.
INDER, Walter, Esq., Naseby, Otago, N.Z.
INGLIS, C. H., Esq., Christchurch, N.Z.
INNES, Dr. J. F., Gisborne, N.Z.
IRVINE, S. W. D’Arcy, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
IRVING, Dr. James, Cambridge Terrace, Christchurch, N.Z.
ISAACS, Major Alfred E., Auckland, N.Z.
IZARD, Charles B., Esq., Barrister, Wellington, N.Z.
JACKSON, Alfred, Esq., Woodville, N.Z.
JACKSON, John, Esq., Mayor, Timaru, N.Z.
JACKSON, J. Howard, Esq., Lichfield, N.Z.
JACKSON, Major Wm., J.P., Kihikihi, Waikato, N.Z.
JACKSON, Samuel, Esq., Solicitor, Auckland, N.Z.
JACKSON, Samuel, Junior, Esq., Solicitor, Auckland, N.Z.
JEKYLL, Henry J., Esq., Christchurch, N.Z.
JELLICOE, E. G., Esq., Solicitor, Wellington, N.Z.
JENSSEN, Frits, Esq., Palmerston North, N.Z.
JERVOIS, His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir William F. Drummond, G.C.M.G., C.B., Wellington, N.Z. (2 copies.)
JEX-BLAKE, Rev. T. W., D.D., Alvechurch, Worcestershire.
JOACHIM, George, Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
JOHNSON, Hon. G. Randall, M.L.C., Wellington, N.Z.
JOHNSON, James Woodbine, Esq., J.P., Gisborne, N.Z.
JOHNSTON, C. J., Esq., M.H.R., Wellington, N.Z.
JOHNSTON, Hon. John, M.L.C. (the late), Wellington, N.Z.
JOHNSTON, Hon. Walter W., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
JONES, Mr. Edward, Bookseller, 77 Queen Street, Cheapside.
JONES, Fred., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
JOYNT, J. J., Esq., Solicitor, Christchurch, N.Z.
JUDD & Co., Messrs., St. Andrew’s Hill, Doctors’ Commons.
JURY, J. A., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
KEATING, J. Ledger, Esq., Buckland Villa, Limes Road, Croydon.
KEBBELL, John, Esq., J.P., Ohau, N.Z.
KEESING, Maurice, Esq., Solicitor, Auckland, N.Z.
KENNEDY, Captain, Wellington, N.Z.
KENNEDY, C. D., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
KERNOTT, Professor, Melbourne.
KETTLE, Charles C., Esq., Solicitor, Dunedin, N.Z.
KIDD, Alfred, Esq., Shortland Street, Auckland, N.Z.
KING, Thomas, Esq., J.P., New Plymouth, N.Z.
KINROSS, J. G., Esq., J.P., Napier, N.Z.
KIRBERGER & KASPER, Messrs., Rohen 134, Amsterdam.
KIRK, T. W., Esq., Museum, Wellington, N.Z.
KIRKWOOD, R., Esq., Cambridge, Waikato, N.Z.
KOHN, Heinrich, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
KOHN, Siegfried, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
LAMBERT, Bertram, Esq., Te Kapu, Wairoa, N.Z.
LANG, A. C., Esq. (Murray, Roberts & Co.), Napier, N.Z.
LANGDON, Dr. I. A., L.R.C.P. Edin., Auckland, N.Z. (2 copies.)
LARGE, John T., Esq., Wairoa, N.Z.
LARGUIER DES BANCELS, Dr. J. J., Director of the Zool. Museum, 29 Rue de Bourg, Lausanne, Switzerland.
LARNACH, Donald, Esq., 21 Kensington Palace Gardens, South Kensington, (2 copies.)
LARNACH, Hon. H. J. M., C.M.G., Wellington, N.Z.
LAWRY, Rev. H. H., Carleton Gore, Auckland, N.Z.
LEE, George Edmund, Esq., Solicitor, Napier, N.Z. (2 copies.)
LEE, John H., Esq., J.P., Te Puke, N.Z.
LEMON, Dr. Charles, Wellington, N.Z.
LETHBRIDGE, George Yates, Esq., J.P., Turakina, N.Z.
LEVIN, Nathaniel, Esq., 11 Gledhow Gardens, South Kensington.
LEVIN, W. H., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
LEWIS, John, Esq. (the late), Christchurch, N.Z.
LEYLAND, Edward, Esq., Clive, N.Z.
LIBRARY of Trinity College, Dublin.
LILFORD, The Right Hon. Lord, F.Z.S., Lilford Hall, Oundle, Northamptonshire.
LINDAUER, Herr G., Artist, Auckland, N.Z.
LINNEAN Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly.
LITCHFIELD, J. J., Esq., 86 St. Helen’s Road, Hastings.
LOCKE, Samuel, Esq., M.H.R., Napier, N.Z.
LOGAN, H. F., Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
LOUGHNAN, R. A., Esq. (Lyttelton Times), Christchurch, N.Z.
LOWE, E. W., Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
LUCAS, C. C., Esq., Solicitor, Gisborne, N.Z. (2 copies.)
LUCKIE, D. M., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
LUCKIE, F. D., Esq., (care of Hoadley & Co.), Napier, N.Z.
LYALL, H. S. H., Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
LYON, Colonel W. J., Commanding Military and Volunteers (the late), Auckland, N.Z.
MACBETH, W. W., Esq. (Miles and Co.), Christchurch, N.Z. (2 copies.)
McCOLL, James, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
McCOY, Professor Frederick, C.M.G., D.Sc., F.R.S., National Museum, Melbourne, N.Z.
McDONALD, A., Esq., J.P., Gisborne, N.Z.
McDONALD, Hector, Esq., Horowhenua, N.Z.
MACDONALD, J. E., Esq., Chief Judge N.L.C., Auckland, N.Z.
MACDONALD, Thomas Kennedy, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
McDONNELL, Lt.-Colonel Thomas, N.Z.C., J.P., Wanganui, N.Z. (2 copies.)
McGREGOR, John, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
MACINTYRE, Dr, P., Timaru, N.Z.
McKAY, Henry, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
MACKAY, Thomas, Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
McKELLAR, Alfred, Esq., Opawa, Christchurch, N.Z.
MACKELLAR, Dr. E. D., Auckland, N.Z.
MACKELLAR, Rev. James, Clyde, Wairoa, N.Z.
MACKENZIE, Henry, Esq., General Manager Colonial Bank, Dunedin, N.Z.
MACKERRAS, J. T., Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
McKERROW, James, Esq., F.R.A.S., Surveyor-General, Wellington, N.Z.
McKINNON, Reginald, Esq., Mount Linton, Invercargill, N.Z.
MACLEAN, Christopher H., Esq., Manager Bank of New Zealand, Foxton, N.Z.
McLEAN, Patrick Sterling, Esq., Solicitor, Napier, N.Z.
McLEAN, R. D. Douglas, Esq., J.P., Napier, N.Z.
McLEOD, William O., Esq., Hastings, N.Z.
MACMILLAN, Messrs. W. W. & Co., Auckland, N.Z.
McPHAIL, A., Esq., Bushmere, Gisborne, N.Z.
MAIR, Captain G., N.Z.C., Auckland, N.Z.
MAIR, Robert, Esq., Whangarei, Auckland, N.Z.
MAIR, Major W., Judge N.L.C., Auckland, N.Z.
MANAOTAWAKI, Karena, Turakina, N.Z.
MANCHESTER Free Library, Manchester.
MANTELL, Hon. W. B. D., M.L.C., Wellington, N.Z.
MARTIN, James C., Esq., Solicitor, Christchurch, N.Z.
MARTIN, Hon, John, M.L.C., Wellington, N.Z.
MASON, Mrs., Paradise Flat, Lake Whakatipu, N.Z.
MATHIAS, Alured J., Esq., Hamilton Station, Otago, N.Z.
MATSON, John T., Esq., J.P., Springfield, Christchurch, N.Z.
MAUDE, William, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
MAUNSELL, Dr. H. W., Dunedin, N.Z.
MAXWELL, J. P., Esq., General Manager N.Z. Railways, Wellington, N.Z.
MEESON, John, Esq., B.A., ‘Woodstock,’ Nelson, N.Z.
MEINERTZHAGEN, F. H., Esq., F.L.S., Waimarama, Hawke’s Bay, N.Z.
MELBOURNE University Library, Melbourne.
MELLAND, E., Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
MICHIE, Alexander, Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
MILES, Alfred, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
MILES, G. Chater, Esq., Timaru, N.Z.
MILLER, The Hon. Henry John, M.L.C., Fernbrook, Oamaru, N.Z.
MILLER, M. R., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
MILLS, David, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
MILLS, William, Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
MILNE-EDWABDS, Professor A., Nat. Hist. Museum, Jardin des Plantes, Paris.
MITCHELL, Henry, Esq., Rotorua, N.Z.
MITCHELSON, Hon. E., M.H.R., Auckland, N.Z.
MONTAGU, J. S., Esq., Oamaru, N.Z.
MONTEITH, H., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
MOODY, Ridley W., Esq., J.P., Kyber Pass, Auckland, N.Z.
MOORE, L., Esq., Solicitor, Napier, N.Z.
MOORE, Thomas, Esq., Woodville, N.Z.
MOORE, Thomas Richard, Esq., Waimarama, N.Z.
MORGAN, Miss, Opunake, N.Z.
MORICE, W., Esq., Matawhero, Gisborne, N.Z.
MORISON, C. Bruce, Esq., Barrister, Woodville, N.Z. (2 copies.)
MORRIN, Thomas, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
MORRIS, J. F., Esq., Otago, N.Z.
MOSS, F. J., Esq., M.H.R., Auckland, N.Z.
MOUNTFORT, Charles W., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
NANCARROW, J., Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
NANNESTAD, Jacob, Esq., Palmerston North, N.Z.
NATHAN, L. D., Esq., J.P., Auckland, N.Z.
NATURAL History and Antiquarian Museum, Montrose, N.B.
NELSON Philosophical Society, Nelson, N.Z.
NEWMAN, Dr. Alfred K., M.H.R., Wellington, N.Z.
NEWTON, Professor Alfred, M.A., F.R.S., Magdalene College, Cambridge.
NEWTON, Charles, Esq. (the late), Christchurch, N.Z.
NORMAN, Leslie A., Esq., Naseby, Otago, N.Z.
O’BRIEN, J. W., Esq., Hastings, N.Z. (2 copies.)
OLIVER, Hon. B., M.L.C., Tolcarne, Maori Hill, Dunedin, N.Z.
O’MEARA, Edward, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
O’NEILL, Mrs. Allan, North Shore, Auckland, N.Z.
O’RORKE, Hon. Sir G. M., Speaker, House of Representatives, Auckland, N.Z.
O’RYAN, William, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
OTAGO Daily Times and Witness Newspapers Company, Limited, Dunedin, N.Z.
OTAGO Institute, Dunedin, N.Z.
OWEN, Prof. Sir Richard, K.C.B., F.R.S., Sheen Lodge, Richmond Park.
OXFORD Military College, Cowley, Oxford.
OXFORD University Library, Oxford.
PALMER, J. H., Esq., Sydney.
PARK, William, Esq., Palmerston North, N.Z.
PARK, Leslie J., Esq., Melbourne.
PARK, Robert, Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
PARKER & Co., Messrs. W. R., 41 Conduit Street, W.
PARKER, Captain Robert Townley (care of Mr. R. H. Porter, 6 Tenterden Street, W.).
PARKER, Professor T. Jeffrey, F.R.S., Otago University Museum, Dunedin, N.Z.
PARSONS, Charles T., Esq., Norfolk Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
PASCAL, Claude, Esq., Puketotara, Foxton, N.Z.
PASCAL, Louis, Esq., Puketotara, Foxton, N.Z.
PATERSON, Edward F., Esq., District Survey Office, Grafton, N.S.W.
PEACOCK, Hon. J. T., M.L.C., Christchurch, N.Z.
PEACOCKE, Gerald L., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
PEARCE, Colonel Edward, J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
PELL, Frank, Esq., Napier, N.Z.
PERHAM, T., Esq., C.E., Wellington, N.Z.
PERRY, Arthur, Esq., Solicitor, Timaru, N.Z.
PERSTON, W. Robertson, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
PETHERICK, E. A., Esq., 33 Paternoster Row, E.C.
PETHERICK & Co., Messrs, E. A., 33 Paternoster Row; and St. James’ Street, Melbourne. (75 copies.)
PHILBRICK, F. A., Esq., Q.C., The Temple.
PILKINGTON, J. Ormerod, Esq., United University Club, Pall Mall East.
PINWILL, Andrew, Esq. (Deeds Registry Department), Christchurch, N.Z.
PINWILL, Captain Stackhouse, Trehane, Probus, Cornwall.
PITT, Lieut.-Colonel Albert, Nelson, N.Z.
PLIMMER, John, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
POLLARD, A., Esq. (Opera Troupe), Dunedin, N.Z.
POLLEN, Hon. Daniel, M.L.C., Auckland, N.Z.
POLLEN, Dr. Henry, Gisborne, N.Z.
PORTER, Mr. R. H., 6 Tenterden Street. (20 copies.)
PORTER, Captain Thomas W., J.P., Gisborne, N.Z. (2 copies.)
POULGRAIN, William, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
POWNALL, C. A., Esq. (the late), Wellington, N.Z.
PREECE, Captain George A., N.Z.C., R.M., Napier, N.Z.
PROBYN, J. W., Esq., Oakfield, Three Bridges.
PUBLIC Library, Adelaide.
PUBLIC Library, Melbourne.
PUBLIC Library, Sydney, N.S.W.
PURCHAS, Rev. Dr., Onehunga, Auckland, N.Z.
PYM, Montagu C. L., Esq., J.P., Dunedin, N.Z.
QUICK, W. H., Esq., Solicitor, Wellington, N.Z.
RADCLIFFE Library, Oxford.
RAMSAY, P., Esq., Hastings, N.Z.
RATTRAY, J., Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
REES, W. L., Esq., Solicitor, Gisborne, N.Z.
REID, Leonard G., Esq., Assistant Law Officer, Wellington, N.Z.
REID, Thomas, Esq., Wanganui, N.Z.
REID, Walter S., Esq., Solicitor-General, Wellington, N.Z.
REISCHEK, A., Esq., F.L.S., Auckland, N.Z.
BEYNOLDS, Hon. William H., M.L.C., Dunedin, N.Z.
RHODES, John, Esq., Potternewton House, Leeds.
RICH, F. D., Esq., J.P., Palmerston South, N.Z.
RICHARDSON, J. H., Esq., Govt. Insurance, Wellington, N.Z.
RICHTER, John Christian, Esq., Palmerston North, N.Z.
RING, Charles, Esq., J.P., Auckland, N.Z.
ROBERTSON, G. S., Esq., J.P., Waireka, Wanganui, N.Z.
ROBINSON, F., Esq., J.P., Foxton, N.Z.
ROBINSON; Dr. R. R., Christchurch, N.Z.
ROBINSON, Hon. William, M.I.C., Cheviot Hills, Cheviot, N.Z. (2 copies.)
ROBSON, C. H., Esq., Pungarehu, Taranaki, N.Z.
ROCKSTROW, Dr. John F., J.P., Foxton, N.Z.
ROGAN, Judge, Auckland, N.Z.
ROOKES, Colonel Charles Cecil, Auckland, N.Z.
ROSCOE, J. H., Esq., 32 Beaumont Street, Portland Place.
ROTESCHILD, Hon. Walter, Magdalene College, Cambridge.
ROUSE, Harry, Esq., Forby Hall, Bedale.
ROWNTREE, W. B., Esq., Woodville, N.Z.
ROYAL Artillery Institution, Woolwich.
ROYAL Colonial Institute, Northumberland Avenue.
ROYAL College of Surgeons, London.
ROYAL Library, Windsor.
ROYAL Museum at Florence.
ROYAL Society of New South Wales, Sydney.
ROYAL Society of Tasmania, Hobart.
ROYAL Society of Victoria, Melbourne.
RUGBY School Library, Rugby.
RUSSELL, Mrs. Charlotte A., Invermay, Petersham, Sydney.
RUSSELL, H. R., Esq., 10 Bury Street, St. James’s.
RUSSELL, James, Esq., Barrister, Auckland, N.Z.
RUSSELL, W. F., Esq., J.P., Wanganui, N.Z.
RUSSELL, Captain W. R., M.H.R., Flaxmere, Hastings, N.Z.
RUTHERFORD, Alexander J., (Parliament Buildings) Wellington, N.Z.
RUTHERFORD, R., Esq., Timaru County, N.Z.
RYLAND, Fred., Esq., Augustus Road, Edgbaston.
SALE, Professor G. S., M.A., University of Otago, N.Z.
SALTER, C. E., Esq., Solicitor, Christchurch, N.Z.
SALVIN, Osbert, Esq., F.R.S., 10 Chandos Street, London, W.
SAMS, W. S., Esq., Naseby, Otago, N.Z.
SAMUEL, Sir Saul, K.C.M.G., C.B., Agent-General for New South Wales, 15 Courtfield Gardens, London.
SAUNDERS, A., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
SCAIFE, A. A., Esq., Nelson, N.Z.
SCANDRETT, W. B., Esq., Invercargill, N.Z.
SCHOEN, J. H., Esq., Naseby, Otago, N.Z.
SCOTT, Professor John H., University, Dunedin, N.Z.
SEALEY, Edward P., Esq., Sydney.
SEDCOLE, Albert W., Esq., Pahiatua, N.Z.
SEE, Samuel, Esq., Mayor of Grafton, N.S.W.
SEEBOHM, Henry, Esq., F.L.S., F.Z.S., 22 Courfield Gardens, South Kensington.
SEED, William, Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
SHARPE, E. Bowdler, Esq., F.L.S., Lyndhurst, Sutton Court, Chiswick.
SHAW, Edward, Esq., Barrister, Wellington, N.Z.
SHAW, Frederick, Jun., Esq., Ponsonby, Auckland, N.Z.
SHAW, Henry, Esq., Ponsonby, Auckland, N.Z.
SHEATH, A. P., Esq., Solicitor, Napier, N.Z.
SHEEHAN, Hon. John, M.H.R. (the late), Wellington, N.Z.
SHEPHERD, J. Philip, Esq., Wellbury, Marton, N.Z.
SHERA, J. M., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
SHERWOOD, G., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
SEOËST, Fr., Esq., Zoological Gardens, Antwerp.
SHRIMPTON, Walter, Esq., J.P., Matapiro, N.Z.
SIDEY, Charles, Esq., 18 Queen’s Gate Place, South Kensington, S.W.
SILVER, S. William, Esq., F.L.S., Letcomb Manor, near Wantage, Berks. (2 copies.)
SIMCOX, W. H., Esq., J.P., Otaki, N.Z.
SIMMS, W. H., Esq., J.P., Christchurch, N.Z.
SIMPSON, R. M., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
SINCLAIR, W., Esq., Solicitor, Blenheim, N.Z.
SISE, George L., Esq., Dunedin, N.Z.
SKERMAN, Dr. Sidney, Marton, N.Z.
SMITH, Charles, Esq., Te Korito, Wanganui, H.Z.
SMITH, H. G. Seth, Esq., District Judge, Auckland, N.Z.
SMITH, Montague, Esq., Melbourne.
SMITH, S. Percy, Esq., Assistant Surveyor General, Auckland, N.Z.
SMITH, W. D., Esq., Perp. Tr. Co., Dunedin, N.Z.
SMITH, W. W., Esq., Windsor Park, Oamaru, N.Z.
SMYTHE, A. B., Esq., Government Insurance, Oamaru, N.Z.
SMYTHE, R. J. S., Esq., Napier, N.Z.
SMYTHE, W., Esq., Caversham, Dunedin, N.Z.
SOTHERAN & Co., Messrs., 136 Strand. (35 copies.)
SOUTH, Marcus Furlong, Esq., Solicitor, Hokitika, N.Z.
SPENCE, Edwin J., Esq., J.P. (care of Dalgetty and Co., Limited), Dunedin, N.Z.
SPENCER, Charles, Esq., Tauranga, N.Z.
SPENCER, F. H., Esq., Waipukurau, N.Z.
SPENCER, Dr. W. J., Napier, N.Z.
SPENCEY, J., Esq., J.P., Property-Tax Commissioner, Wellington, N.Z.
STAFFORD, E., Esq., Solicitor, Wellington, N.Z.
STARK, Arthur C., Esq., M.B., The Cottage, Whiteparish, Salisbury.
STEVENS, John, Esq., J.P., Rangitikei, N.Z.
STEWART, James, Esq., M. Inst. C.E., Auckland, N.Z.
STEWART, James, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
STEWART, J. T., Esq., C.E., J.P., District Engineer, Public Works Office, Wanganui, N.Z.
STEWART, Stewart R., Esq., Tologa Bay, N.Z.
STOKES, Lieut.-General Sir John, R.E., K.C.B., Good Rest, Hayward’s Heath.
STOUT, Hon. Sir Robert, K.C.M.G., Dunedin, N.Z.
STUBBS, F. M., Esq., Melbourne.
STUDHOLME, John, Esq., J.P., Christchurch, N.Z.
STURM, F. W. C., Esq., Clive, N.Z.
SUTER, The Right Rev. Andrew Burn, D.D., Bishop of Nelson, N.Z.
SUTHERLAND, John, Esq., Havelock, N.Z.
SWAINTON, Samuel D., Esq., Tologa Bay, N.Z.
SWAN, George Henry, Esq., Napier, N.Z.
SYKES, Joseph, Esq., Solicitor, Auckland, N.Z.
TAAFFE, Anthony, Esq., 3 Prince’s Terrace, Kensington Gardens, S.W.
TANNER, Thomas, Esq., J.P., Riverslea, Napier, N.Z.
TATE Institute, Silvertown, E.
TEESDALE, Alfred, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
TENNENT, R. C., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
THELWALL, R., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
THIN, James, Esq., 14 and 15 Infirmary Street, Edinburgh.
THOMAS, Professor A. P. W., Univ. College, Auckland, N.Z.
THOMAS, Richard D., Esq., Solicitor, Christchurch, N.Z. -
THOMPSON, F. J., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
THOMPSON, Joseph, Esq., Riversdale, Wilmslow, Cheshire.
THOMPSON, J. S. M., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
THOMSON, George M., Esq., F.L.S., Newington, Dunedin, N.Z.
TIFFEN, H. S., Esq., J.P., Napier, N.Z.
TINLINE, John, Esq., Christchurch Club, Canterbury, N.Z.
TINNE, John Ernest, Esq., Moystyn Cottage, Mersey Road, Aigburth, Liverpool.
TINNE, Theodore F. S., Esq., The Beeches, Hawkhurst, Kent.
TOD, Andrew, Esq., Wanganui, N.Z.
TODD, Alexander, Esq., J.P., The Pines, Waipawa, N.Z.
TOOMATH, Edward, Esq. (the late), Wellington, N.Z.
TOULSON, R. Garrett, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
TOWNLEY, John, Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
TOXWARD, C. Julius, Esq., J.P., Danish Consul, Wellington, N.Z.
TRAVERS, W. T. Locke, Esq., F.L.S., Wellington, N.Z.
TRINDERS, Arnold, Esq., Ryden’s Road, Walton-on-Thames.
TRINITY College Library, Dublin.
TRIPE, Dr. J. Decimus, J.P., Wanganui, N.Z.
TRISTRAM, Rev. Canon, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S., Durham.
TRÜBNER & Co., Messrs., Ludgate Hill, E.C. (6 copies.)
TURNBULL, Walter, Esq., Mount Henley, Sydenham Hill.
TURTON, Graham H., Esq., The Glen, Otago, N.Z.
ULRICH, Professor H. F., University, Dunedin, N.Z.
UNION Steam Shipping Company (per
UNIVERSITY Library, Cambridge.
URQUHART, Arthur T., Esq., F.L.S., Drury, Auckland, N.Z.
VICKERS, James W., Esq., 5 Nicholas Lane, E.C.
VICKERS, Samuel, Esq., Prince’s Street, Auckland, N.Z.
WAKEFIELD, C. M., Esq., F.L.S., Belmont, Uxbridge.
WAKEFIELD, Edward, Esq., M.H.R., Wellington, N.Z. (2 copies.)
WALCH & Sons, Messrs. J., Hobart, Tasmania.
WALDEGRAVE, John, Esq., J.P., Palmerston North, N.Z.
WALKER, Alfred, Esq., F.R.G.S., Ponsonby, Auckland, N.Z.
WALKER, E. B., Esq., J.P., Cambridge, Wiakato, N.Z.
WALKER, W. J., Esq., Gisborne, N.Z.
WALLACE, Rev. A. H., Gisborne, N.Z.
WALLACE, James, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
WALLACE, J. Howard, Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
WALLIS, A. H., Esq., J.P., Waipiro, Gisborne, N.Z.
WARD, E. F. F., Jun., Esq., Solicitor, Gisborne, H.Z.
WATERHOUSE, F. S., Esq., J.P., Mangowhare, N.Z.
WEBBER, H. G., Esq., Wairoa, N.Z.
WEBSTER, J. A. Hume, Esq., J.P., 14 Aldford Street, Park Lane, W.
WELLINGTON Philosophical Society, N.Z.
WESLEY & Son, Messrs., 28 Essex Street, Strand. (2 copies.)
WEST, Frederick, Esq., F.R.G.S., The Waldrons, Croydon.
WESTENRA, Parker, Esq., Canterbury, N.Z.
WESTRUP, Major Charles, Gisborne, N.Z.
WEELDON, John, Esq., 58 Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
WHITAKER, Hon. Sir Frederick, K.C.M.G., Auckland, N.Z.
WHITCOMB, Fred., Esq., Solicitor, Gisborne, N.Z.
WHITE, John, Esq., Solicitor (care of Anderson & Co.), Dunedin, N.Z.
WHITE, John, Esq., Remuera, Auckland, N.Z.
WHITE, T. Leigh, Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
WHITE, Thomas W., Esq., Napier, N.Z. WHITE, W. Kinross, Esq., Napier, N.Z.
WHITMORE, The Hon. Major-General Sir George, K.C.M.G., Commanding Forces, Wellington, N.Z.
WHITTON, Dr. James, Naseby, Otago, N.Z.
WTDDOP, William, Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
WILKIE, James, Esq., Dunedia, N.Z.
WILKIN, Robert, Esq., J.P. (the late), Christchurch, N.Z.
WILL, William, Esq., (Queen Street), Auckland, N.Z.
WILLIAMS, Heathcote, Esq., Solicitor, Hastings, N.Z.
WILLIAMS, Joseph H., Esq., J.P., Hastings, N.Z.
WILLIAMS, J. N., Esq., J.P., Hastings, N.Z.
WILLIAMS, W. L. C., Esq., Cambridge, Waikato, N.Z.
WILLIAMS, Captain W. R., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
WILLIAMSON, G. Bell, Esq., 21 Jenner Road, Rectory Road, N.
WILLIAMSON, Hudson, Esq., Barrister, Auckland, N.Z.
WILLS, William, Esq., Colonial Bank, Dunedin, N.Z.
WILSON, Major John, F.R.G.S., Cambridge, Waikato, N.Z.
WILSON, J. L., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
WILSON, W. S., Esq., Auckland, N.Z.
WOLF, J., Esq., F.Z.S., Primrose Hill Studios, Regent’s Park.
WOOD, F. W. H., Esq., Resident Agent Government Life Insurance Department, Napier, N.Z.
WOOLAND, Alderman, Canning Town, E.
WOOD, Richard W., Esq., J.P., Wanganui, N.Z.
WOON, Ernest, Esq., Wanganui, N.Z.
WRIGHT, Dr, E. Perceval, M.A., Trinity College, Dublin.
WRIGHT, J. F. E., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
YOUNG, Dr. James, Riverton, Otage, N.Z.
YOUNG, J., Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
YOUNG, T. W., Esq., J.P., Wellington, N.Z.
ZIESLER, W., Esq., Timaru, N.Z.
ZOHRAB, Constantine E., Esq., Wellington, N.Z.
ZOOLOGICAL and Acclimatization Society, Melbourne.
ZOOLOGICAL Society of London.
Total: 1000 COPIES.
Dusky Plover, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 211 (1785).
Charadrius obscurus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 686 (1788).
Charadrius glareola, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 109 (1844).
Pluviorhynchus obscurus, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 417 (1856).
Ad. ptil. æstiv. suprà sordidè cinereus, ochraceo-rufo lavatus, plumis omnibus hôc colore marginatis: collo postico paullò dilutiore cinereo: tectricibus alarum dilutè cinereis, pallidiùs marginatis, majoribus angustè albido terminatis: remigibus cinerascenti-brunneis, extùs et versùs apicem saturatioribus, scapis albis, remigibus minoribas et socundariis extimis basin versùs albis et conspicuè albo terminatis, secundariis dorsalibus dorso concoloribus: caudà saturatiùs brunneâ, rectricibus externis magis cinerascentibus albo terminatis, pennâ extimâ ferè albidâ: loris et supercilio distincto fulveacenti-albis: regione paroticâ brunnescente: subtùs ochrascenti-rufus, genis et gulâ pallidioribas: hypochondriia cum crisso et subcaudalibus albidis: subalaribus et axillaribus albis: rostro nigro: pedibus plumbeis: iride nigrâ.
Ad. ptil. hiem. similis ptilosi asativæ, sed sordidior: suprà dilutè cinereua, haud rufeacente lavatis: subtùs albicans, pectore superiore laterali cinerascente.
Adult in summer. Crown of the head, hind part of neck, and all the upper surface greyish brown, each feather narrowly margined with chestnut; a small spot on the forehead, and all the chin white; throat, fore neck, and underparts of the body chestnut-brown; lining of wings, flanks, lower part of abdomen, and under tail-coverts white; wing-feathers brownish black, the first primary having the entire shaft white, and the rest white in their median portion. Irides and bill black; legs and feet leaden grey. Length 10·5 inches; extent of wings 21; wing, from flexure, 6·5; tail 2·75; bill, along the ridge 1·1, along the edge of lower mandible 1·2; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 1·4; middle toe and claw 1·2.
Adult in winter. Upper surface greyish brown, without the chestnut margins; underparts pure white, the breast crossed by an interrupted zone of dark grey, and the sides of the body tinged with the same.
Obs. It ought to be mentioned that the extent and depth of the chestnut colouring of the underparts vary appreciably in different individuals. I have found one with the fore neck, breast, and all the underparts of a bright rufous brown, whilst in another killed in the same locality and at the same time there is a mere wash of chestnut on the underparts. I have seen a pair (♂ and ♀) shot in company at the height of the breeding-season, in both of which there was only a faint wash of cinnamon on the underparts, and much white on the secondaries, the outer vanes being almost wholly white. Birds in transitional plumage with rufous patches, or scattered summer feathers of a bright colour intermixed with the white, are common enough and are met with all the year round.
This fine species, although nowhere very plentiful, is dispersed along the whole of our shores, frequenting the ocean-beaches and the sand-flats at the mouths of all our tidal rivers. It, moreover, inhabits the interior, and appears to affect very high altitudes. The late Sir J. von Haast sent me specimens obtained by him far up in the Southern Alps; Mr. Enys states that he has met with it at
It is more plentiful on the mud-flats and sand-banks of the Kaipara basin and Manukau harbour than in any other part of the colony. It is gregarious in its habits, associating in small flocks, which fly together from one feeding-place to another and then, scattering themselves, mingle freely with the Godwit and other Waders frequenting the same localities. The young birds remain with their parents till the breeding-season comes round again.
It subsists chiefly on small crustaceans, mollusca, and sand-hoppers, and pursues its prey on foot. It has a common habit of running about on the dry sand-drift, among the tauhinu bushes, near the sea-shore, in pursuit of insects of various kinds. On a close inspection the little footprints may be observed in the loose sand running in lines in all directions. When disturbed it rises in the air with a rapid vibration of its wings, and flies in a circle, with an occasional sailing movement, when the wings are motionless and assume the form of a bow.
An excellent illustration of this bird (in full summer plumage) was given in Gray’s ‘Birds of New Zealand,’ forming part of the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror.’
The example figured in the accompanying Plate, which is likewise in summer garb, was obtained on the ocean-beach at Port Chalmers, where this Dottrel is comparatively rare.
Major Mair writes to me that at Te Arikiroa, a bay in Rotorua lake, he observed numbers of these birds running about among the warm springs and along the sulphur-crusted pans, where they appeared to be catching insects.
On the nesting-habits of this species Mr. Potts writes:— “In the breeding-season I have noticed it at such a considerable altitude as the summit of Dog range, in the Ashburton district. The nest is difficult to find; it is so slight an affair that it easily escapes observation—merely a few stems of grass twisted into a slight hollow in the ground, so loosely put together that it is not easy to pick it up and yet preserve its form. The eggs, three in number, just fill the nest; they are of a delicate soft brown, suffused with dark brown (almost black) marks, somewhat oval in shape, 1 inch 9 lines in length, with a breadth of 1 inch 3 lines. The young run with speed almost as soon as hatched, and conceal themselves with much skill. I have observed eggs and young in the months of October and November. I know of one spot where it has bred for several years in close proximity with the nests of the Stilt-Plover, the Oyster-catcher, and the Banded Dottrel.”
There is a good series of eggs in the Canterbury Museum: in some examples the spots and markings are blotched, in others they are rounded and distinct, while in some they are more or less confluent towards the larger end. In size they average 1·8 inches in length by 1·2 in breadth.
The same collection contains an egg belonging undoubtedly to the Black-fronted Tern (Sterna antarctica), which was taken by Mr.
Mr. Robson writes to me that he took from the ovary of a bird he had shot-an egg just ready for extrusion, and that “it was ovoido-conical in shape and of a very delicate shade of light greenish blue without spots of any kind.”
Chestnut-breasted Plover, Lath. Gen. Hist. ix. p. 324 (1824).
Charadrius bicinctus, Jard. & Selby, Ill. of Orn. i. pl. 28 (1825).
Ægialitis bicinctus, Gould, Syn. B. Austr. pt. ii. (1887).
Hiaticula bicincta, Gould, B. of Austr. vi. pl. 16 (1848).
Ochthodromus bicinctus, Gray, Hand-1. of B. iii. p. 16 (1871).
Ad. æstiv. suprè obscurè cinereus, supracaudalibus exterioribus albo terminatis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, majoribus angustè albo terminatis: remigibus brunneis, extùs et versùs apicem saturatioribus, scapis medialiter albis, primariis internis ad apicem albis, remigibus minoribus albo conspicuè terminatis, secundariis dorsalibus dorso concoloribus: caudâ saturatè brunneâ, rectricibus exterioribus cinerascentibus et albo terminatis, rectrice extimâ albicante: fasciâ frontali latâ suprà oculos angustiùs ductâ albâ, fasciâ alterâ nigrâ frontali utrinque marginatâ: plumis infraocularibus pallidè cinerascentibus: regione paroticà cinerascente, dorso concolore: fasciâ mystacali nigrâ cum lineâ anteriore frontali conjunctâ: subtùs albus, torque jugulari latâ nigrâ, alterâ pectorali castaneâ: subalaribus albis, imis cinerascentibus: rostro nigro; pedibus flavicanti-cinereis: iride nigrâ.
Ad. hiem. similis ptilosi æestivæ, sed obscurior: torquibus pectoralibus minoribus vel interdum obsoletè indicatis.
Adult male. Forehead white, margined above and below with black; crown of the head, nape, and all the upper surface greyish brown; from the base of the upper mandible a black streak, which crosses the eyes and blends into the grey on the sides of the neck; throat and fore neck pure white; across the breast a narrow zone of black, and (a short space below it) a broad band of chestnut, which covers the upper part of the abdomen; the rest of the underparts pure white; quills brown with white shafts; the middle tail-feathers dark brown, with greenish reflections in their apical portion, the lateral feathers paler, with white shafts, and the outermost one on each side pure white. Irides blackish brown; bill black; legs yellowish grey. Length 8·5 inches; extent of wings 16; wing, from flexure, 5·25; tail 2·75; bill, along the ridge ·75, along the edge of the lower mandible 75; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 1·25; middle toe and claw 1.
Female. Similar to the male, but with the margins of the frontal spot less defined, and the pectoral bands some-what duller.
Obs. There is a seasonal change of plumage, the chestnut band becoming considerably reduced in winter, although it is never entirely absent in the fully adult bird.
Young. Upper parts suffused with rust-red, each feather having a narrow margin of that colour; forehead, throat, and underparts white with a slight tinge of rufous, the frontal spot being inconspicuous; a narrow zone of dark mottled grey encircles the fore neck, spreading and darkening to greyish brown on the sides of the breast; but there is no indication of the pectoral band of chestnut.
Fledgling (Taupo, Dec. 24). Feathers of the upper parts brown largely margined with fulvous; underparts white, with fulvous markings on the bareast; the sides of the head and lower part of back and rump covered with down of a dull sandy yellow spotted with black, and with fluffy down still adhering to other parts of the body. Bill dark brown; legs brownish grey.
Chick. Covered with soft down of a bright sandy yellow on the upper surface, changing to yellowish white on the underparts; the crown of the head and the back prettily mottled and varied with dark brown, of which there is also a broad streak on the wings and thighs.
This pretty little Dottrel is very common on our shores, and is frequently met with also at a considerable distance inland. It associates in flocks, and is always to be found on the ocean-beach, or on the dry sands and grassy plains in the vicinity of the coast; but I have also observed it on the Onetapu desert, in the interior of the North Island, and it is very commonly met with on the pastures several miles from the sea. It has been recorded from Lord Howe’s Island; and Mr.
It is more active in its habits than the preceding species, running swiftly over the sands, and stopping at short intervals to bob its head and utter a rather plaintive note. It rises in the air with a very rapid movement of its wings, and usually adopts a circular course, the whole flock wheeling simultaneously and descending to the ground in an oblique direction.
It is hard to kill, often flying a considerable distance after being mortally hit with pigeon-shot. On taking a wounded bird into my hand I felt almost a sense of remorse at taking its life, the lustrous brown eyes of my little victim having a peculiarly soft and tender expression.
In the high sandy flats near the sea-shore where the bright pingao grass mixes with the wild sage, this bird may always be met with in the breeding-season, which commences as early as August; and so perfect an adept is it in the art of deception that I have been decoyed away from its nest and young when, as afterwards discovered, they were at my very feet. In the location of the nest itself there is very little attempt at concealment, the bird apparently trusting more for protection to the assimilative colouring; but after the young are hatched out, the old birds (and particularly the female) manifest considerable solicitude for the safety of their offspring, and feign lameness or a damaged wing for alluring intruders away, a device which very often succeeds. The young bird runs the moment it quits the shell, and is not slow to second its parent in the art of self-preservation. Its sandy colouring makes it almost indistinguishable when squatting on the ground, and it has the instinct to remain perfectly motionless the moment it hears the note of alarm, even allowing itself to be handled without betraying a sign of vitality.
The eggs are generally three in number, broadly oval in form, measuring 1·3 inch in length by 1 in breadth, and are of a dark grey colour, much speckled and mottled with brown. The numerous examples in the Canterbury Museum exhibit some variety in their colouring; they are of different shades of brownish grey, inclining in some to greenish grey, spotted and pencilled or marked all over, but especially at the larger end, with brownish black. The specimens vary not only in the tone of the ground-colour, but also in the form and extent of the markings, some being very handsomely pencilled and spotted, whilst others have a dark or blotched appearance, particularly at the larger end.
I once discovered a nest of this species in a grass paddock at Manawatu, several miles from the sea-shore; and on my taking up one of the chicks, the old birds flew round me in circles and gave vent to their anxiety in a rapid clicking note, in which both of them joined. This was on the 22nd of December, and the young birds appeared to have only just emerged from the shell.
I sketched this nestling, although I did not preserve the specimen, and my drawing is reproduced in the woodcut on p. 15.
Charadrius reficapillus, Temm. Pl. Col. vol. v. pl. 47. fig. 2 (1838).
Hiaticula ruficapilla, Gould, Birds of Austr. fol. vol. vi. pl. 17 (1848).
Ægialopillus ruficapillus, Gould, Handb. Birds of Austr. vol. ii. p. 235 (1865).
Ad. pallidè cinerascenti-brunneus, alarum tectricibus vix pallidioribus, majoribus albo terminatis: alâ spuriâ, tectricibus primariorum et remigibus fuscescenti-brunneis, scapis albis, secundariis intimis dorso concoloribus: supracaudalibus saturatùs brunneis, lateralibus albis: rectricibus medianis saturatè brunneis, proximis pallidioribus albo marginatis, reliquis albia: pileo et collo postico pallidè cinnamomeis: fronte albâ, postice nigro faaciatâ: strigâ lorali et fasciâ supraparoticâ nigris: subalaribus quoque albis, imis majoribus cinerascentibus.
Adult male. Forehead crossed by a broad band of white, which diminishes to a point at the posterior angle of the eye; above this a narrow band of black; crown, nape, and back of neck bright rust-red; a line of black from the gape extending across the eyes and down the sides of the neck, forming an edging to the rust-red colour; back, rump, and upper surface of wings pale greyish brown, each feather margined with a lighter tint; tail-feathers white, except the two middle ones which are brown; throat, fore neck, and entire under surface pure white. Irides and bill black; legs and feet greyish black. Total length 5·75 inches; wing, from flexure, 4; tail ·9; bill, along the ridge ·6, along the edge of lower mandible ·7; bare tibia ·4; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw ·75.
Female. Differs from the male only in the paler tints of the plumage.
Obs. Some specimens have a faint wash of fulvous on the breast and sides of the body.
Of this Dottrel, which is widely distributed along the shores of Australia, a single straggler has been recorded in New Zealand
Like many other members of the extensive family to which it belongs, this species resorts to very clever devices for the purpose of diverting attention from its nest and young, feigning lameness or a crippled wing, and simulating, in a very remarkable manner, the actions of a partially disabled or wounded bird.
Mr. Gould describes the eggs as being one and a quarter inches in length by seven eighths of an inch in breadth, and of a pale stone-colour, sprinkled all over with small irregular blotches of brownish black.
Fulvous Plover, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. p. 211 (1785).
Charadrius fulvus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 687 (1788, ex Lath.).
Charadrius pluvialis, Horsf. Tr. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 187 (1822).
Charadrius ôanthocheilus, Wagl. Syst. Av. Charadrius, sp. 36 (1827, ex Lath.).
Charadrius taitensis, Less. Man. d’Orn, ii. p. 321 (1828).
Charadrius virginianus, Jard. & Selby, Ill. Orn. ii. pl. lxxxv. (c. 1830).
Charadrius glaucopis, Forster, Descr. Anim. p. 176 (1844).
Charadrius virginicus, Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 262 (1849, nec Borkh.).
“Pluvialis longipes, Temm.,” Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 417 (1856).
Pluvialis xanthocheilus, id. tom. cit. p. 417 (1856).
Pluvialis taitensis, id. tom. cit. p. 417 (1856).
Pluvialis fulvus, id. torn. cit. p. 417 (1856).
Charadrius auratus, Schrenk, Reis. Amurl. Vög. p. 410 (1860).
Ad. hiem. suprà brunneus, plumis ochrascenti-fulvo ubique marginatis: collo postico cinèrascente: tectricibus alarum cinerascenti-brunneis, albido et pallidè ochraceo maculatis, majoribus magis conspicuè albo terminatis: remigibus brunneis, versùs apicem nigricantibus, secundariis elongatis extùs ochrascenti-fulvo maculatis, remigibus minoribus angustè albo terminatis: rectricibus cinerascenti-brunneis, albo terminatis, exterioribus saturatè brunneo variis; loris albicantibus: facie laterali et supercilio indistincto ochrascenti-albis, brunneo notatis, regione paroticâ saturatiùs brunneâ: subtùs albescens, pectore superiore et laterali fumoso, ochrasceuti-fulvo lavato: subalaribus et axillaribus pallidè fumosis: rostro nigro: pedibus plumbeis: iride fuscâ.
Ad. æstiv. pectore nigro distinguendus: supercilio lato cum collo et pectore lateralibus albis, his nigro notatis.
Adult in winter. Crown of the head, hind part of neck, and all the upper surface brownish black, each feather marked on both webs with rounded spots of pale golden yellow; on the nape these yellow markings are confluent, and on the scapulars they are paler, these feathers having likewise a terminal margin of yellowish white; lower part of forehead, sides of face, and throat fulvous white; ear-coverts dark brown; fore neck tawny white, largely mottled and spotted with brown; the rest of the underparts fulvous white, clouded with brown; lining of wings and axillary plumes pale smoky grey; quills blackish brown, with white shafts; the long inner secondaries with a series of triangular yellow spote along the outer edge of both webs; wing-coverts greyish brown, margined with yellowish white; tail-feathers blackish brown, toothed on both webs, and terminally margined with yellowish white. Irides dark brown; bill black; legs and feet plumbeous. Length 10 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·75; tail 2·5; bill, along the ridge ·9, along the edge of lower mandible 1; bare tibia 1; tarsus 1·6; middle toe and claw 1·25.
Adult in summer. Upper parts darker, and with the golden spots larger and more conspicuous; a band across the forehead, and continued over the eyes down the sides of the neck, fulvous white; throat, cheeks, fore neck, breast, and abdomen black, with a few white feathers intermixed; sides of the body white, varied with black; inner lining of wings and axillary plumes smoky grey; under tail-coverts white, with irregular transverse bars of black.
The following is the description of a specimen shot near Christchurch in the summer of 1885:—Crown of the head, hind neck, mantle, back, rump, and long inner secondaries brownish black, marked all over with spots of golden yellow, which diminish in size but become narrower on the head and neck, presenting on these parts a mottled appearance; on the upper wing-coverts the yellow markings are absent, the feathers being variegated with greyish white; a broad band of white crosses the forehead and, passing over the eyes, extends down the sides of the neck and expands on the sides of the breast. Sides of the head, fore neck, and centre of breast slaty black, which becomes mixed with white towards the throat (in which respect alone it differs from a specimen in summer dress from Sweden, with which I compared it); the whole of the abdomen slaty black, variegated with white; sides of the body white, irregularly barred and marked with black, the feathers near the insertion of the wings narrowly margined with yellow; the entire inner lining of wings delicate ash-grey; wing-feathers brownish black with white shafts; the tail-feathers blackish brown obscurely barred with greyish white. Bill black; tarsi and toes greyish black. Total length 11 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·75; tail 2·5; bill, along the ridge 1, along the edge of lower mandible 1·25; bare tibia ·75; tarsus 1·76; middle toe and claw 1·25.
Obs. The sexes are alike, except that in the adult female the golden spots are less conspicuous than in the male, the neck-markings are less distinct, and there is a faint wash of yellow on the breast.
Note. The above description of the winter plumage is taken from a New-Zealand example presented to the British Museum by Miss
In the Colonial Museum there is a fine specimen obtained at Worser Bay, near Wellington, and first recorded by Mr. Trans. N.-Z. Inat. vol. xvii. p. 59.
In the Auckland Museum there are two specimens (♂ and ♀) shot together at Manukau harbour early in December 1880. Both of these are in winter plumage, although they show signs of being about to assume the summer dress. Mr. Cheeseman states that ten or twelve were observed at the time these were killedCf. also Cheeseman, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xiv. p. 264.
I have before me two birds (both marked ♀) obtained by Mr. Robson on Portland Island in September and November respectively. The larger of the two gives the following measurements:—Total length 10 inches; wing, from flexure, 7·25; tail 2·75; bill, along the ridge ·95, along the edge of lower mandible 1; bare tibia ·75; tarsus 1·6; middle toe and claw 1·25. One of these is in unmistakable summer plumage, the black of the upper surface being pronounced and the yellow spots round and bright; the fore neck, breast, abdomen, and flanks irregularly marked with blotches of black, intermixed or softly blended with the greyish ground-colour and slightly suffused on the breast with yellow; lining of wings and axillary plumes smoky grey; upper surface of wings blackish brown, vandyked and varied with white, but without any yellow markings, except on the long inner secondaries; wing-feathers and tail blackish brown, the latter handsomely barred and their coverts vandyked with greyish white. Bill black; legs greyish brown (probably tinged with green in the fresh bird). The other has much less yellow on the upper surface, the spots being small and indistinct; there is an absence of dark markings on the underparts; the fore neck and breast are pale fulvous brown varied with grey; and the abdomen is yellowish white.
In Sharpe and Dresser’s ‘Birds of Europe,’ where the above synonymy has already appeared, there is an admirably exhaustive account of this species, which appears to have a very wide range in the eastern part of the Old. World, but only rarely makes its appearance in Europe. The above-named authors have enumerated the localities in which it has occurred within the limits of the Western Palæarctic region; and they express their belief that this is the bird mentioned by Pallas, under the name of C. pluvialis, as being exceedingly common in Siberia, whence it migrates in the autumn in flocks, along with other species, to more southern latitudes. Steller observed it in Kamtschatka in
Several examples have been obtained in the Manukau harbour, and two of these (♂ and ♀) are in the Auckland Museum, but it has not yet been found breeding there. Several others have been taken on the Wellington coast, two of which are in the Colonial Museum; while in the South Island small flights have been observed on the shores of Lake Ellesmere, and one or two specimens obtained on the south-east coast of Otago.
From Portland Island I received, through the courtesy of Mr. Robson, two specimens, one of which is in winter plumage, whilst the other has partially assumed the summer dress. The same correspondent was fortunate enough to discover its breeding-place, and he sent me some interesting notes, which I communicated at the time to the Wellington Philosophical Society Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xvi. p. 308.
Mr. Swinhoe represents this bird as breeding plentifully on Formosa, and he has given the following account of its nidification:—“Its eggs, four in number, are laid in a loose nest of dried grasses and fibres placed in a hollow. They are of a greenish-grey ground-colour, blotched and spotted with deep-blackish sepia, and have occasional obsolete purplish-grey spots. They do not vary much in size, are narrowed near the end, and measure 1·5 inch by 1·1.”
Referring to this, Mr. Seebohm says:—” I can imagine that barren birds in imperfect breeding-plumage may not unfrequently be found during summer in their winter-quarters; but I scarcely think it possible that C. fulvus breeds south of the Arctic circle, at least three thousand miles further north than Formosa.”
Anarhynchus frontalis, Quoy et Gaim. Voy. de l’Astr. Zool. i. p. 252, pl. 31. fig. 2 (1830).
Thinornis frontalis, Gray, Gen. of B. iii. p. 545 (1847).
Anarhynchus albifrons, Schl. Handl. Dierk. i. p. 435 (1857).
Charadrius frontalis, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 234.
Thinornis frontalis, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 17 (1871).
Ad. suprà dilutè cinereus, scapularibus et tectricibus alarum dorso coneoloribus: alâ spuriâ brunneâ: reraigibus cinerasceuti-brunneis, versùs apicem conspicuè saturatioribus, scapis albidis: secundariis cinereis, dorso concoloribus: caudâ cinerascenti-brunneâ, rectricibus exterioribus pallidè cineraceis, extimis albicantibus: fronte et supercilio distincto albidis: lineâ secundâ, frontali nigrâ: lineâ per oculum ductâ et regionem paroticam amplectente cineraceâ: aubtùs albus, torque pectorali lato nigro: subalaribus albis, imia cinereo lavatis: rostro nigro: pedibus nigrieanti-viridibus vix cinerascentibus: iride nigrà.
Juv. similis, sed sine torque pectorali.
Adult male. Crown, hind neck, and all the upper surface uniform dark grey, the wing-coverts edged with lighter; primaries dark brown on their outer webs and at the tips, with white shafts, and the inner webs dusky grey; the inferior primaries marked with white on their basal portion; secondaries and their long covering-plumes dusky grey; the middle tail-feathers greyish brown, the outer ones silvery grey, margined and tipped with white; forehead, throat, and all the underparts pure white, a narrow line of black bordering the white forehead; the upper part of the breast crossed by a broad band of velvety black, which is generally widest on the left side; under tail-coverts and lining of wings pure white. Irides and bill black; legs and feet blackish green tinged with grey. Total length 8 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·75; tail 2; bill, following the curvature, 1·4; bare tibia ·4; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 1·05.
Female. Similar to the male, but without the frontal black line, and with the pectoral band much narrower, of a duller black, and sometimes interrupted in the middle.
Young. Plumage of the upper parts as in the adult, but paler; no pectoral band; under surface pure white. The progress towards maturity is indicated by a narrow irregular zone of sooty black mottled with white.
Chick. Covered with silky-looking down of a stone-grey colour (similar to the upper surface of the adult) freckled all over with white; bill and feet pale brown. The curved bill is congenital, being quite as pronounced in the newly hatched chick. In a more advanced state the bill is greyish black, brownish at the tip; legs and feet greyish olive.
This very remarkable form, distinguished from all other Waders by its peculiar asymmetrical bill, affords another instance of the very distinctive character of the New-Zealand avifauna. The species was first made known to science by MM. Quoy and Gaimard, who obtained it during the French Expedition in the years 1826–29, and gave a figure of it in the ‘Voyage of the Astrolabe;’ but no specimens of the true Anarhynchus having, for many years after, been received in Europe, Mr. G.
Charadrius, in which it had been placed by Gray and other modern authors. Mr. Harting’s paper had the effect of calling special attention to this singular species on the part of local observers; and thus a bird which had up to that period been deemed of rare occurrence was found to have a very general distribution along our shores, in all suitable localities, in both the North and South Islands. It is generally met with in small flocks on the smooth ocean-beach, or on the broad sand-banks and shingle-beds at the mouths of our tidal rivers, where it feeds upon minute crustaceans, fluviatile insects, and other marine life, for the capture of which its peculiar bill is specially adapted.
In the North Island the Wry-billed Plover is particularly plentiful during the spring and winter months on the extensive sand-banks at the mouth of the Kaipara, on the mud-flats of the Manukau basin Mr. Cheeseman writes to me:—“At Manukau I have, on some occasions, seen as many as 200 or 300 together; but this is quite unusual, the flocks in that locality generally numbering from 10 to 20 birds.”
At a little distance it is scarcely to be distinguished from the Banded Dottrel, with which it freely associates, but it is of a smaller and plumper form, and on a nearer view may be recognized by the absence of the red pectoral band, so conspicuous in the last-named species. It is likewise more approachable and less inclined to take wing. It runs along the sands in front of you, and utters no sound, whereas the last-named bird emits at brief intervals a “click” or short call-note. I have observed also that these birds have not the same habit of bobbing their heads when they stop running. They run with marvellous celerity, their little black legs, when viewed sideways, appearing to revolve like the spokes of a wheel. On the wing, the flocks form such compact bodies that ten or more may be killed at a single shot. At nesting-time they emit a low purring sound.
It breeds early in the spring, but not so soon as the Banded Dottrel, and is even tamer then than at other times, being always very reluctant to take wing.
On its reproduction Mr. Potts writes:—“Its nesting-place would be discovered with very little difficulty, were it not for the wonderful instinct it exhibits in selecting the ground for depositing its eggs. They are simply laid, without any preparation, amongst the pebbles of some river-bed usually, and never far from water; and so well does their grey tint harmonize with the general colour of the shingle around them, that their detection would be almost hopeless if the bird were less confident…… The young, if undisturbed, remain for some time near the spot where they were hatched; to escape observation they lie concealed behind stones, and should an attempt be made to molest them, they start off with considerable celerity, uttering at the same time a shrill piping cry of alarm. When hard pressed they take to the water; and I have known them to cross a stream of considerable volume… . . So tame does the Anarhynchus become under the influence of parental instinct that after eggs have been picked up, examined, and replaced on their unsheltered sandy bed, I have seen the old bird immediately resume her duty of incubation, although I may have removed but a few paces distant, and remained in sight for some time.”
There are three eggs of this species in the Canterbury Museum, all exactly alike both in form and colouring. They are broadly ovoido-conical, or slightly pyriform, measuring 1·35 inch in length by 1·05 in breadth, and of a delicate greenish stone-grey, freckled over their entire surface with purplish brown.
New-Zealand Plover, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 206, pl. lxxxiii. (1785).
Charadrius novæ seelandiæ, Gm. Syst. Av. i. p. 684 (1788, ex Lath.).
Charadrius novæ zealandiæ, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 745 (1790).
Charadrius dudoroa, Wagler, Syst. Av. Charadrius, sp. 14 (1827).
Hiaticula novæ seelandiæ, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 195 (1843).
Thinornis novæ seelandiæ, Gray, Voy. Ereb. & Terror, Birds, p. 12, pl. 11 (1844).
Thinornis rossii, id. op. cit. p. 12, pl. 11a (1844).
Charadrius torquatula, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 108 (1844).
Thinornis novæ zelandiæ, Buller, Essay Orn. N. Z. p. 17 (1865).
Thinornis novæ zealandiæ, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 341.
Ad. suprà grisescenti-cinereus: fronte, facie laterali et in collo undique posticè ductâ torquem collarem formante, et gutture toto nigris: lineâ albâ ab oculo ductâ pileum circumeunte: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, majoribus albo terminatis: remigibus brunneis, primariis basin versùs albis, minoribus albo terminatis, secundariis exterioribus latè albo marginatis, intimis dorso concoloribua: caudâ purpurascenti-brunneâ, rectricibus exterioribus albo terminatis et basin versùs gradatim albis, pennâ extimâ omninò albâ: corpore reliquo subtùs et subalaribus albis: rostro aurantiaco versùs apicem nigro: pedibus aurantiacis: iride nigrâ.
Juv. saturatiùs brunneus: facie laterali et gutture brunnescentibus, vix nigricantibus: hypochondriis brunneo notatis.
Adult. Forehead, sides of the head, throat, fore part of neck, and a broad nuchal collar brownish black; crown and hind part of the head brownish grey, being separated from the darker plumage by an ill-defined streak of white, which passes immediately over the eyes and widens on the forehead; back, shoulders, sides of the breast, and upper surface of wings brownish grey; the whole of the underparts pure white; primaries dark brown, with a streak of white along the shaft near the apical extremity; tail-feathers dark brown, the lateral ones tipped with white, which increases outwardly, the outermost feather on each side being pure white, and the adjoining one with merely a central spot of brown on its inner web. Irides black, with red eyelid; bill orange for rather more than half its length, then black to the tip; tarsi and toes orange; claws black. Length 7·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·75; tail 2·75; bill, along the ridge 1, along the edge of lower mandible ·9; bare tibia ·5; tarsus ·9; middle toe and claw ·75.
Obs. The sexes are alike, except that the female is slightly smaller than the male, has all the colours of the plumage duller, and less orange in the bill and feet. There is a specimen of the latter in Mr.
Young. Differs from the adult in having the whole of the upper surface darker, and the white streak on the forehead and sides of the head less conspicuous; the whole of the fore neck and upper part of the breast is dark brown; and this colour is continued on the sides of the body and flanks.
Note. In the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror,’ where both Thinornis novæ zealandiæ and the so-called Th. rosii
Till of late years this handsome Wader appears to have been of very rare occurrence. Forster’s original specimen was obtained at Queen Charlotte’s Sound, where, as he states, it was called Tuturuatu by the natives. Mr.
Owing, however, to the increased activity of ornithological research in the colony, it has been discovered to be comparatively plentiful on various parts of our coast, both north and south. The mouth of the Piako river, in the Hauraki Gulf, the broad flats of Manukau harbour, and the sand-spits off Tauranga are some of the localities where flocks have been met with in the spring and autumn. In the South Island, some of the favourite resorts are Queen Charlotte’s Sound and the various inlets on the eastern and south-eastern coasts. It is also recorded from the Chatham Islands, where it has been found breeding In the ‘New-Zealand Journal of Science,’ vol. ii. pp. 508–9, there is the following interesting account of its breeding-habits:— “It is content with collecting a few leaves of grass, which are bent and twisted into a circular form just about large enough to contain the eggs, which are protected by this flimsy structure as it keeps them together. I have the eggs from the southern part of this island as well as a series from the Chatham group; one of the nesting-places in the last-named habitat offers such interesting features that it is worth being recorded and described. To the north-by-west of the main Chatham island lies a small group of rocky islets known as ‘The Sisters,’ or Rangitutahi. One of these wave-beat islets, rising to some 150 feet above the sea, having an area of about five acres only, affords a nesting-place to the Shore-Plover. This very exposed and unsheltered site apparently is shared only by the huge Albatros and the giant Petrel, which there rest awhile from almost cease-less wanderings over the surrounding ocean. Exposed to gales that sweep over a vast unbroken expanse of sea and break against this little speck of rock, the only screen that may shelter the home of the Shore-Plover is the tussock of wiry-grass or saw-edged carex, for no tree is there found to lend a friendly shelter. The eggs, three in number, are ovoido-conical, ovoid, with the smaller end blunt or somewhat pyriform; smooth, sub-shining, pale or warm stone-colour, freely sprinkled with blackish-brown or almost black irregular marks, angular lines and dots; pale greenish-white, very much scribbled over with fine irregularly shaped marks and minute dots, these becoming more conspicuous towards the larger end, around which they form an unevenly defined zone; stone-colour, more or less covered with irregularly shaped marks of umber-brown; pale stone-colour with a faint greenish tint, sparingly sprinkled below the bilge with very small blackish-brown freckles, some of which seem sunk into the surface, the upper portion splashed with bolder marks of umber and deep chestnut-brown; rich warm stone-colour, abundantly covered with blotches of chestnut and umber-brown interspersed with minute dots, freckles, or fine linear scribbling marks of dark brown.”—Potts.
There are two specimens in the Canterbury Museum from the last-mentioned locality; one of these is marked ♂, and the sex of the other is undetermined: but both examples are in very indifferent plumage.
It hunts about for its food among the sand and dry ooze in a very diligent manner, and associates freely with the flocks of Godwit, both on their common feeding-ground and when the latter crowd upon the high banks, during the alternation of the tides, in the manner so familiar to those who have studied their habits. Individually its movements are very graceful and it is undoubtedly the most beautiful of our Plovers.
This bird has the same peculiar alarm-cry of ‘click-click’ which denotes the presence on the sands of the Banded Dottrel. This cry is also uttered on the wing, being repeated several times in rapid succession.
There can be no doubt, I think, that the so-called Thinornis rossii, of which there is a single specimen in the British Museum, brought by the Antarctic Expedition from Auckland Island, is the young of the present species; and I have described it in that character.
Tringa lobata, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. p. 65 (1801).
Vanellus novæ hollandiæ, Steph. Cont. Shaw’s Gen. Zool. vol. xi. p. 516 (1819).
Vanellus lobatus, Vieill. Encycl. Méth., Orn. pt. iii. p. 1075 (1823).
Charadrius lobatus, Wagl. Syst. Av. sp. 51 (1827).
Vanellus gallinaceus, Jard. & Selb. Ill. Orn. vol. ii. pl. 84 (1829).
Lobivanellus lobatus, Gould, Birds of Austr. vol. vi. pl. 9 (1848).
Ad. suprà cinerascenti-brunneus, tectricibus alarum clariùs cinerascentibus: tectricibus primariorum remigibusque nigris, secundariis extùa cinerascenti-brunneis, intùs basaliter albis: secundariis longioribus intimis dorso concoloribus: supracaudalibus albis, fasciam latam formantibus: caudâ dimidiatim albâ fascia medianâ pallidé cinerascenti-brunneâ, parte terminali nigra, fasciam latam nigram exhibente, apicaliter albo aut pallidè cinerascente limbato: pileo toto et collo postico angustatim nigris, hoc utrinque usque ad pectus laterale nigrum extenso: facie laterali, collo laterali et corpore subtùs toto cum subcaudalibus, subalaribus et axillaribus, puré albis: carunculo lobato fasciali flavo.
Adult. Crown of head, nape, hind neck, and a graduating band on the sides of the chest, interrupted in front, jet-black; the shoulders, the whole of the back, and the upper surface of the wings cinnamon-grey, changing in certain lights; throat, fore neck, sides of the neck, and the entire under surface, as well as the lining of the wings, pure white; primaries and outer secondaries brownish black; middle secondaries brownish black in their apical portion, cinnamon-grey towards the base, the latter colour gradually spreading till it entirely prevails on the long inner secondaries, which are whitish on their basal portion; tail-feathers pure white in their basal half, then black, with a narrow terminal edge of greyish white. Bill pale sulphur-yellow; lobed mask brighter yellow; legs and feet delicate red. Extreme length 13–6 inches; wing, from flexure, 10; wing-spur ·6; tail 4·5; bill, along the ridge 1·3, along the edge of lower mandible 1·2; tarsus 3; bare tibia 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·2.
Obs. Of the New-Zealand specimen mentioned below Mr. Drew has sent me the following measurements:— “Length 12·6 inches; wing 10·4; extent of wings 33; tail 4·6; upper mandible 1·3; spur on wing ·5; tarsus 3·6; bare tibia 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·4, hind toe ·2.”
I am indebted to Mr.
It is common in various parts of New South Wales and on some of the islands in Bass Strait, where it has been found breeding in the month of January.
Tringa interpres, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 248 (1766).
Tringa morinella, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 249 (1776).
Tringa hudsonica, Müller, Syst. Nat. Suppl. p. 114 (1766).
Morinella collaris, Meyer and Wolf, Tasch. deutsch. Vögelk. ii. p. 383 (1810).
Charadrius cinclus, Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-As. ii. p. 148 (1811).
Strepsilas interpres, Illiger, Prodr. p. 263 (1811).
Strepsilas collaris, Temm. Man. d’Orn. i. p. 349 (1815).
Arenaria interpres, Vieill. N. D. d’Hist. Nat. xxxiv. p. 345 (1819).
Strepsilas borealis, Brehm, Vög. Deutschl. p. 659 (1831).
Strepsilas littoralis, Brehm, Vög. Deutschl. p. 660 (1831).
Cinclus morinellus, Gray, List Gen. of B. p. 85 (1841).
Cinclus interpres, Gray, Gen. of B. iii. p. 549 (1846).
Strepsilas minor, Brehm, Naum. 1855, p. 289.
Ad. ptil. æstiv. pileo et cervice albis, plumis medialiter nigris, quasi striatis: fasciâ nigrâ frontali antè oculum decurrente et unâ cum genis nigris ad collum laterale conjunctâ: regione oculari albâ: dorso lætè castaneo, plagâ magnâ interscapulari utrinque nigrâ, et ptilosi reliquâ plus minusve nigro notatâ: dorso postico et supracaudalibus albis, uropygio nigro: tectricibus alarum pallidè ferrugineis, exterioribus nigro notatis, majoribus latè albo terminatis: remigibus brunneis, et versùs apicem saturatioribus, primariis minoribus ad basin albis, remigibus minoribus angustè albo terminatis, secundariis latissimè albo marginatis, secundariis intimis dorso concoloribus: caudâ albâ, latè brunneo transfasciatâ rectricibus duabus centralibus omninò brunneis: gula albâ, nigro notatâ: gutture et pectore toto superiore nigerrimis: corpore reliquo aubtùs purè albo: rostro nigro: pedibus rubris: iride nigrâ.
Ad. ptil. hiem. ubique obscurior, nigredine brunnescente mixtâ: vertice nigro albo paullulùm vario: gulâ albidâ: coloribus ut in ptilosi æstivâ agnoscendis sed semper pallidioribus.
Adult in summer. Forehead and sides of the head white, the former crossed by a narrow band of velvety black which connects the eyes, and widening below them, joins a broader band of the same colour, extending from the base of the lower mandible on each side of the throat; crown of the head white, each feather centred with black; hind part of neck white, more or less varied with brownish black; shoulders and upper part of the back glossy black, with a broad irregular mark of chestnut in the line of the spine; the whole of the mantle black, varied with chestnut, and some of the feathers narrowly tipped with white; the lower part of the back and the upper tail-coverts white; throat white, mottled on the lower part with black, which rapidly predominates, the fore part and sides of the breast, up to the insertion of the wings, as well as the rump, being velvety black; the rest of the body-plumage pure white; the wing-feathers blackish brown, with white shafts, and pale grey on their under surface, with darker tips, the inner primaries and the short secondaries white towards the base, and narrowly tipped with the same; the long secondaries dark velvety brown, varied on their outer webs with chestnut; the small wing-coverts pale ferruginous, varied with chestnut and black; the superior coverts blackish brown, with a conspicuous terminal band of white; tail-feathers white, crossed in their apical portion by a broad band of brownish black, which is greater on the two median ones, the closed tail appearing to be entirely of that colour beyond the upper coverts. Irides and bill black;
Adult in winter. Has the entire plumage duller, and little or no chestnut on the upper surface, the feathers being brownish black, tipped more or less with white, and slightly varied with ferruginous; the facial mark described above is less defined, and the black of the fore neck and breast is strongly suffused with brown.
Obs. In the Auckland Museum there are two specimens (♂ and ♀) obtained on the Manukau flats, in both of which the plumage of the upper surface is variegated with rich patches of rufous brown.
Dr. Finsch, writing in September 1870 (Journ. für Ornith. p. 349), expressed his conviction that, among other species which breed in high northern latitudes and migrate southwards on the approach of winter, the common Turnstone would yet be met with on the New-Zealand coast; and in the following season this prediction was amply verified by the capture of several specimens on the Ninety-mile Beach, in the South Island. All of these were females in winter plumage; but subsequently an example in summer plumage was shot at the Wade, and another was sent to me by Mr. Robson from Portland Island. Of late years the bird has become tolerably common as a seasonal migrant, being particularly numerous in certain months in Manukau harbour and in the Bay of Plenty. They were exceptionally abundant in the former locality in 1880; and Mr. Cheeseman informs me that in March of that year he met with a flock there which must have contained upwards of a thousand birds, besides several smaller ones. Some that were shot on this occasion were so extremely fat as to be quite useless for skinning, from the quantity of oily matter that exuded from the skin of the breast and completely saturated the feathers. According to his observations the birds usually arrive in November or December, and depart in March or April, only a few of them remaining with us during the winter.
Captain Mair has found it associating in flocks with the Godwit at Tauranga. He has obtained a number of both at a single shot, by ensconcing himself with his gun under a bush, and pouring a charge into a flight of birds as they passed overhead.
The history of this familiar bird may be found in any standard work on European ornithology; and it is needless therefore to do more than furnish a description of the plumage for purposes of reference.
Hæmatopus longirostris, Vieill. Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. xv. p. 410 (1817).
Hæmatopus picatus, Vigors, App. King’s Voy. p. 420 (1834).
Hæmatopus australasianus, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 155.
Ad. suprà niger, dorso postico et uropygio cum supracaudalibus albis, his nigro notatis: tectricibus alarum majoribus conspicuè albo terminatis, fasciam verticalem formantibus: remigibus brunnescenti-nigris, scapis brunneis: caudâ nigrâ, rectricibus versùs basin albis: gutture toto et pectore superiore nigris, illo paullò brunnescente: corpore reliquo subtùs albo, subalaribus marginalibus nigris: rostro apice flavo cruentato: pedibus cruentatis: iride coccineâ.
Adult. Head, neck, and fore part of breast, mantle, scapulars, and upper surface of wings and tail shining black, glossed with green in certain lights; back, rump, lower part of breast, and all the under surface pure white; the secondaries and their coverts crossed by a broad band of white, which is very conspicuous when the wings are spread; the axillary plumes and the inner lining of wings pure white, the edges of the latter mottled with dusky black. In some examples the dark plumage is sharply defined against the white of the lower parts by a line crossing the breast just above the insertion of the wings; in others the line of demarcation is broken by scattered fringes of white intermixed with the black. Irides and eyelids crimson; bill dark arterial red, changing to coral-red towards the tips of both mandibles, which are yellow; legs dark arterial red. Length 18 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·5; tail 4·25; bill, along the ridge 3·6, along the edge of lower mandible 3·75; bare tibia 1; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 1·6.
Obs. The sexes are alike in plumage, but the male is somewhat larger than the female.
Young. In a fledgling I find that the distribution of the colours is the same as in the adult. The white of the underparts is sufficiently although not sharply defined against the dark plumage of the breast, and the blackish-brown down of the upper parts is giving place to black feathers with dull brown margins; the lower part of the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts white, with some obscure greyish markings; tail-feathers black, with long, straggling filaments of down still adhering to their extremities; alar white mark quite conspicuous. Bill blackish brown, changing to reddish towards the base of lower mandible; legs and feet reddish brown. In another from the same nest, but in a more downy condition, the crown, sides of the head, and fore neck are lighter, being mottled with grey, whilst the lower part of back, rump, and upper tail-coverts are obscurely barred all over with blackish brown.
Younger state. Uniform dull black strongly tinged with brown especially on the entire upper surface, the wing-coverts very minutely and the secondaries more largely tipped with fulvous brown. Irides dark brown, with a reddish eyelid; bill dull orange-red at the base and on the rictal membrane, passing into reddish olive in the middle portion and shading into brown towards the tips of both mandibles; legs and feet leaden grey. Enlargement under tarsal joint very conspicuous.
More advanced state. Plumage as in the adult, but with the dark plumage more or less suffused with brown, the white of the underparts less pure, and the pectoral line of demarcation somewhat broken or indeterminate; the axillary plumes and under tail-coverts irregularly margined and broadly tipped with dusky black; rump
Chick. Covered with down of a greyish-buff colour, varied on the upper parts with black; there is a broad streak of black on the crown, another on each wing and thigh, and a series of large square spots down the middle of the back, tinged with red at the base; bill and feet dull brown.
Albino. Major Mair informs me that he saw a pure albino of this species on the ocean-beach at Opotiki. The whole of the plumage was of snowy whiteness, and the irides, bill, and feet bright red. He observed this beautiful bird on several occasions, but failed in all his efforts to secure it.
This fine species, which closely resembles the European Oyster-catcher (H. ostralegus), is generally dispersed over the southern coast of Australia, and is particularly abundant in Tasmania and among the islands in Bass Strait. It likewise occurs all round the New-Zealand coasts; but although a few may be met with on every stretch of sandy beach, it is nowhere very abundant. Occasionally they are found in parties of six or more, but more generally in pairs, and sometimes in association with the Black Oyster-catcher, which is a far more common bird in the middle and southern portions of the colony. I have counted as many as nineteen consorting together at one time, of which number only six belonged to this species. They are occasionally met with in the Hot-lakes District of the North Island, wading about in the warm water and capturing small prey. Like its European prototype, it subsists on small mollusks and crustaceans, for securing which its long wedge-shaped mandibles are peculiarly adapted. Notwithstanding its ungainly form, the strongly contrasted black and white of its plumage and the bright red of its bill and feet render it an attractive object on the smooth sandy beach, where it may be observed sedately reposing on one leg, or nimbly running to and fro in search of its prey left exposed on the beach by the receding tide. During the nuptial season, it is curious to watch the male bird paying his addresses to the mate of his choice; elevating his back and lowering his bill till it nearly touches the ground, he struts or runs round her with a loud quivering note, no doubt expressive of his undying attachment; and when there are two rival males thus performing in concentric circles before the same shrine of devotion, it is amusing to observe with what perfect indifference the object of this demonstration appears to receive the attentions of her rival suitors. When once, however, her affections are secured, she appears to remain faithful to her mate, and the pair continue together, if not for life, certainly long after the breeding-season, with all its cares, has passed by. Even when consorting together, as they frequently do, in small flocks, each pair seems to maintain its individuality; and when at rest on the sands the party may be seen disposed in couples, at short distances apart from the rest.
They love to bask in the sun, squatting close to the ground; and when disturbed by the presence of a dog or other disquieting object, instead of immediately taking wing they habitually run some distance along the sands. On being disturbed at night they take to the shallow water for safety.
The flight of this species is rapid; and on the wing it repeatedly emits a shrill whistling cry.
It breeds on the open sandy spits, or in the dry river-beds, forming its nest among the small drift-wood and other débris of the sea, or rather selecting a suitable depression in which to deposit its eggs; these are usually three in number, ovoid, measuring 2·5 inches by 1·5, and pale yellowish brown of a warm tint, marked over the entire surface with rounded spots and blotches of blackish brown, among which are paler markings of purplish brown. Sometimes, however, the nesting-place is on a sandy plain a couple of miles or more from the sea-shore. The young are able to run immediately on quitting the shell; but on the approach of danger they secrete themselves by squatting among the stones, to which their colour closely assimilates, while the parent birds resort to various cunning devices for drawing away the intruder.
Hæmatopus unicolor, Wagler, Isis, 1832, p. 1320.
Hæmatopus fuliginosus, Gould, B. of Austr. vi. pl. viii. (1848).
Hæmatopus niger oceanicus, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 420 (1856).
Hæmatopus niger australasianus, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 420 (1856).
Hæmatopus niger, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7469.
Ad. ubique niger, remigibus et caudâ brunnescentibus, scapis primariorum ad basin albidia: rostro corallino, apice flavicanti-corneo: pedibus pallidè rubris: iride et regione oculari coccineis.
Adult male. The whole of the plumage glossy brownish black, with faint metallic reflections on the back and wings. Irides and bare eyelids crimson; bill coral-red, changing to yellowish horn-colour at the tips of both mandibles; tarsi and toes pale red. Length 19 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·5; tail 4·25; bill, along the ridge. 3·5, along the edge of lower mandible 3·6; tarsus 2·25; middle toe and claw 1·75.
Female. Similar to the male, but somewhat smaller and more strongly tinged with brown, especially on the under surface.
Young. Uniform dull brownish black, the feathers of the back and the wing-coverts narrowly margined with fulvous brown. Bill and feet dull red, the former brown in its outer portion.
Chick. Covered with down of a uniform blackish-brown colour; bill and feet dull brown.
Var. Mr. Robson informs me that he saw a perfect albino of this species at Portland Island, in the month of October. It came near enough for him to observe the red colour of its irides, but he was unfortunately without a gun at the time, and never saw it again.
Obs. Examples are not unfrequently met with exhibiting a white abdomen and a dull whitish bar on the wings, or with this alar bar wholly wanting. It is not unlikely that this is due to hybridism; for the two species are often seen associated. The following is a description of one of these parti-coloured birds in the Canterbury Museum:—Head, neck, fore part of breast, and all the upper surface black; an indistinct alar bar and the tips of some of the upper tail-coverts white; lower part of breast, sides of the body, flanks, abdomen, axillary plumes, and under tail-coverts largely varied with white.
This species, which also occurs in Australia, is far more abundant in the southern parts of New Zealand than the Pied Oyster-catcher, and not uncommon in the northern parts also. On the oceanbeach between Waikanae and Otaki, within a stretch of ten miles, I have counted as many as fifty in the course of a morning’s ride. Its habits are precisely the same as those of H. longirostris, with which it associates freely, frequenting the same feeding-grounds and often breeding in the same locality. It swims with facility and when wounded will elude pursuit by diving, often remaining under the surface a considerable time.
It has the same peculiar habit of courtship as that mentioned in my account of H. longirostris;
At Baker’s Hotel, Waipawa, I was interested in seeing a perfectly tame bird of this species, of which I made the following note:—It is a young bird, and has been in the possession of the landlord for about nine months, frequenting the open paddock, and consorting alternately with a tame Paradise Duck (apparently the favourite) and a flock of Domestic Geese. Sometimes it associates with a pair of Black Swan, but seems rather indifferent to their companionship. It can fly with facility, but hardly ever leaves the paddock except to enter the fowl-yard, where it appears to be on perfect terms with all the other occupants. Regularly every morning it comes to the gate and waits for the gardener to bring its meal of fresh meat, and having partaken of this it spends its time strutting about the grass, and hunting with its long bill for the worms and grubs upon which it subsists for the rest of the day.
The only cry I heard it utter was a call like ‘Phillipic’ in a high key.
It is not an uncommon occurrence to see this species paired with the Pied Oyster-catcher. I have described above what I take to be the hybrid result of such a union. Further observation only tends to confirm this view. I have seen a dimorphic pair followed by two young birds, both of them in the indeterminate black-and-white plumage, and I have more than once seen a black bird followed by a single young one in the same parti-coloured garb. On several occasions I have seen a similar hybrid, more or less pronounced, with a group of black ones. It would seem from this that, as in the case of our pied and black Rhipiduræ, which often breed together, the general tendency in the offspring is to follow the former of these types.
As the breeding-season approaches the little groups are no longer met with on the ocean-beaches, the birds having paired and gone off to their nesting-grounds on rocky islands or in the less frequented parts of the coast. This will account for their almost total disappearance from the well-travelled beaches between Wellington and Wanganui during the spring and early summer months.
The young usually quit the nest early in December, but I have found birds breeding on the Rurimu Rocks as late as the 17th January, the young at this time being fully fledged and following the old birds but unable to fly. On capturing one of the latter it uttered a feeble squeak, and the parents evinced their solicitude by flying in circles overhead with an excited cry of The Rev. keria, keriakeria, keria (dig, dig,—i. e. for shell-fish out of the sand, by the waves, as food for himself) before a storm, and tokia, tokia after one.”
On their sanctuary being invaded the old birds feign lameness, or roll and tumble over on their backs in apparent agony in order to entice intruders away from their nesting-ground, whilst the downy chicks looking (as a friend expressed it) “like little boys in night-gowns,” make a bee-line for the sea, and on reaching it dive into the surf and swim out into deep water. If unable to reach the sea they take to the rock-pools and dive under the projecting ledges, hiding themselves in the crevices till all danger has passed.
An egg of this species in my son’s collection is ovoido-conical in shape, measuring 2·25 inches in length by 1·5 in breadth, and is greenish white thickly and irregularly spotted and smeared with inky black and dark brown, with washed-out markings of the usual kind interspersed. But there is a wide scope of variety in the tints and markings, these being, in a very perceptible manner, adapted to the surroundings: for example, on the Rurimu Rocks, the eggs that were deposited on the white sand were lighter in colour with very small markings on their surface; those found in nests placed among the drift seaweed above high-water mark, or among the rocks, were much darker and more or less blotched in the manner described.
Recurvirostra novæ, hollandiæ, Vieill. Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. iii. p. 103 (1818).
Recurvirostra rubricollis, Temm. Man. d’Orn. ii. p. 592 (1820).
Avocetta novæ, zealandiæ, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7470.
Id. pulchrè niveus, scapularibus imis nigricantibus: capite cum collo postico et laterali guttureque toto saturatè ferrugineis: pileo antico et vertice cinerascentibus, gulâ etiam albido variâ: tectricibus alarum minimis albis, medianis nigris, majoribus albis: remigibus nigricanti-brunneis, pennis minoribus et secundariis exterioribus albis: candâ albâ, pennis centralibus pallidè cinereis: subtùs niveus: rostro nigro: pedibus plumbescenti-nigris: iride rubrâ.
Adult. Head and about two thirds of the neck dark rufous, paler on the crown, and inclining to greyish brown towards the base of the bill; the inner scapulars, the first six primaries, and the longer secondaries, with their coverts, black, the latter tinged with brown; the effect produced in the closed wing being that of a black surface, with a narrow longitudinal bar of white; tail pale ash-grey; the rest of the plumage pure white. Irides red; bill black; legs and feet bluish black. Length 17·25 inches; wing, from flexure, 9; tail 4; bill, along the ridge, following the curvature, 3·75; bare tibia 1·5; tarsus 3·5; middle toe and claw 1·75; hind toe and claw 1·4.
Young. The young of the first year has the black of the upper surface deeply tinged with brown; across the shoulders, when the wings are closed, there is a horse-shoe mark of blackish grey; head and neck pale ashy brown, darker on the throat, and inclining to rufous on the nape and sides of the neck.
Obs. The sexes are exactly alike in plumage.
This beautiful Australian Avocet, to which I have restored Vieillot’s original name of Recurvirostra novæ hollandiæ, is an occasional visitant to our shores. In the summer of 1859–60 I saw a small flock of them far up the course of the Ashburton river, and again in a small lagoon near the township of Timaru, but, not having a gun with me, I was unable to secure any. In the same season a specimen was shot by Mr. French on the tidal flats near the mouth of the Kaiapoi river; and this, unfortunately, was allowed to perish. Three years later I met with a flock numbering five or six on the south-west coast of the Wellington Province. They were very shy, rising high in the air on my attempting to approach them, and taking their course for the opposite side of Cook’s Strait. Two specimens have been shot on the ocean-beach near Dunedin; and Dr. Richardson received another from the Whakatipu Lake, in the interior of the Otago Province. A solitary one was shot on the mud-flats near Whangarei some years ago; and the skin was preserved by Mr.
From the same locality Mr. Sparkes afterwards obtained the young bird described above (which is now in the Canterbury Museum); also two more adults, in full plumage, one of which is now in my possession, and the other in Mr. Silver’s collection at Letcomb Manor.
Himantopus leucocephalus, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 26.
Himantopus albus, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7470.
Tutumata and Tuturipourewa; Torea (of Arawa tribe).
Ad. suprà niger, pileo undique, collo laterali et postico torquem collarem formante albis: dorso postico et uropygio albis: alis omninò nigris dorso concoloribus: caudà albà, cinerascente lavatâ, pennis duabus centralibus omninò cinerascentibus: corpore toto subtùs purè albo: rostro nigro: pedibus cruentatis: iride rubrâ.
Juv. suprà niger, brunneo tinctus: collo postico sordidè griseo-albo: tectricibus alarum et supracaudalibus albo terminatis.
Adult. Back of the neck, middle portion of back, scapulars, and entire upper surface of wings glossy greenish black; lining and under surface of wings sooty black; the rest of the plumage pure white, with the exception of the tail-feathers, which are more or less tinged with smoky grey. Irides and eyelids brick-red, bill black, sometimes horn-coloured at the tip; legs and feet deep pink flesh-colour, and sometimes beautiful pale lake-red; claws black. Length 14 inches; extent of wings 26·5; wing, from flexure, 9; tail 3; bill along the ridge 2·4, along the edge of lower mandible 2·6; bare tibia 2; tarsus 4·25; middle toe and claw 1·7.
Obs. Individuals vary considerably in size. A specimen in my collection from Hawke’s Bay gives the following measurements;—Length 15·75 inches; extent of wings 29·5; wing, from flexure, 10; tail 3·5; bill, along the ridge 2·75, along the edge of lower mandible 3; bare tibia 3·25; tarsus 4·5; middle toe and claw 1·75.
A fine specimen in the Colonial Museum has the head, fore neck, and all the underparts white; hind neck and upper parts generally satiny black; across the shoulders there is some indication of white, which disappears in the hinder part; nape and fore neck freckled with black, the margins of the dark colours being indeterminate.
Young of the first autumn. Crown of the head, nape, and hind neck dusky black mottled with white; shoulders spotted with black, darkening towards the back; upper part of back and scapulars brownish black; upper surface of wings glossy black; the median coverts, as well as the feathers of the back, narrowly tipped with brown; lower part of back and rump white; tail-feathers dull black, tipped with brown, their coverts (which are very fluffy) plumbeous at the base, white in their apical portion, and tipped with yellowish brown; lining of wings black; the rest of the plumage pure white; bill black, brownish towards the base; irides reddish yellow; legs pale yellow; the claws brown. Upper mandible 2 inches; tibia 1·75; tarsus 2·75.
Progress towards maturity. A more advanced bird in my collection has the crown, nape, and sides of the head sooty black mixed with white, which increases on the back and sides of the neck; the rest of the plumage as in the adult, except that there are white markings on the inner edges of the wings, the lining of which is blackish brown.
Younger condition. Crown of the head, middle portion of back, scapulars, and upper surface of wings and tail dull sooty black tinged with brown; nape greyish white, blending on the shoulders into the darker plumage; feathers composing the mantle, upper wing-coverts, and tail-coverts tipped more or less with greyish white; inner lining of wings and axillary plumes sooty black, tipped with white; the rest of the plumage pure white.
Chick. Covered with short soft down of various shades of fulvous yellow, varied on the upper parts with brown, and with a series of square black spots down the back, and a broad streak of the same colour on each thigh. (See woodcut on next page.)
The White-headed Stilt, which appears to be also widely distributed over the continent of Australia, is a comparatively common bird in the middle and southern portions of New Zealand; but I know of only a single instance of its occurrence as far north as Auckland.
Notwithstanding the extraordinary length of its legs, this bird is most graceful in all its movements; and it is a pretty sight to watch a flock of them on the edges of a lagoon, stalking about in the shallow water in search of their food, which consists of aquatic insects and small mollusca, and displaying their well-balanced bodies in a variety of artistic and graceful attitudes. When on the wing, the legs are trailed behind, with a slight swaying motion as if to preserve the equilibrium; and the bird utters a sharp, quickly repeated note, like the yelping of a small cur.
When associating in flocks, I have noticed that they all act together as by a common impulse. On passing from one feeding-ground to another they form into a compact column and rise to a considerable height, with their heads drawn in and legs trailing behind, and descend again in the most perfect order.
On more than one occasion in the summer months I have observed large flocks of this Stilt-Plover, associating with the black species, in the salt-marsh near the town of Napier. They are to be seen every day from the carriage-windows as the train passes up and down the Meane spit, and the sight is a very pretty one. Two excellent representative specimens (an adult male and a fledgling, with the enlarged tarsi) were shot in this locality and sent to me by Mr. Hooper on the 17th December. Their stomachs contained grubs about an inch long and numerous small aquatic insects of various kinds.
Although they do not appear to leave the country, they perform some sort of migration, for by the end of April or beginning of May the large flocks which I have mentioned (numbering sometimes two hundred or more) have entirely disappeared from the Napier marshes. All through the winter, however, straggling parties of three or four, and towards spring birds in pairs, are to be met with in all their customary haunts.
In the south they are not so plentiful, but I have often met with autumnal gatherings of forty or fifty birds.
Mr. Gould has given an interesting account of this species in his ‘Birds of Australia,’ but states that he was unable to obtain any information respecting its nidification. We have been more fortunate in New Zealand, as the following account will testify.
I have found it nesting both on the dry sands or shingle-beds at the mouths of our tidal rivers and in the grass-meadows of our cultivated lands near the sea-shore. I have also met with it breeding in small companies, but each pair well apart, on the dry river-beds many miles from the sea “In a nursery on the Upper Rangitata River, about ten yards distance from a thickly spread carpet of Gulls’ eggs, was a long hollow in the flat by the narrow beach. In this natural rent, that gave something of a ditch-like shelter, were six small grassy nests of the Pied Stilt (H. leucocephalus). Five of these nests contained (December 14) in each four richly marked eggs; the sixth contained five, an unusual number and worth recording.”—Zoologist.Azola rubra). The proximity of the nest, however well concealed, is at once made manifest by the behaviour of the birds, who mount in the air and perform an undulatory flight in
que-que, the sexes crying responsively and in different keys.
The young can run nimbly almost immediately after quitting the egg. They often elude capture by squatting close to the ground; and their colours so exactly harmonize with their surroundings that it is almost impossible to discover them. One which I found, after an hour’s diligent search, squatting on the sand near the edge of a sea-pond, remained perfectly motionless till I had taken it up in my hand, when it struggled to escape and uttered a feeble cheep, cheep, whereupon the old birds became excited, flew round me in circles, and repeatedly darted up to within two feet of my head, uttering all the time a sharp yelping cry of remonstrance.
I have observed that the Stilt sometimes feigns lameness to draw intruders away from the vicinity of its nest. I have seen one limping or rather tumbling along the ground, trailing its long legs as if helplessly broken, and uttering short cries as if in an agony of pain, persistently keeping up the deception till it had drawn the trespassers to a safe distance from the object of its solicitude, when it rose high in the air with an unmistakable note of relief in quick repetition.
It usually commences to breed in October; but I have found newly hatched young ones as late as the first week in January. It forms a very rude nest, if, indeed, it deserves that name; and sometimes deposits its eggs on the bare ground, a mere depression on the surface being selected for the purpose. The eggs are usually four in number, decidedly ovoido-conical in form, measuring 1·7 inch in length by 1·2 in breadth, and are of a warm yellowish brown, handsomely marked and spotted over the entire surface with brownish black.
Himantopus novæ zealandiæ, Gould, P. Z. S. 1841, p. 8.
Himantopus melas, Hombr. & Jacq. Ann. Sci. Nat. 1841, p. 320.
Himantopus niger, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7470.
Himantopus melas, Hutton, Cat. Birds of N. Z. 1871, p. 30.
Ad. ptil. ætiv. suprà nitidè virescenti-niger: subtùs fuliginoso-niger, loris et facie laterali pallidioribus: rostro. nigro: pedibus cruentatis: iride rufescenti-brunneâ.
Ad. ptil. hiem. dissimilis ptilosi æstivæ: pileo postico et cervice toto nigris: fronte, gutture et pectore albis : dorso, alis et caudâ nigris: abdomine fuliginoso-nigro.
Juv. similis ptilosi æstivæ, sed dorso postico et uropygio albis: subtùs etiam albus: cervice et collo postico sordidè cinerascentibus saturatiùs variis: interscapulio, scapularibus et tectricibus alarum nigricanti-brunneis, fulvo marginatis: primariis pallidè cinerascente terminatis: caudâ cinerascenti-brunneâ, rectricibus exterioribus versùs basin pogonii interni albis.
Adult in summer. Head, neck, and all the under surface brownish black, inclining to slaty grey on the face and towards the base of lower mandible; back, rump, and upper surface of wings and tail glossy greenish black. Irides and eyelids crimson; legs and feet pinky red, the claws black. Length 15 inches; extent of wings 28·5; wing, from flexure, 10; tail 3·25; bill, along the ridge 3, along the edge of lower mandible 3·25; bare tibia 3; tarsus 3·75; middle toe and claw 1·5.
Adult in winter. Crown and sides of the head, hind part of neck, and the whole of the abdomen sooty black, or marked more or less with white; back, wings, and tail glossy greenish black; the rest of the plumage pure white.
A specimen in the Auckland Museum has a band across the shoulders, the scapulars, and upper surface of wings and tail black with greenish reflections; the lower part of the abdomen black, without any gloss; the upper and lower tail-coverts black, with white feathers interspersed; rest of the plumage white, mixed or spotted with black on the crown and sides of the head, and on the hind neck; the line of division between the white and the black on the shoulders and on the abdomen not distinctly defined.
Young. Forehead, sides of the head, fore part and sides of the neck, and all the underparts pure white; crown of the head, mantle, and scapulars blackish brown, each feather margined at the tip with fulvous; hind part of the neck and between the shoulders dark grey, mottled with paler grey; back and rump white; upper and lower surface of wings, as well as the axillary plumes, black; the upper wing-coverts and the long inner secondaries margined with fulvous, and the primaries tipped with light grey; tail-feathers greyish brown, the outer ones white on their inner webs, with an apical spot of brown.
Chick. Covered with dark brown down; bill and legs greyish black.
Varieties. In the Colonial Museum there is a remarkable albino variety. The entire plumage is white, clouded with smoky grey on the crown and sides of the head, and on the upper surface of the body. There are a few
An example obtained by Mr. Hamilton at Petane in July 1884, and presented to the Hawke’s Bay Museum, is very remarkable:—Plumage black; the head, whole of the fore neck, breast, and underparts variegated with pure white feathers, giving the bird a pied or mottled appearance, the white slightly preponderating, and becoming dominant towards the base of both mandibles; the flanks, abdomen, and under tail-coverts sooty black, without any white feathers; mantle, back, rump, and upper surface of wings and tail satiny black, with greenish reflections. The specimen is marked ♀, and the condition of the legs indicates that it is an adult.
In the Canterbury Museum there is another (marked ♀) with scattered white feathers all over the underparts; another with white markings on the face and fore neck (no sex given); and two others (both ♂) altogether black.
Obs. The sexes are alike; but the summer plumage in the female has less gloss on the wings and tail, and a stronger tinge of brown on the underparts.
Two examples in the Auckland Museum, both in adult condition (the tarsi being fully developed), appear to be in transitional states of plumage:—
No. 1 has the head and neck white, clouded on the crown and hind neck with grey, these clouded markings becoming confluent and darker around the eyes; underparts white, clouded and marked on the thighs, vent, and under tail-coverts with slaty grey; mantle and upper surface of wings black; back and rump white.
No. 2 has the head and neck more thickly clouded, the ear-coverts and region of the eyes being entirely slaty brown; breast, and underparts as far as the flanks, white; thighs, lower part of abdomen, and under tail-coverts black; upper surface as in No. 1.
Three other specimens in transitional plumage (from winter to summer) are now before me:—
No. 1 has the forehead and chin pure white; the crown, lores, face, neck all round, and all the under surface black and white intermixed, the former preponderating on the sides, flanks, and abdomen; lining of wings and axillary plumes black, each feather minutely tipped with white; back, rump, and upper surface of wings and tail shining greenish black, the remnants of the old plumage on the wings dull blackish brown; a few straggling white feathers mingled with the black upper tail-coverts. Bill black, changing to brown at the base; legs reddish yellow.
No. 2 has the general plumage black, the sides of the head and neck all round marked with numerous white feathers; lower part of fore neck wholly white; on the breast two or three scattered white feathers.
No. 3 is black with much less white than the former, this being confined to straggling feathers on the neck, shoulders, breast, sides of the body, and under tail-coverts. This bird measures:—Length 14 inches; wing, from flexure, 9·25; tail 3; tarsus 3·75; bill along the ridge 2·6.
In a decidedly young bird received from Otago the head and neck are entirely white with a mark of grey on the vertex; lower part of hind neck and shoulders mottled with grey; wing-coverts and scapulars brownish black, minutely margined with pale brown; rump and tail white, the latter faintly washed with grey. In another young bird, received from Canterbury, the crown, sides of the head, and nape are washed with blackish grey, which is darkest on the vertex.
Another adult specimen in my own collection has the crown and sides of the head mottled and clouded with black; the white collar irregular and somewhat splashed with black.
Remarks. Owing to the many transitional states of plumage in which this bird is found, both in its progress towards maturity and in its seasonal changes of dress, it is the popular belief that there are two species of Black Stilt in New Zealand distinct from the well-known Himantopus leucocephalus; and this view has been adopted in Huttcon’s ‘Catalogue,’ where the true H. novæ zealandiæ is first described in its winter plumage, and then, under another name (H. melas), in its black summer garb. But this supposed other species has no real existence. Dr. Finsch, in his remarks on a collection of skins received from Dr. Haast, states (Journal für Ornithologie, 1870, p. 349) that a bird labelled “Himantopus novæ-zealandiæ, first year’s plumage,” proved, on examination, to be a mature example of H. leucocephalus, readily distinguished by its longer tibia and tarsus, from which accidental mistake he seems to infer that Haast is wrong in his description
H. novæ zealandiæ is as I have described it, my examples exhibiting in every case that enlargement below the tarsal joint which, among birds of this group, is a sure indication of immaturity.
This species was originally made known by Gould, who afterwards figured it in the Supplement to his ‘Birds of Australia,’ his description being founded on two specimens “killed at Port Nicholson,” both of which, however, appear to have been in an immature state of plumage.
It may readily be distinguished from the preceding species by its darker plumage and by its somewhat shorter legs. Its habits, however, are similar, excepting that it is less gregarious, associating in pairs rather than flocks, while it appears to prefer the dry shingle-beds to the lagoons and marshy grounds which constitute the favourite feeding-resorts of the other species. It is, moreover, a much rarer bird, although it is generally to be found in all the river-courses of the Wellington district and further south. Sir
Captain Mair found them nesting on a small flat surrounded by hot springs; but this was before the Tarawera eruption had devastated the district and obliterated the waters of Rotomahana.
In a meadow near the pretty little township of Waipukurau I saw several perfectly black Stilt-Plovers associating closely with the White-headed Stilt, and feeding amongst the grass; they took no heed of the passing train, although within twenty yards of them.
During the breeding-season these Stilts resort to every kind of subterfuge in order to draw intruders away from their nests. On the first alarm they secrete their young behind a stone or in a tuft of grass, and then go through their sham performance, enacting the part of a wounded bird in dire distress, flapping their wings, as if unable to rise from the ground, then trailing their legs as if broken, and tumbling about within a few yards of their pursuers till a safe distance from the nest has been reached, when all disguise is thrown off and the birds mount in the air and make a long circuit overhead, to reconnoitre the ground. If surprised in a place where there is no cover, the young birds squat close to the ground, trusting for concealment to the harmony of colour, and so strong is this instinct of self-preservation that they will remain perfectly motionless even when touched by the hand.
Mr. Potts records a nest, with three eggs, on Rakaia river-bed, on the 13th of September, and another, containing two, in the same locality, on the 14th of December; and in a note to myself he adds that he has seen the young as early as the middle of October. The eggs are of an elegant ovoido-conical form, measuring 1·8 inch in length by 1·3 in breadth, and of a warm yellowish-brown colour, handsomely marked over the entire surface with conspicuous spots of brownish black. There are good comparative series of the eggs of both this and the preceding species in the Canterbury Museum; and the difference they exhibit is very manifest to the eye, although not easily described.
Mr. Seebohm suggests that this species is the result of “an intermarriage of Himantopus leucocephalus with H. melanopterus,” and he proposes to call it “Himantopus leucocephalus picatus;” but I think it would be extremely unsafe to adopt that view; for, as a matter of fact, no one has yet recorded an instance of the Black Stilt and the White-headed species breeding together, which would follow as a matter of course on the supposition of hybridism.
Himantopus albicollis, Buller, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 224 (1874).
Ad. capite toto cum collo undique et corpore subtùs toto albis: interscapulio, scapularibus cum dorso summo et tectricibus alarum nigris: remigibus angustè albido terminatis: subalaribus nigris: dorso postico et uropygio albis: caudâ nigrâ: rostro nigro: pedibus pallidè cruentatis.
Adult. Head, neck all round, and all the under surface of the body, lower part of back, rump, and upper tail-coverts pure white; across the shoulders, scapulars, and upper surface of wings glossy black, with greenish reflections, the inferior primaries and the secondaries tipped with white; under surface of wings and the axillary plumes black; tail-feathers glossy black, Bill black; irides red; legs and feet pinky red. Total length 14·25 inches; wing, from flexure, 9·25; tail 3; bill, along the ridge 2·6, along the edge of lower mandible 2·9; bare tibia 2·2; tarsus 3·75; middle toe and claw 1·5.
Obs. The specimen from which the above description was taken is undoubtedly an adult bird, and is in a moulting condition, the glossy greenish-black feathers of the mantle replacing the brownish-black plumage of an earlier state.
Young. Has the head and neck as in the adult, but with the crown and nape more or less stained or washed with dark grey; all the feathers of the upper parts narrowly margined with brown.
More advanced state. The brown margins on the upper surface disappear, the plumage changing to dull satiny black with a greenish gloss, the clouded markings on the crown and nape, however, remaining unaffected. The adolescence of the bird in this condition of plumage is indubitably shown by its swollen tarsi.
Note. Through the kind attention of Mr.
Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. pp. 220–224.In a paper which I communicated to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury “On the Genus Himantopus in New Zealand”
Five or six specimens have since passed through my hands at various times, but most of these were in a somewhat immature condition of plumage, thus raising in my mind a doubt as to whether this bird may not, after all, be merely a seasonal state of H. novæ zealandiæ.
Mr. Seebohm is of opinion that my Himantopus albicollis is in reality the almost cosmopolitan H. melanopterus, and in his latest work, on the Charadriidæ, he accordingly states, as a fact, that the latter species has been met with in New Zealand. It has been known to occur in the Philippine Islands, and there would be nothing extraordinary in a few stragglers finding their way, at irregular intervals, to New Zealand. But after carefully examining the extensive series of specimens in the British Museum, I find it impossible to accept his determination of the species. Among other minor
H. melanopterus, at all stages of its growth, has a white or greyish tail, whereas H. albicollis in the adult state has a black one, and this alone would form a good distinguishing character. Again, H. albicollis has the primaries and secondaries tipped with white, whereas in H. melanopterus they are entirely black.
Mr. Hamilton, in his account of the birds of the Petane district (Hawke’s Bay), says Trans. N.-Z, Inst. vol. xviii, p, 127.
As the subject, however, seems to need further investigation, it may be well to reprint here a portion of my paper referred to above:—
“Probably the most puzzling group of birds we have in New Zealand is that of the Stilt-Plovers, and my object in submitting the following notes is to make another step towards a better acquaintance with and elucidation of the species.
“In the first place, it is somewhat remarkable that New Zealand should possess certainly two, if not three, species of a genus of birds so peculiar that (if we except a small one said to exist on the west coast of Madagascar) each of the great divisions of the globe can only boast of one. Even Australia, teeming as it is with wading birds, is the home of only one species of Stilt (H. leucocephalus), which is also common to New Zealand, Ternate, Celebes, and Timor. The existence of a second species in this country (H. novæ zealandiæ) was first recorded by Mr. Gould in 1841. Since that date several other names have been added, and (owing to our imperfect knowledge of the seasonal and transitional states of plumage) the nomenclature has got into a state of confusion. As in all such cases, the only escape from this is a careful study of the species at all ages and at all seasons of the year, noting the changes of plumage that occur, and tracing their progress from youth to maturity.
“The present paper is intended to be a contribution of this sort, but as I have not collected or dissected any of the specimens referred to, it would be manifestly unfair to hold me responsible for the data. Particulars of season, sex, &c., I have been compelled to take on trust.
“For the purposes of this examination I have had before me forty-three specimens, in different conditions of plumage, belonging to the Canterbury Museum.
“There is no difficulty whatever in separating Himantopus leucocephalus, which is distinguished from H. novæ zealandiæ in the somewhat similar seasonal plumage by its purer and well-defined colours, its smaller bill, and appreciably shorter toes and claws. Of course specimens vary, and in a series like the present we meet with large examples of H. leucocephalus and small examples of H. novæ zealandice, but the general rule holds good throughout. The young are readily distinguished by the enlargement towards the distal end of the tarsus (a provision for the future lengthening of this bone), which diminishes with the growth of the bird. There are two fledglings in the collection, and as the description of the ‘young’ given in my ‘Birds of New Zealand’ (1st ed. p. 203) is taken from a somewhat older bird, I append the following notes:—
“H. leucocephalus, juv.—Crown of the head, back, and upper surface of the wings brownish black, tinged more or less with brown, and many of the feathers being narrowly tipped with greyish white; hind neck greyish white, mottled with black in its lower portion; forehead, fore neck, and all the under surface, as well as the rump, white; the whole of the quills black, the inferior primaries and the secondaries narrowly tipped with white; tail-feathers black, edged with fulvous, and white at the base. (Obtained at Rakaia, Nov. 1872. Weight, 6 oz.)
“Of Himantopus novæ zealandiæ I have given in the ‘Birds of New Zealand’ (1st ed. pp. 205–206) descriptions of the summer, winter, and adolescent states of plumage, and under the head of ‘Remarks’ I have referred to the numerous transitional states which have led to so much confusion in regard to this species. The description there given, however, of the adult in winter, I wish now to qualify by stating that the uniform dark plumage on the abdomen is by no means a constant character.
“First of all, as a result of my present examination, I feel bound to dismiss Op. cit. vol. v. p. 198.Himantopus spicatus, Potts, as having no claim whatever to the rank of a species. The type specimen is now before me, and the distribution of colours (as may be seen on reference to the published description) H. novæ zealandiæ) appears to be rather in the tibia than in the tarsus. Mr. Potts makes the black neck and breast his distinguishing feature; but there is another bird in the collection (a male) in which the tarsus is 4 inches and the tibia 2 inches—altogether a bird of smaller proportions—in which the distribution of colours is the same, although there is a less extent of black on the breast.
“I have already described (I.e. p. 204) the young of this species from two young specimens in the Canterbury Museum, the parentage of which was placed beyond all doubt by Mr. Fuller, who secured at the same time the two old birds in black summer plumage. I may add that these latter are still in the collection; the male is perfectly black, and the female slightly pied.
“A more matured example of the young bearing the following label, ‘Shot in Bottle Lake, Jan. 28, 1872; juv.—female; parent bird black,’ presents a general resemblance to the young of Himantopus leucocephalus, but on a close comparison the following differences are observable:—The crown is lighter, being of an almost uniform ash-grey; there is more greyish white
H. leucocephalus.
“The collection contains nine perfectly black specimens. Of these eight are males; and, according to the labels, all of them were killed in summer Out of twelve other specimens more or less pied with white, only three are females, all of them (of both sexes) being also summer birds. The extent of white, however, varies considerably in birds shot at one and the same time, some exhibiting only a few white feathers on the neck and breast, whilst in others the white predominates. This irregularity of plumage may perhaps be accounted for on the supposition that the birds do not undergo the complete change at their first seasonal moult, but-at some later period—say in their second or third year.
“There are two specimens in the collection which are of more than ordinary interest, because they are quite distinct in appearance from either H. leucocephalus or H. novæ zealandiæ in their full plumage, and cannot, so far as I at present see, be a transitional state of either of those species. One of these, presented to the Museum by the late Dr. Barker, bears the following label, ‘Orari, Feb. 16, 1872, male,’ and appears to be in full adult plumage. The other, which is labelled ‘Saltwater Creek, April 1873, male,’ is apparently a less matured bird. On observing certain indications of a change from black to white in the latter, I at first supposed that the white head and neck might represent the true winter plumage of Himantopus novæ zealandiæ; but, as directly opposed to this view, Dr. Barker’s specimen, which I am disposed to regard as a distinct species, was killed towards the end of summer. In this bird the entire head and neck, with the breast and underparts, are pure white; rump and upper tail-coverts also white; back, scapulars, and upper surface of wings and tail glossy black, the inferior primaries and the secondaries tipped with white; under surface of wings and the axillary plumes black.
“In selecting a specific name for this bird I have adopted that of H. albicollis, because it exactly expresses the feature which distinguishes it from the two others, namely, its having the neck entirely white. The same name was applied to a Stilt-Plover by Vieillot, but this has proved to be only a synonym of H. autumnalis and the title is therefore free again.
“The series of specimens under consideration is unfortunately very deficient in examples killed in winter, and the examination of the subject therefore has not been as complete or exhaustive as I would wish; but two points at any rate have been gained, namely the elimination from our list of Himantopus spicatus (which proves to be no species at all) and the placing on record of a hitherto undescribed form—the White-necked Stilt—which, so far as our present evidence goes, is a good and valid species. To my mind it is perfectly clear that it is either H. novæ zealandiæ in the mature winter plumage, hitherto unknown, or it is a distinct species; and if Dr. Barker’s specimen is rightly labelled as killed in summer, that fact alone is sufficient to disprove the former assumption.”
The late Dr. Jerdon wrote thus (Ibis, 1865, p. 35) of Himantopus leucocephalus:—“Examples of this bird quite similar to those figured in the ‘Birds of Australia,’ and to others which I have seen from this region, are not unfrequently obtainable in Lower Bengal in the same flocks with the common H. candidus (seu melanopterus). Great numbers of Longshanks are brought to the Calcutta provision-bazaar, often several dozens of them of a morning, during the season of their stay. Of these the great majority have a sooty-brown occiput, which changes to black at the approach of the breeding-season; but occasionally one then occurs with a purely white head and neck, or with more or less black down the nape, sometimes a mere trace of it, and sometimes the black nape is well developed (though never to the extent that is constant in the American species), and this may or may not be accompanied by the black occiput. I have also seen purely white-headed and white-naped specimens from Egypt, and one male from that country with just an indication of the dark nape; there is one with black nape and occiput among the British-killed specimens in the British Museum, and I have seen others like it from Europe and North Africa. Whether the leucocephalus type be constant in Australia remains to be ascertained; and the most likely explanation of this extraordinary and anomalous variation is, that differentiated races of this bird have more or less commingled. Most assuredly it can neither be referred to difference of age nor of season.”
Whether this interbreeding has actually occurred in New Zealand I am not in a position to say; but it may be well to remember that instances of apparent hybridism between the Black and Pied Oyster-catchers (quite a parallel case) are not uncommon. In January, 1886, I saw on the ocean-beach between Whakatane and Matata, a beautiful Pied Oyster-catcher paired with a perfectly black one. The nesting-season was far advanced and these birds were without doubt breeding together.
Tringa fulicaria, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 249 (1766, ex Edw.).
Tringa glacialis, Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 675 (1788).
Phalaropus lobatus, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 766 (1790).
Phalaropus glacialis (Gmel.), Lath. tom. cit. p. 776 (1790)
Phalaropus rufus, Bechst. Naturg. Deutschl. ed. 2, iv. p. 381 (1809)
Phalaropus platyrhynchus, Temm. Man. d’Orn. p. 459 (1815).
Phalaropus griseus, Leach, Cat. M. & B. Brit. Mus. p. 34 (1816).
Crymophilus rufus (Bechst.), Vieill. N. Dict. viii. p. 521 (1817)
Lobipes hyperboreas, Ross in Ross’s Voy., 8vo, ii. App. p. 167 (1819, nec Linn.).
Phalaropus fulicarius (Linn.), Bonap. Comp. List, p. 54 (1838).
Phalaropus platyrostris, Nordm. in Démidoff, Voy. Russ. Mérid. iii. p. 250 (1840)
Phalaropus asiaticus, Hume, Stray Feathers, i. p. 246 (1873).
♀ ad. ptil. æst. pileo, nuchâ, mento et plumis ad basin rostri nigris, pileo saturatiore, maculâ magnâ albâ periopthalmicâ ferè ad nucham productâ: collo postico nigricante: dorso et scapularibus nigris, plumis omnibus rufescenti-ochraceo marginatis: primariis nigricanti-cinereis, rhachidibus albis, pogonio externo ad basin albido: secundariis cinereis albido marginatis, intimis nonnullis brevibus ferè omnino albis, secundariis intimis elongatis nigricanti-cinereis versùs apicem albido vix marginatis: tectricibus alarum nigricanti-cinereis, medianis albido vix apicatis, et majoribus conspicuè alto terminatis: uropygio cinereo: supracaudalibus ferru-gineis medialiter nigro notatis: rectricibus centralibus nigricantibus, reliquis saturatè cinereis, duabus extimis versùs apicem rufo notatis: corpore subtùs saturatè ferrugineo: subalaribus albis cinereo notatis: pedibus sordidè olivaceis: rostro flavo, ad apicem nigro: iride fuscâ.
♂ ad. ptil. æst. minor et sordidior: pileo haud nigro sed nuchâ et dorso nigricantibus, brunnescenti-ochraceo notatis, maculâ capitis laterali indistinctâ, et corpore subtùs pallidiore, abdominis plumis albo marginatis facilè a feminâ distinguendus.
Ptil. hiem. fronte, gulâ, collo et corpore subtùs purè albis, pileo nigro, plumis albis immixtis: nuchâ, collo postico et dorso antico nigris vix albido notatis: dorso et uropygio cum scapularibus pallidè cærulescenti-cinereis vix nigro notatis: alis ut in ptilosi æstivali, sed nigricantibus nec nigricanti-cinereis: fasciâ nigrâ per oculos productâ: rostro olivaceo: pedibus grisescenti-olivaceis.
Adult female in breeding-plumage. Crown, nape, chin, and all round the base of the bill black, this colour being most intense on the crown; a large white patch covering the sides of the head round the eye, and extending backwards to the nape, where it nearly joins; entire underparts and neck all round, except a narrow central black line at the back, rich dark rusty red; back and scapulars black, the feathers all margined with rusty yellow; primaries blackish grey on the outer web and on the central and terminal portion of the inner web, the outer and basal portion being white; shafts white; secondaries dark greyish, margined with white, one or two of the inner short ones nearly pure white; elongated inner secondaries blackish grey, narrowly edged with white at the tip; wing-coverts dark grey, the median coverts slightly edged with whitish, and larger wing-coverts broadly terminated with white, forming a broad white bar across the wing; rump greyish; upper tail-coverts dark rusty red, marked with dark brown or black along the centre of some of the feathers; central rectrices blackish, remainder dark slate-grey, the two outer ones on each side marked with dark rufous towards the tip; under wing-coverts white and grey varied. Irides dark brown; bill flat, in colour yellowish,
Adult male in breeding-plumage. Differs from the female in being much duller in colour; the crown, nape, and back are black, marked with rusty or yellowish brown, all the feathers being margined with this colour, so as only to allow the black to appear through here and there; the white patch on the side of the face is almost obsolete, and the underparts are much duller in colour, the feathers on the lower abdomen being edged with white.
Winter plunage. Differs from the summer plumage in having the upper parts generally black and grey, and the underparts pure white; forehead, throat, neck, and entire underparts pure white; crown, nape, a narrow line down the back of the neck, and the fore part of the back black, slightly marked with whitish; on the crown several pure white feathers; back, rump, and scapulars dark French grey, intermixed with a few blackish feathers, one or two of which latter are slightly margined with yellowish brown; wings as in the summer dress, but much blacker, the grey shade being almost absent; through and behind the eyes a broad blackish streak. Bill dark olive; legs greyish olive.
With a few unimportant alterations and additions, I have availed myself of Mr. Dresser’s permission to use the excellent description of this species given in his ‘Birds of Europe.’
The only hitherto recorded example of this Palæarctic species in New Zealand was shot, in June 1883, by the late Mr.
The late Sir Julius von Haast, who brought the occurrence under the notice of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, gave the following interesting account of it Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xvi. p. 279.
“Unfortunately I did not receive the bird in the flesh, but, judging from its total length (8·25 inches), it is most probably a female. The plumage, fully agreeing with the descriptions of European and North-American specimens, proves that this Waimate example is in its breeding or fine summer dress. The occurrence of this bird is, therefore, one of the most curious facts on record as an addition to our New-Zealand avifauna; but as it resembles in general appearance, at least at a distance, some of our smaller Wading-birds, it may, although probably only an occasional straggler, have hitherto escaped detection by our naturalists.
“The following remarks as to its habits and migrations may demonstrate this strange appearance in the southern hemisphere still more clearly. In winter the Grey Phalarope is found regularly in Scotland and England, but not so frequently on the coasts of Germany, France, Italy, or North Africa. In Asia it has often been observed in the Black, as well as in the Japanese, Chinese, and Indian seas; and, though essentially a marine bird, it winters regularly in some parts of the interior of Asia, as, for instance, in Persia. It also occurs in the Arctic regions of America, leaving for the south when the arctic autumn fairly sets in, and travelling as far as Mexico and Guatemala. The occurrence of this bird in the southern hemisphere, as far as the latitude of New Zealand, is therefore very remarkable, especially in the middle of the arctic summer, and can only be accounted for by assuming that this bird, or more probably a flock, had been driven southwards by stress of weather when the time arrived for their returning to their home in Eastern Siberia or Western North America. However, the most curious fact is that the specimen before us is in its most brilliant summer or breeding-dress, and quite in accordance with the time of the year when it is breeding in the arctic regions; while, according to all accounts accessible to me, it has always been observed after its emigration to its winter-quarters in the more southern regions to be clothed in its more sober white and ash coloured winter dress, instead of the rich rufous and black tints our specimen possesses so conspicuously.”
Gallinago aucklandica, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds, p. 13, pl. 13 (1844).
Scolopax holmesi, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp. viii. p. 229 (1848)
Cænocorypha aucklandica, Gray, Cat. Gen. of B. p. 119 (1855).
Ad. suprâ ochraceo-fulvescens: pileo rufescenti-brunneo, plumis medialiter nigris: lineâ verticali et supercilio latissimo stramineis: collo postico magis fulvescente, plumis medialiter nigris: dorso rufescenti-brunneo, plumis nigro irregulariter maculatis aut vermiculatis, scapularibus et dorsi plumis quibusdam stramineo marginatis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus pallidè brunneis, secundariis dorso concoloribus et eodum modo nigro maculatis et extùs latè stramineo limbatis: caudâ brunneâ, rectricibus centralibus rufescente variis, exterioribus pallidè cinerascentibus medialiter saturatioribus: facie laterali stramineâ, brunneo minutè triquetrè maculatâ, lineâ per oculum ductâ paullò saturatiore: subtùs fulvescens, gulâ et abdomine immaculatis: gutture imo, pectore superiore et laterali cum crisso rufescenti-brunneis, plumis saturatiore brunneo aut triquetrè medialiter notatis, aut transversim vermiculatis: subalaribus cinerascentibrunneis: rostro grisescenti-corneo: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Crown of the head rufous brown, varied with dark brown, and with a narrow fulvous line down the middle; forehead and cheeks fulvous white, the former with an upward median streak of brown; from the base of the upper mandible to the anterior edge of the eyes a dull streak of the same; upper surface dark rufous brown, variegated with irregular spots of fulvous and black, especially on the back and scapulars, each feather being margined outwardly with pale fulvous, and marked with a large subterminal spot of black; underparts of the body pale fulvous, whitish on the abdomen, the breast obscurely spotted, the sides and flanks varied with rufous brown. Irides black; bill greyish brown; tarsi and toes pale brown. Length 9 inches; extent of wings 14; wing, from flexure, 4·5; tail 2; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·3; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 1·5.
Young. A very young bird in Canon Tristram’s collection, with the down still adhering to the feathers, has similar plumage to the adult, but with broader margins to the feathers of the upper surface, and a larger extent of fulvous white on the abdomen.
Note. In his ‘Catalogue of New-Zealand Birds’ (p. 77), Prof. Hutton treats Gallinago pusilla as distinct from this species, and says of it:—“In its colours this bird very much resembles the figure of G. stricklandi, Gray, in the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror,’ pl. 33, of which there is no description nor locality given. It, however, appears to be smaller, and to have a much shorter bill than stricklandi.”
This fine Snipe was brought from the Auckland Islands by the Antarctic Expedition in 1844, and the type specimen is in the British Museum.
If I am right in again separating the New-Zealand form, under the name of Gallinago pusilla, it would seem that the Auckland-Island species has never been met with either on our coasts or at the Chatham Islands. It has, however, been recorded from the Snares, a group of rocky islets to the south of Stewart’s Island.
Sir
Gallinago pusilla, Buller, Ibis, 1869, p. 41.
Gallinago aucklandica, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 196 (1873).
Ad. G. aucklandicæ similis, sed minor.
Adult. Upper surface dark rufous brown; variegated with irregular spots of fulvous and black, these markings being most conspicuous on the back and scapulars, the feathers on these parts being margined outwardly with pale fulvous, and marked with a large subterminal spot of black; underparts fulvous; on the sides of the head and breast numerous spots of rufous brown, of which colour there is also an irregular line from the base of the upper mandible to the anterior edge of the eyes; sides of the body and flanks variegated with crescentic marks of rufous brown. Bill greyish brown; feet pale brown. Total length 8 inches, extent of wings 13; wing, from flexure, 4; tail 1·5; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 1·5; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw 1·2, hind toe and claw ·2.
Young. Darker on the upper surface, the fulvous margins being reduced to mere lines, with an inner border of black forming a distinct crescent; on the scapulars and larger wing-coverts there are three such crescents in succession, but these markings are only observable on the plumage being disturbed; there is less fulvous on the underparts, the sides of the body, abdomen, and under tail-coverts being marked with crescents of rufous brown, which are broadest and most distinct on the flanks.
Note. “Judging from the measurements of specimens recently obtained in the Chatham Islands (cf. Finsch, J. f. O. 1874, p. 197) I am inclined to regard G. pusilla as a smaller species than G. aucklandica, which from its constantly lesser dimensions may be well kept distinct.” (Sharpe in Voy. Ereb. & Terr. 1875, p. 30.)
In 1868 I received from Dr. (now Sir James) Hector a small Snipe obtained by Mr. Gallinago aucklandica, I considered that the species was a distinct one, and characterized it accordingly (l. c.) as Gallinago pusilla, in allusion to its small size. The next record of its occurrence was from the Gulf of Hauraki, near Auckland; and Mr. Henry Travers subsequently brought further examples from the Chatham Islands.
Having brought with me to England one of Mr. Traill’s original specimens, for illustration in my former edition, I carefully compared it with a series of eight skins of Gallinago aucklandica in the British Museum brought from the Auckland Islands by the Antarctic expedition, and with another from the same locality in the possession of the late Mr. Gould, and I came to the conclusion that, notwithstanding the great difference in the length of the bill, they were referable to one and the same species—or, at any rate, that till further specimens had been obtained it would be unwise to separate them. I summarized the results of my examination thus:—
In his description of Gallinago aucklandica, Mr. Gray gives the following measurements:—“Length 9 inches, wing 4½, bill 2 inches and 4 lines.” In the type of my G. pusilla the dimensions are appreciably smaller in every way; and in the specimen which I brought to England for comparison they are as follows:—Length 8 inches;
In 1875 Baron von Gallinago aucklandica and G. pusilla, which I believe are at present considered synonymous.” A year later Mr. Sharpe, in the Supplement to the ‘Birds’ of the ‘Erebus and Terror’ (as quoted above), treated the species as distinct. It was not, however, till I received this year from Canon Tristram two specimens of Snipes, which he had obtained from New Zealand and the Auckland Islands respectively, that I felt disposed to rehabilitate my Gallinago pusilla. Before doing so, I took the precaution of submitting the two skins to Professor Newton, who returned them to me with the following note:—“The smaller one has, to my eyes, many if not all the characteristics of a young bird; but hereby I do not mean to declare it to be the young of the larger one. There is to be borne in mind the possibility of a species retaining the plumage of immaturity in its adult condition—in other words, of being permanently immature in this respect. But, on the whole, I am strongly inclined to think that this smaller specimen is the skin of a young bird, though I cannot persuade myself that it is the young of Gallinago aucklandica, supposing the larger specimen to be rightly named. I demur to what you say as to the bill of the smaller specimen not being that of a young bird, for I well remember being very much struck with the large size of the bill of a nearly full-grown Jack-Snipe (of which I made a careful drawing, that I now possess, in Lapland many years ago), and I have seen the same amount of development in the young of our Common Snipe. Thus you will see that my impression is that the two specimens belong to different species, but that one is young and the other adult. I much wish I could speak more positively on the matter, but in any case it would be useful to figure the smaller specimen.”
Mr. Sharpe, to whom I also submitted these specimens, pronounced unhesitatingly in favour of two species. On communicating the above results to Canon Tristram, he wrote to me:—
“I am much interested in your report of my South-Pacific Snipes. I am now sending you the young of Gallinago aucklandica for examination. You will see that it confirms our view of the distinctness of the two species, for it would expand into G. aucklandica but never into G. pusilla. Of the latter I have never seen the young.”
Mr. Cheeseman writes, under date June 2, 1884:—“I have a specimen of Gallinago pusilla in the Auckland Museum, obtained by Mr.
It appears to me that Gallinago pusilla is now fairly entitled to take rank as a good and valid species, and I have accordingly figured, on the same Plate as Limosa novæ zealandiæ, Canon Tristram’s specimen, although apparently in younger condition than my type, which has been sent back to New Zealand. It is only right, however, to mention that Mr. Seebohm, to whom Canon Tristram had previously shown his specimens, expressed (and I believe still holds to) the belief that both birds are referable to the same species, the differences presented by the smaller one being due to immaturity.
Tringa canutus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 251 (1766).
Tringa calidris, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 252 (1766).
Charadrius utopiensis, Müll. Syst. Nat. Suppl. p. 117 (1776).
Maubèche tachetée, Buff. Pl. Enl. viii. p. 363 (1783).
Grisled Sandpiper, Lath. Gen. Syn. B. iii. pt. 1, p. 175 (1785).
Southern Sandpiper, Lath. tom. cit. p. 187 (1785).
Tringa cinerea, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 673 (1788).
Tringa australis, Gm. tom. cit. p. 679 (1788, ex Lath.).
Tringa nævia, Gm. tom. cit. p. 681 (1788, ex Buff.).
Tringa grisea, Gm. tom. cit. p. 681 (1788, ex Lath.).
Tringa islandica, Gm. tom. cit. p. 682 (1788, ex Brünn.).
Tringa ferruginea, Meyer, Taschenb. deutsch. Vögelk. ii. p. 395 (1810).
Tringa rufa, Wils. Am. Orn. vii. p. 43, pl. 57 (1813).
Canutus islandicus, Brehm, Vög. Deutschl. p. 654 (1831).
Canutus cinereus, Brehm, op. cit. p. 655, Taf. 34. fig. 2 (1831).
Calidris canutus, Gould, B. of Eur. iv. pl. 324 (1837).
Canutus rufescens, Brehm, Naum. 1855, p. 292.
Ad. ptil. hiem. suprà cinerascens: pilei plumis medialiter nigris, utrinque fulvescentibus, vix striatis: collo postico pallidiore, plutma nigro angustè medialiter striatis: dorso toto et scapularibus fulvescente et nigro alternè marginatis: uropygio imo et supracaudalibus albis, grisescenti-nigro transnotatis: tectricibus alarum saturatè cinerascentibus, minimis angustè, majoribus latè albido limbatis, his etiam conspicuè albo terminatis: alâ spuriâ remigibusque saturatè brunneis, albido plus minusve latè limbatis: remigum scapis albis: caudâ cinereâ, plumis angustè albido marginatis, scapis albis: supercilio parvo albo: facie laterali, collo undique et pectore superiore albis, minutè brunneo striatis vel maculatis: gulâ albâ: corpore reliquo subtùs albo, hypochondriis paullò grisescente variis: subalaribus et axillaribus albis, his vix grisescente notatis: rostro nigro: pedibus olivascenti-nigris.
Ad. ptil. æstiv. omnino diversus, rufus: pilei plumis nigro medialiter lineatis: collo postico eodem modo angustissimè striato: dorsi plumis conspicuè medialiter nigris, rufo marginatis: tectricibus alarum et supra-caudalibus ut in ptilosi hiemali coloratis, his autem rufescentibus: subtùs lætè rufus, abdomine albicante, hypochondriis fasciis sagittiformibus notatis.
Adult in winter. Crown of the head, hind neck, and all the upper surface greyish brown, with darker shaft-lines, the feathers sometimes centred with brown; sides of the head, chin, and throat white; an obscure greyish streak across the lores; fore neck and breast all round greyish white, with numerous minute streaks of brown; on raising the plumage of these parts each feather is found to be largely centred with brown, with a produced apical spot of the same; underparts of the body white, varied on the sides and flanks with irregular letter-V markings of brown; inner lining of wings greyish white, the axillary plumes pencilled with brown in wavy lines; rump and upper tail-coverts white, with circular bars of brown; wing-feathers
Adult in summer. Differs in having the plumage of the back brownish black, varied more or less with broad round spots of rufous; the sides of the head, throat, fore neck, breast, upper part of the abdomen, and sides of the body bright rufous; some of the feathers narrowly margined with white.
A specimen in full summer plumage, shot in the vicinity of Christchurch on the 2nd April, and preserved in the Museum, presents the following measurements:—Extreme length 9 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·4; tail 2·25; bill, along the ridge 1·15, along the edge of lower mandible 1·15; bare tibia ·55; tarsus 1·15; middle toe and claw 1·15; hallux ·25.
Another example in rust-red plumage was obtained by Reischek on the sand-banks in Manukau harbour.
Young. Readily distinguished by the crescentic markings on the upper parts, each feather having a narrow sub-terminal streak of black; the scapulars, wing-coverts, and long secondaries margined beyond with white.
Var. Mr. Cheeseman informs me that when out shooting at Manukau harbour he observed an albino. He did his utmost to secure it, but the bird was very shy and eluded him.
Obs. There are two noticeable specimens in the Auckland Museum. One of these has the sides of the face, fore part and sides of neck, and the whole of the breast pale rufous; primaries and secondaries slaty black, the latter margined on their outer vanes with white; tail-feathers slaty grey with a very narrow margin of white. In the other there are only clouded markings of the rufous colour on the same parts. In both birds the upper surface is prettily variegated with slaty black, the crescentic bars on the upper tail-coverts being very conspicuous.
In Mr.
Note. Dr. Finsch has suggested that the bird which visits New Zealand may be Tringa crassirostris, Temm. and Schleg. (Faun. Jap. pl. 64), the larger eastern representative of canutus; but I have not been able to discover any specific characters to distinguish it from the common form.
This cosmopolitan species is occasionally obtained in New Zealand, but generally in its winter plumage. There are several specimens in the Canterbury and Otago Museums, all of them obtained on the east coast.
Mr. Cheeseman wrote to me from Auckland, on August 14, 1877:—“My brother shot a specimen of Tringa canutus (in winter plumage) in Hobson Bay a few months ago, and the skin is now in the Museum. I believe that I have frequently seen it on the extensive mud flats near the mouth of the Thames river. I have likewise seen it, in flocks of probably two hundred, on the Manukau flats, where it appears soon after Christmas and remains about three months.” This is the first authentic record of this species in the North Island; but Captain Mair has described to me a bird found associating, in considerable numbers, with the Godwit on the East Coast, which I have no doubt is the same. It has not, however, been met with yet on the Wellington coasts; and the only specimen in the Colonial Museum is one which I received some years ago, as a novelty, from the South Island. It is called Huahou by the Maoris, from the circumstance that its fat-season corresponds with the forming of the hue gourd—about February or March.
Mr. Gould states that a specimen collected by Strange on the 2nd September had the under surface much suffused with red, with many new black feathers among the grey ones on the back, showing that the bird was changing into its summer livery at the commencement of the Australian spring.
Totanus acuminatus, Horsf. Linn. Trans. xiii. p. 192 (1820).
Tringa australis, Jard, & Selb. Ill. Orn. vol. ii. pl. 91 (1829).
Schæniclus australis, Gray, List of Birds in Brit. Mus. Coll. part iii. p. 105 (1844).
Limnocinclus acuminatus, Gould, Handb. B. of Austr. vol. ii. p. 254 (1865).
Tringa acuminata, Salvin, Cat. Strickl. Coll. p. 610 (1882).
Ad. suprà nigricans, plumis angustè albido vel arenario marginatis: collo postico magis cinerascente: dorso postico et uropygio cum supracaudalibus nigris, vix arenario limbatis: tectricibus alarum remigibusque nigricantibus, albido vel pallidè arenario marginatis, tectricibus majoribus et secundariis conspicuè albo marginatis et terminatis: remigum scapis albis: secundariis intimis latè arenario-rufo marginatis: rectricibus cinerascentibrunneis, albido limbatis et terminatis, subterminaliter nigricantibus, a scapis albidis: pileo rufo, nigro vario; loris, supercilio et facie laterali albis, angustissimè nigro punctatum lineatis: gulâ et corpore reliquo subtùs albis, præpectore et pectore superiore arenario-fulvia illo angustè nigro lineato: pectoris summi lateribus quoque nigricante striolatis: subalaribus albis, imis cinerascentibus albo interne marginatis et terminatis.
Adult. Crown of the head and lores dull rufous; each feather centred with brown; nape, hind neck, and the whole of the mantle brownish grey slightly tinged with rufous, each feather largely centred with dark brown, which gradually fades into grey; lower part of back, rump, and upper tail-coverts blackish brown, slightly margined with rufous; wing-feathers dark brown with white shafts, the superior coverts largely tipped, and the secondaries narrowly margined with white; small wing-coverts dull brown with greyish margins; tail-feathers blackish brown, with a narrow margin of fulvous white; line over the eye, chin, and throat white; sides of the head dark grey, speckled with brown; the whole of the fore neck fulvous grey, speckled with brown, and more distinctly on the outer sides; breast, abdomen, and under tail-coverts fulvous white, the latter with a streak of brown down the shafts; sides of the body, axillary plumes, and inner lining of wings pure white; towards the outer edges of the wing mottled with brown. The outermost upper tail-coverts also are white, with a lanceolate streak of brown down the centre. Irides black; bill brown, changing to olive at the base; legs and feet yellowish olive. Length 7 inches; wing, from flexure, 5·15; tail 2·15; bill, along the ridge ·95, along the edge of lower mandible 1·05; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 1·1; middle toe and claw 1·2; hallux and claw ·3.
Young. Gould states that the young of the year are similarly marked to the adult in winter plumage, but have the greater portion of the feathers, and particularly those of the crown and the tertiaries, margined with sandy red and white, and the breast washed with buff.
Only a few examples of this bird, which is common enough in Australia and Tasmania, have occurred in New Zealand, and, so far as I am aware, all of these on the east coast of the South Island.
In its native country it is generally to be met with on the grassy sides of lagoons and in wet marshy places, where it may be seen diligently hunting for aquatic insects and their larvæ, on which kind of food it principally subsists.
The Canterbury Museum contains four specimens (two of each sex), obtained on the shores of Lake Ellesmere, which is separated from the sea only by a narrow neck of sandy ground.
Ash-coloured Snipe, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. p. 154 (1785).
Scolopax incanus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 658 (1788).
Totanus incanus, Vieill. Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. Tom. iv. p. 400 (1816).
Totanus brevipes (summer plumage), id. ibid. p. 410.
Scolopax solitarius, Bloxh. Byr. Voy. p. 252 (1826).
Trynga glareola, Pall. Zoogr. Ross.-As. vol. ii. p. 194 (1831).
Totanus pedestris, Less. Tr. d’Orn. p. 552 (1831).
Totanus fuliginosus, Gould, Voy. Beagle, ‘Birds,’ p. 130 (1841).
Totanus pulverulentus, S. Müll. Verhandel. Land- en Volkenk. p. 152 (1842).
Scolopax undulata, Forst. Descr. An. p. 173 (1844).
Scolopax pacifica (winter plumage), id. ibid. p. 174.
Totanus oceanicus, Less. Descr. Mamm. et Ois. p. 244 (1847).
Totanus griseopygius, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1848, p. 39, and Birds of Austr. vol. vi. pl. 38 (1848).
Totanus polynesiæ, Peale, Un. St. Expl. Exp. p. 237, pl. 65. fig. 1 (1848).
Actitis brevipes, Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. As. Soc. p. 267 (1849).
Heteroscelus brevipes, Baird, B. N. Amer. p. 734 (1858).
Gambetta pulverulentus, Gould, Handb. Birds of Austr. ii. p. 268 (1865).
Ad. (exempl. ex N. Z.) suprà schistaceus, alis dorso concoloribus majoribus angustè albo terminats: alâ spuriâ, tectricibus primariorum et primariia nigricantibus: caudâ dorso concolore: pileo schistaceo: loris fusces-centi-schistaceis, fasciâ suprà lorali albidâ: facie laterali albidâ, angustè fusco striolatâ: gulâ albâ: corpore reliquo subtùs albido, gutture et præpectore fuscescentibus: pectore et abdominis lateralibus fusco fasciatis, hypochondriis et axillaribus et subalaribus schistaceis, his extùs albido fasciatis: subcaudalibus albis, extimis fusco fasciatis: remigibus subtùs schistaceis, intùs pallidioribus.
Male (N.-Z. example). Upper surface dark slaty grey, tinged with brown on the wing-coverts and scapulars; sides of the head also dark slaty grey, with a broad stripe of white extending from the base of the upper mandible to the anterior edge of the eyes, and the cheeks more or less varied with white; chin and upper part of throat pure white; fore neck, breast, abdomen, and vent pale cinereous and white intermixed, changing to pure white on the flanks and crissum, the feathers of the breast and flanks, as well as the long under tail-coverts, crossed by broad wavy lines of slaty grey; under surface of wings, axillary plumes, and sides of the body dark slaty grey, varied with white near the outer edges of the wing; primaries brownish black, with paler shafts; secondaries and the whole of the tail-feathers dark slaty brown. Bill brownish, black; legs and feet dark olive; claws black. Total length 12·25 inches; wing from flexure 7·25; tail 3; bill, along the ridge 1·6, along the edge of lower mandible 1·8; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 1·3; middle toe and claw 1·8.
Female (N.-Z. example). Differs from the male in having a stronger tinge of brown on the upper surface; the white frontal streak is narrower; the fore neck is uniform pale slaty grey; the underparts are lighter, and there is an almost entire absence of the dark wavy markings on the plumage of the breast and sides of the body, a few feathers, however, on each side of the abdomen and the long under tail-coverts being traversed by arrow-head markings of dull slaty grey.
Obs. There is no perceptible difference in size between the two sexes. Gould’s two very characteristic figures of this Sandpiper, in the ‘Birds of Australia,’ pl. 38, represent very well my two specimens as described above.
The only two examples of this nomadic species hitherto obtained in New Zealand are those from which the above descriptions of the male and female were taken. They are in the Author’s collection, having been kindly presented by Mr.
The late Dr. Jerdon recorded (‘Ibis,’ 1865, p. 40) that he had received specimens of this bird from North Australia, Timor, Borneo, Ceram, Japan, and both sides of the North Pacific.
Latham’s original description of this species (the bibliography of which is very exhaustively given by Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub in their ‘Birds of Central Polynesia’) was taken from specimens in the collection of Sir
Mr. Gould writes of it:—“All the specimens I have seen of the bird were killed near the harbour of Port Essington, where it frequents the sandy beaches and rocks just above high-water mark; the salt-water lakes and swamps near the settlement also afford it a natural asylum, and there, at some seasons of the year, it may be seen in great flocks in company with the Stints and Plovers.”
Although the two specimens described above, and now in the Author’s collection, are absolutely the only examples hitherto recorded in New Zealand, it does not by any means follow that this species is not a frequent visitant. On the extensive sand-banks and mud-flats at the mouths of the tidal rivers, as well as upon the long stretches of ocean-beach in the less frequented parts of the country, thousands of sea-birds congregate at certain seasons of the year, or scatter themselves over the oozy flats in search of their natural food; and it is highly probable that large numbers of this and other hitherto rare species come to our shores and leave again without ever being detected.
For many years the Wry-billed Plover was considered one of our rarest birds; but now that the collector knows where to look for this form, and to distinguish it from the Banded Dottrel which frequents the same localities, it is found to be common enough. So also with Tringa canutus and Tringa acuminata, both of which, although only of late years included in our list of recognized species, are now known to visit us every season in appreciable numbers.
There is at present only one recorded instance of the occurrence on our shores of the Red-capped Dottrel; but at a little distance it is impossible to distinguish such a bird from the other small Waders among which it habitually consorts; and it is only reasonable to suppose that what has been known to happen once may, in point of fact, have happened very often.
It must be borne in mind also that a great portion of the west coast of the South Island is quite unexplored, being out of the track of our commerce, and it is to this side of our coast-line that we should naturally look for seasonal visitants from Australia.
The most recent of these casual additions to our avifauna is the capture of the Masked Plover (Lobivanellus lobatus) near Wanganui, as already mentioned at page 13, a very beautiful addition to our list; and doubtless from time to time other Australian Waders will join the ranks, if not as permanent recruits, nevertheless welcome enough as tending to enhance the value of our bird-collections and to keep alive the interest among our numerous local observers.
Mr. Kirk was in error in referring the last-mentioned bird to Lobivanellus personatus (Ibis, 1888, p. 46). As already pointed out by me (op. cit. p. 283), the colours and markings of the two species are very similar, but the character of the mask is entirely different in the two birds. Mr. Drew, in whose little museum at Wanganui the specimen is preserved, had sent me a sketch of the head, which placed its determination as L. lobatus beyond question. In the description which accompanied it, he mentions that the “crown, nape, hind neck, and ear-coverts are jet-black,” and the back “reddish grey.”
Limosa baueri, Naum. Vög. Deutschl. viii. p. 429 (1836).
Limosa lapponica, var. novæ zealandiæ, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 13 (1844).
Limosa brevipes, Gray, Cat. Grallæ Brit. Mus. p. 95 (1844).
Limosa australasiana, id. op. cit. p. 96 (1844).
Limosa novæ-zealandiæ, Gray, Gen. of B. iii. p. 570 (1847).
Limosa uropygialis, Gould, P.Z.S. 1848, p. 38.
Limosa foxii, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 231, pl. 65 (1848).
Limosa rufa, Temm. & Schl. Faun. Japon. p. 114 (1850).
Gallinago punctata, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7470.
Limosa baueri, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 198 (1873).
Ad. ptil. hiem. suprà brunnescens, pileo summo unicolore: colli plumis vix medialiter saturatioribus; dorsi plumis conspicuè medialiter saturatiùs brunneis, scapis nigricantibus, scapularibus cinereo lavatis: uropygio et supracaudalibus albis, fasciis brunneis conspicuis transnotatis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus extùs fulvescente angustè marginatis, medianis et majoribus nigricante medialiter lineatis: primariis saturatè brunneis, intùs pallidioribus, scapis albis, secundariis cum tectricibus cubitalibus grisescenti-brunneis, albo terminatis: caudâ brunneâ, rectricibus centralibus cinerascentibus conspicuè albo terminatis: loris et genis albicantibus: corpore subtùs sordidè albo, collo inferiore et pectore summo cinerascentibus, hypochondriis vix brunneo fasciatis: subalaribus et axillaribus albis brunneo transfasciatis: rostro brunneo, ad basin rufescente: pedibus saturatè plumbeis: iride nigrâ.
Adult in winter. Crown, sides of the head, neck all round, and the entire upper surface dull stone-grey, obscurely mottled with brown, and darker on the back and mantle, where each feather has a broad central mark of blackish brown; quills dark clove-brown, with white shafts and freckled with white on their inner webs; the secondaries and their coverts tipped with white; tail-feathers blackish brown terminally edged with white, and with broken bars of the same on the inner web and towards the base; rump and upper tail-coverts white, conspicuously barred with blackish brown; a broad streak from the base of the upper mandible to the eyebrows, the chin, and fore part of throat pure white; fore neck and breast pale cinnamon-brown, obscurely mottled; abdomen and under tail-coverts fulvous white, the sides of the body shaded with stone-grey, and many of the feathers, particularly on the flanks, more or less crossed with arrow-head markings of dark brown; lining of wings and axillary plumes white, the former with horse-shoe markings, and the latter with broad transverse bars of cinnamon-brown.
Young. Crown of the head and sides of the face dusky brown, mottled with yellowish brown; throat, and a streak from the base of the upper mandible extending beyond the eyes, white; neck, all round, brownish grey, spotted with dark brown on the nape; upper part of the back rusty brown, with darker centre spots, and mottled with white; the scapulars light rust-brown, with a series of white triangular spots on each web; lower part of back greyish white varied with brown; rump and upper tail-coverts white, conspicuously barred with brown, these bars assuming on the outer feathers the form of arrow-heads; breast and sides of the body creamy white, sometimes stained with grey; abdomen and under tail-coverts pure white, some of the latter with irregular dusky bars; lining of wings prettily varied with brownish black; axillary
Obs. Before the autumn livery is cast off the plumage of the upper surface becomes much worn and has a faded appearance, this being due to abrasion, the white notched markings being often worn completely out, giving the edge of the feather a serrated outline.
Summer plumage. In every considerable flock there are individuals known as “red kuakas.” These have the plumage of the upper surface darker and largely varied with rufous instead of white, the sides of the head, throat, fore neck, breast, upper part of abdomen, sides of the body, and flanks bright rufous. This is a phase of the summer dress only. It should be mentioned that although, strictly speaking, only a seasonal visitant, a few stragglers remain with us all through the year, and that specimens are sometimes met with in a transitional state of plumage.
A specimen in Mr. Seebohm’s collection, in full breeding-plumage (obtained at Shanghai in May 1873), has the frontal streak, sides of the face, throat, the whole of the fore neck, and the entire under surface uniform bright rufous, pointed with black on the sides of the chest, narrowly margined with white on the flanks, and varied with black and white on the under tail-coverts; the plumage of the upper surface is similar to that of the young as described above, except that the lighter parts are washed with rufous, which colour becomes predominant on the nape and upper tail-coverts; the lining of the wings and the axillary plumes are exactly as in the young bird. We may take it therefore that this is the first nuptial plumage.
A specimen in full summer plumage was obtained at Saltwater Creek, in the provincial district of Canterbury, at the end of summer or beginning of autumn.
Albino. The following is the description of an albino shot by myself at Ohau, on the west coast of the Wellington Province, in the spring of 1862:—The whole of the plumage white, tinged with brown on the head, back, and upper surface of wings; tertiaries and the primary-coverts partially brown; lining of wings, axillary plumes, and upper tail-coverts barred with pale brown; bill whitish; legs black.
Obs. In this species the length of the bill is very variable. A series of five examples, in a fine collection of birds made by Mr.
A specimen shown to me by Mr. Jewel, the local taxidermist at Christchurch, exhibited a still greater extension of bill than any of those mentioned above, the length from the base to the tip of the upper mandible being 5·1 inches.
Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub, in their excellent work on the birds of Central Polynesia, have correctly referred our bird to the species described by Mr. Gould under the name of Limosa uropygialis; but, as will be seen on reference to the historical synonymy given above, this name has no claim whatever to recognition. There are no less than five recorded names of antecedent date; and, in settling questions of nomenclature, I shall, as far as possible, adhere to the established rule of adopting in every case the oldest admissible title. In my former edition 1 adopted for this species that of Limosa baueri; but as this name, bestowed by Natterer, was only on a Museum label without any published
L. novæ zealandiæ, Gray.
I have already, in the Introduction to Vol. I. (p. xl), referred to the extraordinary migration which this bird performs every year, spending several months in Siberia, where it breeds, and another portion of the year in the Malay Archipelago, Polynesia, Australia, and New Zealand, passing the coasts of Japan, Mantchooria, and China in the course of its weary pilgrimage.
Von Middendorff, who met with these birds in great numbers in Northern Siberia (74°–75° N. lat.), states that they appeared there on the 3rd June, and left again in the beginning of August. In the months of September and April Swinhoe observed migratory flocks on the coast of Formosa, and during the winter months he met with this species still further south. Von Middendorff found it also in summer on the south coast of the Sea of Ochotsk, although it did not appear to breed there. It has likewise been observed in China, Japan, Java, Celebes, Timor, Norfolk Island, Solomon Islands, and the New Hebrides, and its range doubtless extends much further; but it has never yet been met with in India, this being probably too far west of its annual course. It is met with on Prybilov Islands, coming in a straggling manner early in May, passing northward with little delay, and reappearing again towards the end of August in flocks of a dozen or fifty Fauna Centralpolynesiens (1867), p. 181.
The habits of this species are in no respect different from those of its European ally. As already stated, it is migratory; and towards the end of March or beginning of April large flocks may be seen at the far north taking their departure from our country. The departure from any fixed locality usually begins on almost the exact date year after year; and for a week or ten days after the migration has commenced fresh parties are constantly on the wing, the flight generally taking place about sunset, and sometimes after dark. The main body fly in silence, but the straggling birds cry out at intervals, while endeavouring to overtake the flock in advance. Near the North Cape, Captain Mair has observed them flying northward in tens of thousands, and always in considerable flocks, numbering from 700 to 1200 birds in each, and the wonder is where they all come from. During the period mentioned, this excitement of departure is unabated—flocks forming and following each other in perpetual succession.
The seasonal migrations of this species over a third of the globe’s circumference in search of a congenial climate, and then back again to its distant home for breeding purposes, are astonishing facts in natural history, and to those who have not studied the subject might well appear incredible. But it is this romance of real life that so often forces upon the naturalist the conclusion that “fact is stranger far than fiction” The late Mr. en route.
Though the greater number of the birds migrate, some remain with us during the winter, and it is not unusual, even in mid-winter, to see a flock of several hundred consorting together on the sand-banks. It has been remarked that at this season they are much tamer and more approachable than at other times. A pair continued to frequent Sulphur Point at Ohinemutu for two or three years; but they were ultimately shot at the request of the resident natives, who looked upon their constant appearance as an “aitua,” or omen of some impending evil.
On their return to this country they do not make a sudden appearance, but come in straggling parties during the month of October, and gradually become more plentiful after the first week in November, and about Christmas they are in full force again all along our sea-shore.
Some of the flocks on their arrival are very tame and approachable. Captain Fairchild found them particularly so at Kawhia, a somewhat unfrequented place on the east coast. He advanced to
Capt. Mair has sometimes observed a party of stragglers in Sulphur Bay, in the Rotorua Lake (about forty miles from the sea-coast), no doubt brought inland by the easterly gales, which sometimes prevail for a considerable time without intermission. On the Tauranga coast he has obtained large “bags” during the shooting-season; and on one occasion, at Cemetery Point, killed ninety-seven at a single shot with a heavy charge of No. 5 from an ordinary fowling-piece. This will give some idea of their numbers, and of the close manner in which they were packed together. Thousands were crowding upon each other on an insular sand-bank, and numbers more were hovering overhead in the vain attempt to find a footing among their fellows. As he was “shooting for the pot,” he concealed himself with floating kelp, and crawled up under water till the birds were within easy range.
As may be supposed from the character of the bill, their manner of feeding is peculiar. Sometimes the birds may be seen thrusting their long pliant bills deep into the mud or sand, working them to the very hilt, and sometimes burying the fore part of the head in the soft ooze; at another time they may be seen taking three or four hurried steps forward, and then halting for a moment to pick up some small object from the surface; but generally speaking they walk along with much deliberation, picking as they go. It may be inferred from this that their food consists of aquatic insects, marine worms, small mollusks, and crustaceans. The objects, however, which they select must be very minute, for on opening their stomachs it is usual to find only a mass of comminuted matter having the appearance of mud or slime.
The natives catch large numbers of them by spreading flax snares horizontally on manuka sticks twelve or fifteen feet high, and arranged in the following manner:—A number of stakes are driven into the ground at equal distances so as to cover the area of the customary resting-place. A perfect network of flax loops or running nooses, about twelve or fifteen inches in diameter, are then spread or hung in such a way as to form a canopy or roof supported by the stakes. The birds on assembling in the evening fly low and take up their position on the resting-ground to wait for the ebb of the tide. At this conjuncture the natives spring out from their concealment with lighted torches. The birds at once rise vertically, in confusion and alarm, and large numbers become entangled and caught in the running loops, sometimes as many as 200 being captured at one time in snares covering a space of twenty by forty yards. These snares are only set on calm and dark nights, for the obvious reasons that, if there was any wind, the loops would become disarranged, and that on moonlight nights the birds would see the nets and avoid them. Sometimes during wet easterly weather in summer the feathers of these birds become so saturated that they are unable to fly. The natives take advantage of this and capture large numbers of them by running them down.
From what has been said, it may be inferred that they are esteemed good eating by both settlers and Maoris. The latter always cook the bird unopened, and devour the contents of the stomach with a relish. When very fat they are potted in the orthodox fashion and “calabashed” for future use.
In some localities these birds afford tolerably good shooting, although they are not much esteemed for eating. When spread over the sands or bare mud-flats in search of food they are somewhat shy and wary; but when the tide is high they consort together in large flocks near the water’s edge, and may then be approached under cover and killed by scores, a pot shot into their close ranks, and another as the flock rises confusedly in the air, generally proving very destructive. “Curlew-shooting” (as it is termed in the colony) sometimes, however, becomes more legitimate sport, as may be gathered from the following passage in a letter to ‘The Field,’ from a New-Zealand correspondent:—“Curlew-shooting has just begun; I had a day last week (early in March). The best locality for this kind of shooting is the upper part of Auckland harbour, where the river Waite-mata and the harbour of the Manukau are within a short distance of one another. The Manukau
It is a common thing to see birds with a single leg, or with a broken or truncated bill. Captain Mair saw one with both legs shot away. It kept with the flock, supporting itself on the stumps of the tarsi when walking, and crouching on the ground when at rest, but mainly using its wings for purposes of locomotion. The maimed and injured birds, of which each flock contains many towards the close of the shooting-season, habitually keep apart from the main flock, confining themselves to the high beach, and are known to sportsmen as the “sick brigade.”
At Katikati on the east coast, when their ordinary resting-places on the mud-flats are submerged by the high spring tides, these birds take refuge on the tops of the low spreading mangrove bushes; and thousands together may sometimes be seen in this position.
While resting on sand-banks at high tide, they always stand in the water so as to conceal the unfeathered tibia, and sportsmen say that they do this in order to keep themselves cool.
Great individual variation is observable, especially in the length of the bill and legs. There is also much difference in the plumage. The largest birds (probably aged ones) are generally much lighter than the rest of the flock, and are distinguished by the Maoris as the “kuaka-karoro.” In the autumn generally about the proportion of one third of the birds in every flock present the rufous-brown colouring on the underparts, which is more or less conspicuous, and sometimes extends over the entire plumage. These birds are called by the Maoris “pohokura,” in allusion to their bright colour, and both these and the “kuaka-karoro” are said to be always the fattest in the flock.
I have never met with a Maori who could tell me anything about the breeding-habits of this Godwit, and it has become a proverb amongst them: “Who has seen the nest of the Kuaka?”
For many years the egg of this bird was equally unknown in other parts of the hemisphere; but on the 18th January, 1868, Mr. Dall obtained two specimens at Kutlik, Alaska. “These differ,” Mr. Harting states, in the ‘Fauna of the Prybilov Islands’ (p. 27), “as much from each other as eggs of this species do from those of other species. The ground-colour of one is greenish olive-grey, of the other pale olive-grey. In the former the markings are all subdued neutral tints apparently in the shell; in the latter the markings are nearly all on the surface and quite bright chocolate-brown. In both cases the markings are numerous and of indeterminate shape, mostly small and generally distributed, though tending to aggregate at the larger end, where alone they lose their distinctness in coalescing to form a splashed area.”
As already mentioned in the Introduction, this species breeds in the high latitudes of Eastern Asia; but a few stragglers appear to remain with us all the year round. I have in my possession an egg obtained on the Island of Kapiti (Cook’s Strait) which I am unable to refer to any other bird; it is of a regular ovoido-conical form, measuring 1·95 inches in length by 1·45 in breadth, and the colour is a dull stone-brown, with numerous obscure markings, as if under the shell, over the entire surface, which is finely granulate, but changing to pale brown, with a polished surface, at the smaller end.
Numenius cyanopus, Vieill. 2nd edit. du Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. vol. viii. p. 306 (1817).
Numenius major, Schl. (nee Steph.) Fauna Japonica, (see footnote) p. 110 (1850).
Numenius austratis et N. rufescens, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1862, p. 286.
Numenius tahitiensis, Swinh. (nec Gmel.), Ibis, 1863, p. 445.
Ad. suprà brunnescens: pileo summo nuchâque nigro-fuscis, plumis fulvo marginatis: dorsi plumis conspicuè medialiter saturatiùs brunneis: tectricibus alarum minoribus dorso concoloribus, extùs cinereo angustè marginatis: scapularibus cinereo obscurè transfasciatis: remigibus saturatè brunneis, scapis albidis, primariis interioribus cum secundariis irregulariter albo fasciatis: tectricibus majoribus conspicuè albo notatis: secundariis intimis fulvescenti-cinereo transfasciatis: uropygio et supracaudalibus nigricanti-brunneis, plumis lætè rufescenti-brunneo marginaliter fasciatis: caudâ nigricanti-brunneâ saturatè cinereo conspicuè transfasciatâ: gutture albido: facie laterali et corpore subtùs pallidè fulvescenti-albis, collo undique et pectore summo cinerascentibus, plumis lineâ centrali nigrescenti-fuscâ notatis: subalaribus et axillaribus albis brunneo conspicuè transfasciatis: rostro brunneo, mandibulâ ad basin flavescente: pedibus olivaceis.
Adult. General upper surface dark cinereous brown, the feathers of the head and hind neck centred with blackish brown, which colour spreads and darkens on the back and mantle; upper surface of wings more or less varied with greyish white, all the feathers having light spots or margins; the first four primaries clove-brown with white shafts, and freckled with grey on their inner webs, the rest of them darker brown with broad interrupted transverse bars of white; the outer secondaries and their large coverts similarly marked but not so distinctly; the long inner secondaries blackish brown, both webs marked with numerous regular bars of obscure cinereous brown changing to white on the margin; tail-feathers blackish brown with darker shafts and transversely barred in a similar manner; so also are the scapulars, but in a less decided way; rump and upper tail-coverts blackish brown, with broad interrupted bars of bright rufous brown; chin and throat white; sides of the head and fore neck, and the entire under surface, fulvous white, tinged with rufous, all the feathers except those on the abdomen and thighs having a narrow central streak of brown, which widens perceptibly on both sides of the chest; under tail-coverts washed with rufous and obscurely barred with brown; lining of wings and axillary plumes white, the former varied and the latter conspicuously barred with blackish brown; the feathers of the flanks more or less crossed with arrowhead markings of the same. Irides black; bill dark brown, changing to yellowish towards the base of the lower mandible; legs and feet dark olivaceous; claws black. Total length 29 inches; wing, from flexure, 11·75; bill, along the ridge 8, along the edge of lower mandible 8·1; tarsus 3·5; middle toe and claw 2·2.
Female. Similar in plumage to the male, but of somewhat larger dimensions, and with a much longer bill. A specimen in Mr. Seebohm’s collection from Victoria gives an extreme measurement of 8 inches. I have not yet met with an example of this sex in New Zealand.
Obs. The bird from which the above measurements were taken was shot in the early part of April by Mr.
Note. Gould’s Numenius rufescens (l. c.) is undoubtedly this species in summer plumage. He thus describes
This fine Curlew, which is common on many parts of the Australian coast, occurs in New Zealand only as an occasional straggler.
A specimen was shot by Mr. Travers at the Wairau, in the provincial district of Nelson, in the summer of 1874–5, and was presented by him to the Colonial Museum. Another occurrence of the species in New Zealand was recorded by myself, on the authority of Sir Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. ix. pp. 427–429.
Mr. St. C. Liardet, who is an experienced collector, informs me that he saw a flock of five (in March or April) near the bluff which stands between the Wairau and Awatere river-mouths. He shot one at Iron Bay, near the Wellington heads, about the end of February; this was in adult plumage and proved on dissection to be a female; bill, along the ridge 8 inches, along the edge of lower mandible 6·5.
From its habit of associating on the sands with the flocks of Godwits it is probable that this species visits our shores more often than is generally supposed and escapes detection in the crowd.
Mr. Gould found this Curlew very plentiful on the shores of Tasmania, but he was never able to discover its breeding-place; and he expressed his belief that it retires to the high lands of the interior for the purpose of reproduction.
Mr. ‘Geogr. Distrib. of the Fam. Charadriidæ,’ p. 326.N. longirostris) in having the underparts, including the axillaries, nearly white, streaked and barred with brown. Both species are large, with tarsi more than three inches long. Like its ally in the New World, it is a migratory bird, but the migrations of the Curlews on the Asiatic shores of the Pacific are on a very different scale to those of their cousins on the American shores of that ocean. The Australian Curlew breeds somewhere in Eastern Siberia, since it occurs on migration from Lake Baikal to the mouth of the Amoor, and along the coasts of Japan and China. It crosses the line to winter in Australia, and has also been recorded from Tasmania, New Guinea, Borneo, and some of the smaller islands of the Malay Archipelago.”
Dr. Ramsay says that in Australia it is “common everywhere in suitable places, and on muddy flats along the coast, and occasionally may be found on the margins of lakes and lagoons inland a considerable distance.”
Larus dominicanus, Licht. Verz. Doubl. p. 82 (1823).
Larus littoreus, Forster, Descr. Anim. p. 46 (1844).
Larus antipodus, Gray, Cat. Anseres, Brit. Mus. p. 169 (1844).
Dominicanus antipodus, Bruch, J. f. O. 1853, p. 100.
Clupeilarus antipodum, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 770 (1856).
Larus vociferus, Burm. Syst. Uebers. Th. Bras. p. 448 (1856).
Dominicanus azaræ, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. ii. p. 214 (1857).
Lestris antarcticus, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7472.
Larus fuscus, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7472.
Larus antipodum, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 248.
Larus pacificus, Layard, Ibis, 1863, p. 245.
Larus azaræ, Pelz. Reise Nov. p. 151 (1865).
Karoro; the young bird distinguished as Ngoiro, Koiro, and Punua.
Ad. capite toto cum collo undique et corpore subtùs toto albis: interscapulio, scapularibus cum dorso summo et tectricibuas alarum cinereo-nigricantibus: remigibus nigris, latè albo terminatis, secundariis latissimè, primario primo fasciâ subterminali albâ notato: dorso postico, uropygio, supracaudalibus et caudâ totâ purè albis: subalaribus cum axillaribus et secundariis intùs albis: rostro citrino, mandibulâ maculâ præapicali sanguineâ notatâ: pedibus viridi-flavicantibus vix grisescentibus: iride argenteo-albâ.
Juv. suprà brunneus, dorsi plumis latè albido marginatis, dorso postico et uropygio albis brunneo irregulariter notatis et fasciatis: capite et collo postico brunneis albido striolatis; tectricibus alarum brunneis pallidiùs marginatis, medianis et majoribus albido terminatis: remigibus nigricanti-brunneis, secundariis pallidioribus, internis pallidiore brunneo marmoratis et albido terminatis: subtùs albicans, ubique brunneo maculatus aut semifasciatus: rostro cinerascenti-brunneo, versùs basin mandibulæ, pallidiore, ad apicem corneo: pedibus saturatè brunneis.
Pull. ubique saturatè cinerascenti-brunneus, pileo nigricante marmorato: dorso obscuro brunneo notato: rostro nigro: pedibus plumbeis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. General plumage pure white; back and upper surface of wings slaty black; the secondaries and scapulars crossed by a broad terminal bar of white; the primaries black, the first with a broad irregular bar across both webs, and beyond it a small terminal spot of white; the rest are largely tipped with white, and on the inner web of some of them there is likewise a semilunate mark of greyish white. Irides silvery grey; bill bright lemon-yellow, changing to red on the prominence of the lower mandible; legs and feet greenish yellow, inclining to grey. Length 24·5 inches; extent of wings 57; wing, from flexure, 16·5; tail 6·5; bill, along the ridge 2·25, along the edge of lower mandible 3; bare tibia 1·25; tarsus 2·5; middle toe and claw 2·5.
Young. General plumage dark slaty grey, obscurely mottled and freckled with white, especially on the underparts, and suffused on the shoulders and wings with brown; the sides of the face uniform slaty grey, the
More advanced state. General plumage dark brownish grey, varied more or less with white. On the head, neck, and underparts the grey and white are blended, presenting a mottled appearance; the feathers composing the mantle are barred and margined, and the wing-coverts are margined and vandyked with white; the primaries are brownish black and the secondaries dark brown, changing to white at the tips; the tail-feathers are blackish brown, the outermost one on each side spotted on its outer web, and all of them marbled towards the base with greyish white; upper and lower tail-coverts white, conspicuously barred with brown; axillary plumes uniform dark grey. Bill greyish brown, horn-coloured towards the tips of both mandibles; legs and feet dark brown.
Progress towards maturity. As the change of plumage is gradual, individuals present much diversity in their progress towards maturity, the tendency being towards a lighter grey in the ground-colours, with less of the spotted character. The following is a description of a well-advanced bird:—Upper parts dark grey, marked and obscurely spotted with white, lighter on the head, neck, and upper tail-coverts; on the scapulars a central spot of black; underparts light grey, mottled with darker; under tail-coverts white, transversely barred with black; primaries and secondaries black, the latter tipped with white; tail-feathers black, with a narrow terminal mark of white.
During the transitional state, birds are met with in very different conditions of plumage, as the following selected examples will show:—
No. 1. Has the mantle and upper surface of wings mottled grey as in the young bird; tail blackish brown; rest of the plumage pure white.
No. 2. Back and interscapular region slaty black as in the adult; upper surface of wings mottled grey; tail with a terminal band of black; rest of the plumage white.
No. 3. Similar to No. 2 but with a dark tail, and with the plumage of the wings much abraded and faded.
No. 4. Plumage as in adult, but having the head and neck marked all over with lanceolate touches of brown; the first primary with a broad spot of white on its inner web.
No. 5. Merging into the adult plumage, but retaining all the youthful markings on the wing-coverts.
No. 6. In adult livery, but with the tail black in its apical portion instead of being white.
No. 7. Upper surface as in adult; throat and fore neck white, but the whole of the underparts light mottled grey, the line of demarcation across the breast being well defined.
Nestling. Covered with thick down of a dark ash-grey, varied on the back with dull brown, lighter on the underparts; the head and nape marked with large irregular spots of blackish brown; irides black; bill black, with a whitish ridge; feet dark lead-colour.
Varieties. I have met with one pure albino, with another having a conspicuous white spot on each wing, and a third with a broad terminal band of black across the tail.
An example in the Otago Museum is stained with brown in irregular patches on the face and sides of the neck. One which I saw in Auckland harbour, in March, was in the greyish-white transition plumage, with a black tail and pure white back and rump, and exhibited a broad white spot on each wing. Another which I observed in Wellington harbour had what appeared to be a narrow pectoral band of blackish brown forming a conspicuous zone. And on four occasions I have seen, on different parts of the coas; an apparently adult bird with a dark fore neck and breast, as described above, the dark colour being, in one instance at least, as sharply defined as on the breast of a Wood-Pigeon. One pair in particular, which I scanned closely through a strong binocular, followed our steamer for many miles between Napier and Wellington; they left us as we entered the heads, although several others in the ordinary plumage followed us in. One of the former had the whole of the upper surface brownish black, except the rump, upper tail-coverts, and
Ibis, 1863, Obs. Mr. L. pacificus into our list, stating in a communication to ‘The Ibis’p. 245.Larus pacificus is a more robust bird with a bill nearly twice as broad as that of Larus dominicanus. Mr.
The result of our protective legislation has been a perceptible increase in the number of Sea-Gulls frequenting our bays and harbours. At Pitone, at the northern extremity of Wellington harbour, where boiling-down works have recently been established, flocks numbering several hundreds are daily to be seen crowding on a narrow spit or hovering in the air, the pearly whiteness of their general plumage contrasting finely with the black of the upper parts, especially in the strong sunlight of the morning. It is notorious how early impressions often cling to one through life, even as to matters quite trivial in themselves; and I never see a flock of these birds crowding over an object in the water, in the manner described above—filling the air with their cries and with the rapid flutterings of their wings—but one of my boyish recollections of a picture in “Peter Parley’s Tales” is vividly brought to mind. It was a scene on the ocean, and represented an eager crowd of sea-birds hovering over the floating carcase of a whale.This fine Gull, which ranges over the whole southern hemisphere, is extremely plentiful on all our coasts, preferring, however, the smooth sea-beaches and the sandy spits at the mouths of our tidal rivers; in these localities it is always to be met with either singly or associated in large flocks, and mixing freely with the smaller species of Gulls, Terns, Oyster-catchers, and other shore-birds. It frequents the harbours, and hovers around the vessels with much clamour, waiting to pick up any morsel that may chance to be thrown overboard
It is a pretty sight to watch these Sea-Gulls among the shipping anchored in our harbours or moored alongside of the piers. They assemble in flocks, and are to be seen struggling on the wing and screaming with excitement at the sight of any offal thrown into the water; and they exhibit
The several species of Gull hover together promiscuously, and apparently on terms of perfect amity, although I have occasionally seen the larger species pursuing and persecuting its weaker congeners.
It is interesting to observe the extreme buoyancy of this bird on the water. It springs into the air and then downwards, head foremost, having apparently great difficulty in submerging the body at all.
When riding by moonlight along the sandy beaches I have often disturbed the sleeping Sea-Gull. It would always rise in the air without uttering a sound, wheel round overhead in a wide circle, and then alight again on the sands near the water’s edge.
During very stormy weather it often travels some miles inland; and at the breeding-season it occasionally penetrates far up the river-courses in search of a secure nesting-place. It also frequents the pastures at a distance from the coast in quest of food, doing good service to the farmer by its large consumption of caterpillars and other insect pests. On the plains near Waitaki South I saw in the month of April a flock of these birds numbering, I should say, at least a thousand individuals, and nearly the whole of them in the adult plumage. Further on, near the banks of the river, I saw another flock of about four hundred Mr. Cheeseman informs me that in January, 1883, when crossing the mountains from Hokitika to Christchurch, he observed, near Lake Pearson, a large number of these Gulls feeding amongst the tussock-grass. On watching them with a pocket-glass he made out that they were catching the large grasshoppers which were very plentiful there.
It likewise frequents the mouths of all our tidal rivers. Near the outlet of the Whangarei there are extensive mangrove-flats which look dreary enough when the tide is out, but have a very pretty effect when the sea is at the full, the pale green tops of the bushes resting on the surface, with occasional spaces of open water. On the last occasion of my seeing this it was a bright summer’s day with the water placid as a mirror, and the picturesque effect was greatly heightened by a flock of these Gulls, some of them playing joyously on the surface of the water, others resting on the floating mangrove tops, their white plumage showing conspicuously against the light green surroundings. In the distance beyond there was a high fern-ridge with a few clumps of bush in the hollows, and away to the right a lovely grove of young puriri (Vitex littoralis), the dark hue relieved by an edging of tree ferns, with their star-like crowns of soft pale green. I could not help thinking, as I watched the playful evolutions of these holiday-making Sea-Gulls, that the scene was in every respect very different to the stormy ones on the ocean wave with which these birds are so familiar and amidst which they spend so much of their existence.
On the sea-shore it subsists chiefly on a species of bivalve, and displays much ingenuity in breaking the hard shell to get at the contents: seizing it between its powerful mandibles, it runs a few steps, then spreads its wings, and mounts in the air to a height of thirty feet or more, when it lets the bivalve drop on the hard sandy beach, and descends to pick out the mollusk from the broken fragments. Should the first attempt to break the shell by this means prove a failure, the bird repeats the operation; and I once witnessed nine successive attempts before the firm shell yielded. On riding up to the spot, I found that the shell was of unusual thickness, and measured more than two inches across the surface. Small crustacea, sandhoppers, dead fish, and carrion of all kinds are also laid under contribution, as this Gull is both omnivorous and voracious. It will also, when opportunity offers, capture live fish. I saw one very cleverly secure in shallow water a flounder about the size of one’s hand. The bird
In Napier, where the cultivated grounds were at one time infested with the introduced snail (Helix hortensis), this Gull was found to be quite invaluable. In Mr.
I do not think it has ever been recorded yet that the Sea-Gull has a natural love for music. I have seen a tame one in a settler’s garden run up to the house as soon as the children commenced their morning practice on the piano, enter at the open door and stand in the passage in a position of eager attention. I was assured that this was an invariable habit, showing incontestably that the bird was not insensible to music. On one occasion, long after dark, attracted by the strains of a lively waltz, it posted itself under the bay-window and began to scream as if in eager accompaniment!
It appears to be semi-nocturnal in its habits, for I have found it moving about on the sands long after dark. And often, when travelling by a coastal steamer, after the sun had gone down in his splendour behind the rugged crests of the mainland and the pall of night had settled down upon the waters, I have observed one or two of them still hovering in our wake. It certainly is the first of the shore-birds to be astir in the morning, and unless the frost-fish The frost-fish (Lepidopus caudatus), the most delicately flavoured of all New-Zealand fishes, is an inhabitant of deep water, and on frosty nights, owing probably to its air-bladders becoming choked, it is cast up by the surf on the ocean-beach. It often attains to a length of four feet, is shaped like a whip-snake, and its smooth skin has the sheen of burnished silver.
On the memorable 9th September, 1885, during the total eclipse of the sun, one of the objects that especially attracted my notice was a Gull of this species hovering in the sky. With many other eager spectators, I had been watching this grand phenomenon of nature through an astronomical telescope from a good point of observation on the slope of Mount Victoria. The progress of the eclipse was accompanied by an extraordinary exhibition of heavy dark shadows on the undulating hills at the back of Wellington, the appearance being wholly unlike anything one had witnessed before. As totality approached these shadows became fused or merged into a deep neutral tint, and the whole landscape was plunged in a livid, unnatural twilight. At the moment of total obscuration—when, although the corona presented a nimbus or luminous halo of lustrous beauty, the surface of the earth was overspread with an almost appalling, shadowless gloom—a flight of Sparrows, keeping close to the ground, swept past us in silence and disappeared in a hollow, whilst a solitary Sea-Gull, on firm pinion, was to be seen mounting high in the air, in the very line of vision; and when, after eighty seconds of indescribable emotion to the spectator, the solar orb, preceded by red flashes of lambent flame without the moon’s periphery, burst forth in all his glorious effulgence of dazzling light, and nature assumed once more her wonted aspect, the Sea-Gull was still to be seen hovering high in the heavens as if in utter bewilderment at this unusual scene.
At the commencement of winter there are few birds, as a rule, to be seen at sea. I have made the voyage at this season from Wellington to Manukau, in fine weather, without seeing a single Petrel of any kind—only a solitary Gannet off Taranaki, a few Caspian Terns fishing around the Sugar Loaves, and a small flock of Tarapunga as we neared the Manukau heads. But this fine Gull was a constant attendant, one particular individual, with a peculiar mark on its breast, following us all the way from
The Hon. Mr. Ballance related to me an anecdote which has furnished my artist with material for the pretty woodcut at the end of this article. On the Wellington west coast Mr.
On the Otaki beach I once saw a Sea-Gull with only one leg. It moved about with apparent comfort and safety, using its wings pretty often to steady its body.
Simpkins, a publican at Whakatane, obtained a female of this species, when quite young, from White Island, a distance of some thirty-five miles. It became perfectly tame, answering to the name of “Hinemoa,” and coming into the house at meal-times to be fed. When about two years old it suddenly disappeared, and after a lapse of six months it returned with two young ones, which have since become quite domesticated. By last advices both old bird and young were still inhabitants of the yard, and evinced no desire to leave it I remember, when I was a boy, having a tame one on the Mission Station at Tangiteroria, ninety miles up the Wairoa river. On reaching maturity it suddenly disappeared, and we supposed it had fallen a victim to some predatory hawk; but six months afterwards it returned, bringing with it a mate from the sea, and after sojourning a few hours took its final departure. This remarkable exercise of memory in the bird, for it could be nothing else, is very interesting and suggestive.
The young bird has a very shrill cry, and as it grows older this changes to a prolonged squeal. It runs after its parents long after it is fledged and able to take care of itself; and it may be distinguished, almost at any distance, by the peculiar manner in which it arches its back and follows the movements of the older birds on the sands.
The adult bird utters a loud laughing note when alarmed or excited, and at other times a short peevish whistle like keeo-keeo. The last occasion on which I visited a nesting-ground of this species was on the island of Motiti, in the Bay of Plenty, on January 17, 1885. It was situated on the summit of a high table rock, covered thickly with native Mesembryanthemum. The nests were neatly formed of dry grass and placed right in the midst of the spreading plant, which, in this exposed position, was of very stunted growth. The young birds in their woolly jackets had left the nests but were still on the rock, and allowed us to handle them without any resistance. On our departure, however, they descended and hid themselves, whilst the old birds mounted guard on the highest crags, their snowy plumage gleaming in the sunlight and their forms strangely magnified against the background of blue sky. On our return, an hour later, the “woolly jackets” had commenced their ascent of the rock, but paterfamilias with a low note of ko-ko-ko, which was apparently quite intelligible to the young birds, warned them of impending danger, and they were immediately invisible.
It is easily domesticated, and becomes much attached to those who show it any attention. Some years ago I saw a very beautiful albino, having the entire plumage of the purest white, in the possession of Captain Robinson at Manawatu. A similar albino was kept, for a long time, as a pet, by the Maoris at Tahoraiti. I have also seen one exhibiting a white border on both edges of the wings.
At Wi Parata’s settlement at Waikanae I saw a tame one that had been in his possession for three years. It was perfectly domesticated and answered to the name of “Dick”—responding when called, taking food from the hand, and ruling the poultry-yard in a spirit of despotism. I saw it on one occasion valiantly attack a cocker-spaniel in order to dispute possession of a bone which it succeeded in carrying off. Another which I obtained from the nest in the month of February, and kept in my garden for more than five years, afforded me the opportunity of studying the habits of this species and of marking its successive changes of plumage before it finally assumed the adult livery of “black and white with yellow mountings” The following particulars extracted from my note-book may be useful as marking the progressive history of the species:—It first began to show signs of a change of plumage in the month of April, the grey on the sides of the head and nape becoming lighter and imparting a slightly hooded appearance to the crown and face, whilst the scapulars began to present white terminal fringes. By the middle of June it had undergone a further change; the plumage of the shoulders and back had got perceptibly darker, the new feathers covering these parts being of a slaty-grey colour with darker centres, whilst the sides of the face, the fore neck, and breast had become lighter, the transition from dark grey to whitish grey having quite altered the expression of the face and given the eyes a fretful look. No change in the colours of the soft parts was observable till January, when the irides had turned to greyish brown, the legs had become tinged with pale green and the bill appreciably lighter in colour. At this period also the back was moulting, the new slaty-black feathers being very conspicuous. After an absence from home of several months I observed a considerable change, the condition of the bird at the end of December being as follows:—Head and neck white, somewhat clouded and spotted with brown; shoulders and underparts of the body white, more or less blotched with greyish brown; wings shaded with blackish brown; rump white; the interscapulars changing from blackish brown to the slaty-black colour characteristic of the adult bird; tail black; under tail-coverts white, broadly barred with blackish brown; bill greenish yellow, changing to reddish towards the symphysis of the lower mandible; legs pale greyish green; irides pale grey. In the following month there was a rapid whitening of the head and neck, and the primaries and secondaries, which had been cut short more than a year before, were replaced by new ones, black instead of brown, the broad white tips on the two middle secondaries being very conspicuous. By the end of February (the bird being then three years old) the adult livery had been fully assumed, except that there were some clouded markings of grey on the head, neck, and underparts; but as the latter rapidly diminished and finally disappeared it was evident that the change to perfect whiteness had taken place in the feathers themselves; the tail had become pure white, and the bill uniform dull yellow, washed with reddish brown on the symphysial prominence of the lower mandible; the irides pearl-grey, and the legs and feet dull greenish grey.
The most remarkable phase of character it developed was the romantic attachment it formed for a large black-and-white Newfoundland dog. For more than two years it had enjoyed the constant companionship of a tame Skua (Stercorarius antarcticus) and seemed then to be perfectly happy; but on the death of the latter, the Sea-Gull moped for a time and then fixed her affections on “Crusoe” in a very unmistakable way. Whenever the dog appeared on the lawn the bird would run to meet him with loud clamour, and dance round him with every expression of delight; when the dog had coiled himself to rest, the bird would peck him all over in a loving way with its bill, and finally nestle down beside him or even squat upon his soft coat, and if disturbed would utter a long squealing note as if in mild protest. Early one morning, although previously seen by the gardener, it unaccountably disappeared and was never recovered. Its affection for the dog seems to have proved fatal in the end, for there is little doubt that the bird followed the dog out and fell a victim to the street larrikins. We had become familiar with its noisy clamour and many peculiar ways, as it had been an inhabitant of our garden for so many years, and as it was in perfect plumage it was decidedly ornamental to the grounds; consequently its sudden disappearance was a matter of general regret to the household.
It breeds on the open sea-shore in remote or little-frequented parts of the coast, or on the shingle-banks far up the river-courses—nesting in large companies, and repairing to the same breeding-station season after season. The nest is formed with a tolerable amount of care, being constructed of dry
A remarkable nest of this species, in the Canterbury Museum, affords, to my mind, an explanation of a point raised about the nesting-habits of In the Canterbury Museum there is a similar nest of the Mackerel-Gull L. bulleri, in my controversy with Captain Hutton in 1874 (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vi. pp. 126–138). In my account of the last-named species, I had stated that “its attempts at forming a nest are of the rudest kind, a few bents of grass or other dry materials loosely collected round the edges being deemed a sufficient preparation.” Captain Hutton contradicted this, and stated that it “forms a very good nest.” As a rule the Black-backed Gull likewise forms a somewhat indifferent nest, and as often merely deposits its eggs in a depression in the sand. In some localities, however, where the ground is damp or swampy, or liable to be overflowed, the bird appears to adapt its building to the requirements of the situation. The nest in question is a massive agglomeration of seaweeds, rushes, twigs, grasses, and other rubbish, closely pressed together, and forming a flattened globular cushion two feet in length by eighteen inches in breadth and nine inches in thickness; in the centre there is a slight depression, for the reception of the eggs. Mr. Enys (who was present when this nest was found) informs me that it was placed between the roots of a drift stump of totara, near a river-mouth (Milford Sound), being surrounded by water at every high tide.(L. scopulinus) formed of dry twigs, grasses, and seaweed, a foot long by eight inches across, and raised five inches from the ground. This was found under similar conditions as the other. And we may fairly assume that the same would happen in the case of the closely allied species L. bulleri.MD. When disturbed in their nesting-ground, the old birds become very excited and clamorous, flying about high overhead in a very confused manner, with cries of ha-ha-haro-haro; while the young ones betake themselves at once to the nearest water, or squat and hide among the stones, where the protective colouring of their down is of the utmost service to them.
Larus scopulinus, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 106 (1844).
Larus novæ hollandiæ, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds, p. 18 (1844).
Lestris scopulinus, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7472.
Larus jamesoni, Hutton, Cat. Birds of N. Z. 1871, p. 41.
Ad. pileo undique albo: corpore suprà clarè cinereo, tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, tectricibus primariorum albis versùs apicem cinereo lavatis: primariis nigris, albo apicatis, duobus exterioribus subterminaliter plagâ magnâ albâ notatis, interioribus plerumque albis intùs cinereo lavatis nigro subterminaliter transfasciatis: secundariis dorso concoloribus: dorso postico cum uropygio caudâque albis: subtùs purè albus, subalaribus cinereo lavatis: rostro cruentato, culmine et apice pallidioribus: pedibus pallidiùs cruentatis: iride argenteoalbâ: annulo ophthalmico cruentato.
Juv. scapularibus et tectricibus alarum brunneo maculatis et marmoratis: primariis albo minùs notatis, secundariis conspicuè brunneo lavatis.
Adult. General plumage pure white; the back, scapulars, and upper surface of wings pale ash-grey; anterior edge of wings and four of the large outer coverts white; first primary white at the base, black in its median portion, the shaft and then the whole surface becoming white, finally banded near the tip with black; the second similar to the first, but with more white at the base, the inner web being margined with black, the median black less extended, and the shaft wholly white, with the same extent of white beyond, but a broader subterminal band of black; the third primary for two thirds of its length white, edged on the inner web with dusky black, the rest of the feather black, the white, however, being continued on the shaft till it spreads into a paddle-shaped mark on the inner web, about halfway down from the tip, which is also white; the fourth primary white, with the inner web wholly covered towards the base and margined towards the end with dusky black, with a subterminal band of black fully an inch in width; on the fifth quill the dusky black changes to dark ash-grey, which spreads over both webs towards the base, and the subterminal band is about half an inch in breadth; on the next quill the extent of white is considerably diminished, and the subterminal band is not only less in breadth but is interrupted by a shaft-line of white; the succeeding quills and the secondaries are wholly ash-grey, slightly paler at the tips. Irides silvery white; bill dark arterial red, lighter on the ridge and towards the tip; eyelids and feet pale arterial red, the claws brownish black. Length 14·5 inches; extent of wings 34; wing, from flexure, 11·25; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 1·25, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 1·75; middle toe and claw 1·75.
Obs. It should be observed that the markings on the primaries vary slightly in different individuals. The above description is taken from a fine specimen in perfect plumage.
In the nuptial season the male birds (if not both sexes) have the plumage of the breast and sides suffused with a delicate roseate tint. When the sun is shining on a group of these pretty birds, as they rest on the sands, this hue is visible even at a distance of twenty yards or more.
Professor Hutton, in the “Critical Notes” appended to his ‘Catalogue of the Birds of N. Z.’ (p. 78), says that the young of YounngL. scopulinus is similar in its colours to the adult, whilst the bird he distinguishes as L. jamesoni has brown feathers on the wings at all ages. In this he is absolutely wrong, for I have traced the young of the former from its earliest condition as a fledgling, and there can be no question of the correctness of my diagnosis as given above. The L. jamesoni of Prof. Hutton’s Catalogue is undoubtedly the young of L. scopulinus.
Fledgling. The following scries collected by myself, at one time and in the same nesting-place, exhibits the development of the fledgling:—
No. 1. Is just feathered, but with tufts of blackish-brown down still adhering to the plumage of the head and neck and above the tail; the quills are about four inches long, and their coverts as well as the scapulars are blackish brown, edged with fulvous; irides, bill, and legs black.
No. 2. More advanced but unable to fly; has the irides black, the bill dull brown, with a darker tip, and the legs paler brown; the first primary marked with a fusiform spot of white about the centre and having a minute terminal spot; tail-feathers with a subapical bar of blackish brown on their inner web.
No. 3. Just able to fly; has scarcely any indication of brown spots on the wings, but they are conspicuous on the scapulars, and reappear on the inner secondaries; the first primary is marked as in No. 2, but, owing to the development of the feather from its sheath, being much nearer to the distal end, the second primary with a smaller white spot about an inch from the tip, and the third black, but all of them having white terminal points; tail white.
No. 4. Similar to No. 3 and of same age; but having the wing-coverts blackish brown largely margined with fulvous, and the dark markings on the scapulars reduced to a rounded subapical spot.
Obs. It ought to be mentioned that the size and form of the apical spots on the primaries, and the extent of the brown markings on the secondaries, are very variable in different examples. I have seen a young bird with the white apical markings described above entirely wanting in one wing, and represented in the other only by a small round spot on the inner web of the first primary.
This pretty little Gull is one of our commonest birds, frequenting every part of the coast and being equally plentiful at all seasons of the year. It is a bird of very lively habits, and its presence goes far to relieve the monotony of a ride over such dreary stretches of sand as the Ninety-mile Beach and the coast-line between Wanganui and Wellington. At one time you will meet with a flock of fifty or more in council assembled, fluttering their wings, chattering and screaming in a state of high excitement; at another you will observe them silently winnowing the air, turning and passing up and down at regular intervals, as they eagerly scan the surface of the water. Here you find them ranged apart along the smooth beach like scouts on a cricket-ground; there you see a flock of them packed together on a narrow sand-spit, standing closer than a regiment of soldiers—heads drawn in, one foot up, “standing at ease.” Then again, if you observe them closely, you may see them following and plundering the Oyster-catcher in a very systematic manner. Nature has furnished the last-named bird with a long bill, with which it is able to forage in the soft sand for blue crabs and other small crustaceans. The Red-billed Gull is aware of this, and cultivates the society of his long-billed neighbour to some advantage; he dogs his steps very perseveringly, walking and flying after him, and then quietly standing by till something is captured, when he raises his wings and makes a dash at it. The Oyster-catcher may succeed in flying off with his prey; but the plunderer, being swifter on the wing, pursues, overtakes, and compels a surrender. The gentleman of the long bill looks gravely on
It frequents our harbours in large numbers, hovering round the shipping and associating freely with the Black-backed Gull; but although it often follows the vessel from its anchorage it does not venture so far out to sea as its larger congener. It also goes inland to feed, and large flocks, numbering several hundred birds, may sometimes be seen in the grass-paddocks, or following the plough on the settlers’ farms, miles away from any sheet of water. In the month of March I met with a considerable flock of them at Sulphur Point in Lake Rotorua.
The light hovering flight and pretty aerial movements of this bird around and amongst the shipping at its moorings is quite a distinctive feature of our ports. Its ordinary cry is cre-cre-cre; but when alarmed or excited this becomes prolonged into cr-e-e-ō cr-e-e-ō.
At Maketu, near the ancient landing-place, there is a conspicuous grove of karamu ( Coprosma lucida). The Maori tradition is that these trees sprang from the skids brought ashore from the Arawa canoe and used for hauling her up, when the first inhabitants landed on this coast some five hundred years ago. In deference to this widely accepted tradition, this clump of trees has, from time immemorial, been strictly
By the end of January most of the young birds have started in life on their own account; although, owing to the gregarious instinct of the species, they often remain for months in association with the old birds. At Ohinekoau, a few miles south of Matata, I observed (as early as Jan. 17) a full-grown young bird following its parents. The latter were very tame, hovering within a few feet of us in an inquisitive fashion, whilst the young one, uttering a low whimpering cry, occupied itself in catching flies on a flowering shrub at the water’s edge. This was at the very spot where, in 1864, our faithful ally,
During the breeding-season, which extends over December and January, this Gull resorts to the river-beds and to the shores of lakes a short distance from the sea, often nesting in large colonies, and depositing its eggs on the bare ground with little attempt at preparation. About the middle of January I visited one of these breeding-places in the Bay of Plenty. The young at this time, although fully fledged, were unable to fly, but took readily to the water. On catching one of them it disgorged from its throat some small fish with which it had just been fed. This food was in a semi-digested state, and had doubtless undergone some process of deglutition in the crop of the old bird before being served. The eggs are generally three in number, broadly ovoido-conical in form, measuring 2·1 inches in length by 1·5 in breadth; they vary in colour from greenish white to a pale yellowish brown, spotted and marked with greyish purple and brown, more thickly towards the larger end.
Gavia pomare, Bruch, J. f. Orn. 1855, p. 285 (not G. pomarre of 1853).
Bruchigavia melanorhyncha, Buller, Ibis, 1869, p. 43.
Larus (Bruchigavia) melanorhynchus, Finsch, tom. cit. p. 381.
Larus bulleri, Hutton, Cat. Birds of N. Z. 1871, p. 41.
Larus bulleri, Potts, Ibis, 1872, p. 38.
Ad. suprà dilutissimè cinereus: pileo cum collo postico et interscapulio, dorso postico uropygio et corpore subtùs toto, albis: plagâ nuchali indistinctâ bruuneâ: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, exterioribus et alâ spuriâ purè albis: remigibus dilutissimè cinereis dorso concoloribus, apicem versùs albis, primariis albis, pogoniis ambobus et apice pennarum plus minusve latè nigro marginatis, hâc albo terminatâ: caudâ omniò albâ: rostro nigro: pedibus nigricanti-brunneis: iride argenteo-albâ.
Juv. dorso et scapularibus obscurè brunneo notatis, plumis albo terminatis subterminaliter grisescenti-brunneo fasciatis: tectricibus alarum medianis grisescenti-brunneis albido marginatis: secundariis intimis medialiter distinctè brunneo lavatis.
Adult. General plumage pure white; back, scapulars, and upper surface of wings delicate ash-grey; breast and sides of the body suffused with a beautiful rosy blush, which fades after death, or entirely disappears. The primary quills are white, eccentrically varied with black; the first primary is narrowly margined on its outer and marked diagonally on its inner web, and tipped with black; on the next the black increases, and forms a broad subterminal bar, which enlarges on the two succeeding ones, and decreases on the fifth; the sixth is ashy, with merely a subterminal interrupted bar of black. Irides silvery white; bill black, sometimes tinged with red towards the base; legs and feet blackish brown. Total length 15 inches; extent of wings 35; wing, from flexure, 11·75; tail 4·5; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible 2; bare tibia ·75; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·5; hind toe and claw ·3.
Young. Has the plumage of the back and mantle and the scapulars obscurely spotted with brown, each feather having a white tip bounded below by an irregular spot of greyish brown; the first two primaries black, with a longitudinal oar-shaped white mark covering both webs, the rest of the primaries white in their basal portion, then black, and with minute terminal spots of white; the median wing-coverts greyish brown with a whitish margin; the long inner secondaries largely marked in their central portion with greyish brown. In some examples there is a wash of brown on the crown. Bill black in its terminal portion, reddish brown towards the base; legs and feet dull reddish brown.
Obs. The extent of the black markings on the primaries is very variable; and in some examples the first quill is largely tipped with black. There appears to be a seasonal change in the colour of the bill and legs, the former becoming dull yellow, stained at the tips with brown, and the tarsi and toes changing to pale orange-red, with darker webs and black claws.
Mr. The Black-billed Gull was originally described by myself, as already cited, under the name of
Bruchigavia melanorhynchaLarinæ, in the Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, p. 161, notices my having adopted Bonaparte’s Bruchigavia, “a genus playfully made,” for a New-Zealand species, this being, as he states, “its only claim to remembrance.” He had apparently forgotten that Mr. Gould, in his ‘Handbook to the Birds of Australia’ (published in 1865), adopted Bonaparte’s playful name for “a genus of Gulls the members of which are delicate in their structure, elegant in their appearance, and graceful in all their actions”—deliberately substituting that generic title for Xema, the one previously used in his folio edition. In 1869, in a communication to ‘The Ibis,’ I described a new species of this group from New Zealand, and provisionally referred it to that genus under the name of Bruchigavia melanorhyncha; but when I treated of the genus more exhaustively in my ‘Birds of New Zealand’ (1st ed., 1873), I adopted the generic division of Larus for this (=L. bulleri) and the allied species.Larus. Finding that the above title had already been bestowed on another member of the genus, by Temminck, Professor Hutton did me the honour to associate my name with the present species, which was figured for the first time in my former edition.
Another well-known local naturalist, Mr. Larus bulleri for a yellow-billed Gull, which he considered distinct. In treating of the latter bird (Birds New Zeal. 1st ed. p. 277) I stated that, whilst expressing my acknowledgments, I was unable to recognize the supposed specific distinction. On a careful comparison of the two birds, I found that they corresponded exactly in size, in the form of the bill, and in the colours of the plumage, even the eccentric markings on the primary quills being the same in both. The only difference, therefore, was in the colour of the bill and legs; and such a distinction could not be accepted as having any specific value till it had been shown that the difference of colour was constant in both birds all the year round. As opposed to the latter view, I mentioned that in the autumn of 1871 I had shot a specimen, on the sand-banks at Hokitika, in which the bill was pale coral-red in its basal portion, and brownish black beyond the nostrils, indicating, as it appeared to me, a transition to the black bill characteristic of the full winter plumage. Dr. Finsch, to whom I had forwarded skins of both for examination, concurred in this opinion; but he also went further, and referred the species to
Mr. Larinæ (P. Z. S. 1878) has cleared up the confusion in the nomenclature of this species with Larus pomare. He states that during a recent visit to Bremen he went into the whole question with Dr. Finsch, who had previously studied the subject, and had made numerous and careful drawings of the primaries of Bruch’s types of L. pomre in the Mainz Museum, and of many other specimens. He gives figures of the three outer primaries of Larus bulleri, and says “I have examined the type of Bruch’s
On the habits of this species, as observed by Mr. Travers on Lake Guyon, in the provincial district of Nelson, I have much pleasure in quoting the following account from that gentleman’s facile pen:—“The Black-billed Gull breeds on the main river-bed; and one or more pairs usually frequent
The specimens on which Mr. Potts founded his description of Larus bulleri were obtained near the mouth of the Waimakariri river; and, as already mentioned, I met with the same bird on the west coast. The Black-billed Gull is therefore not confined to the inland lakes, as was hitherto supposed, but also frequents the mouths of rivers and estuaries, where it appears to mingle freely with the flocks of
Like the preceding species, the Black-billed Gull deposits its eggs on the bare ground, its attempts at forming a nest being of the rudest kind, a few bents of grass or other dry materials loosely collected round the edges being deemed a sufficient preparation. There are two examples of the egg of this Gull in the Canterbury Museum, both very handsome in appearance, but differing entirely in the style and distribution of their colours. One of these is of a narrow ovoid form, measuring 2·15 inches in length by 1·65 in breadth; it is of a dull yellowish white or pale buff, covered with numerous spots and irregular markings of dark brown; these markings are more numerous towards the thicker end, forming a broad zone and displaying fantastic shapes not unlike some of the characters in the Chinese alphabet; and on one side of the egg, commencing at the smaller end, there is a large blotch of rich umber-brown, varied with a darker brown, and covering more than half its surface. The other example is somewhat smaller and more rounded in form; the ground-colour is a delicate greenish grey; about the middle of the egg there is a narrow belt of a brighter tint of green; near the thick end there is a broad dark zone formed of obscure inky blotches, varied with irregular markings of blackish brown; and over the entire surface there are small scattered spots and markings of a rich dark-brown colour. A specimen in my son’s collection, obtained at Preservation Inlet, measures 2·25 inches in length by 1·5 in breadth, being more elliptical in form than the eggs of Larus scopulinus. It is of a dark cream-colour, the surface covered with numerous irregular spots of purplish brown, some having the usual washed-out appearance, and ornamented with peculiar pencilled markings resembling Arabic characters, which form themselves into a broad zone near the larger end.
Larus novæ hollandiæ, Stephens, Shaw’s Gen. Zool. xiii. pt. i. p. 196 (1826), ex Latham.
Larus jamesonii, Wilson, Ill. Zool. pl. xxiii. (1831).
Larus scopulinus, var, major, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 106 (1844).
Xema jamesonii, Gould, Birds of Australia, vol. vii. pl. xx. (1848, nec Wils.).
Gavia jamesonii, Wils. Bruch, J. f. Oru. 1853, p. 102, et 1855, p. 285.
Gavia andersonii, Bruch, J. f. Orn. 1853, p. 102, et 1855, p. 285.
Gavia pomarre, Bruch, J. f. Orn. 1853, p. 103 (not Gavia pomare of 1855, p. 285).
Gelastes gouldi, Bp. Naumann. 1854, p. 216.
Gelastes corallinus, Bp. tom. cit. pp. 212, 216.
Gelastes andersonii, Bp. tom. cit. p. 212.
Gavia gouldii, Bp. Bruch, J. f. Orn. 1855, p. 285.
Bruchigavia gouldi, Bp. Consp. Av. ii. p. 228 (1857).
Bruchigavia pomare, Bp. tom. cit. p. 228 (1857).
Bruchigavia jamesonii, Bp. tom. cit. p. 228 (1857).
Bruchigavia corallinus, Bp. tom. cit. p. 228 (1857).
Larus scopulinus major, Schlegel, M. P.-Bas, Larinæ, p. 29 (1863).
Bruchigavia jamesonii, Gould, Handb. B. of Austral. ii. p. 387 (1865).
Larus scopulinus, Huttou, Cat. Birds of N. Z. pp. 40, 78 (1871).
Ad. similis L. scopulino, sed primariis aliter notatis distinguendus.
Adult. This form differs from Larus scopulinus only in having the bill, which is somewhat narrower, together with the legs and feet pale brown instead of being arterial red, and in the different markings of the primaries, which are as follows: the first primary is black, with a subapical hatchet-shaped mark of white, and a white tip; the second and third have a narrow, somewhat irregular, elliptical mark of white, and a conspicuous white tip; on the succeeding primaries the black progressively diminishes, but on the sixth it is reduced to two approximating spots on the opposite webs, divided by a white shaft-line.
Variety. The Otago Museum contains a very perfect albino, obtained near Dunedin, and presented by Mr.
Obs. It ought to be noted that the white markings on the primaries are somewhat inconstant, and taken alone would be an insufficient criterion for distinguishing the species. In an apparently fully adult specimen which I examined at Dunedin there was an insignificant white mark on the first and second primaries, and all the rest were black, answering pretty nearly to Mr. Saunders’s figure of the first three quills in the young of Larus novæ hollandiæ.
Mr. Howard Saunders, in his revision of the
All the examples of this Gull I have hitherto met with have been collected on the Otago coast, in the southern portion of the colony.
Mr. Saunders has courteously placed at my disposal the woodcuts by means of which he demonstrated the differences in the primaries of the three allied species:
Lestris catarractes, Quoy et Gaim. Voy. de l’Uranie, Zool. p. 137 (1824).
Lestris antarcticus, Less. Traité d’Orn. p. 616 (1831).
Stercorarius antarcticus, Gray. Gen. of B. iii. p. 653 (1845).
Cataracta antarctica, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 770 (1856).
Megalestris antarcticus, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. ii. p. 206 (1857).
♀ ad. suprà sordidè cinerascenti-brunnea: subtus pallidior: scapularibus et tectricibus alarum paulló cinerascentialbido variis: pileo colloque longitudinaliter pallidé brunneo maculatis: collo postico flavicanti-brunneo terminato: remigibus et rectricibus obscurè nigris versùs basin albicantibus: rostro nigricanti-brunneo: pedibus nigris: iride nigrâ.
Adult, General colour dull cinereous brown, darker on the upper parts, but relieved by touches of grey and light brown, especially on the upper wing-coverts and scapulars; head and neck largely marked with pale brown; the feathers of the hind neck lanceolate in form, and with their terminal portion yellowish brown; quills and tail-feathers dusky black, white in their basal portion; in the closed wing the white is apparent on the primaries to the extent of an inch, but in the secondaries and tail-feathers it is concealed by the upper coverts. Irides and feet black; bill blackish brown. Total length 25 inches; wing, from flexure, 17; tail 7; bill, along the ridge 2·25, along the edge of lower mandible 2·5; bare tibia 1; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 3·1; hind toe and claw ·5.
Young. A bird of the year captured by Mr. Drew at the Wanganui heads differs in having the general plumage slaty brown, the scapulars only having terminal patches of light yellowish brown and whitish grey. There are no lanceolate feathers on the neck, and the basal white spot on the primaries is concealed by the overlapping coverts. Bill uniform, bluish black.
Obs. The sexes are alike, but the amount of white on the primaries is variable, and some examples are more suffused with brown on the neck and upper surface than others. A specimen from Dusky Bay has the white alular spots very conspicuous even in the closed wing, and one from Stewart’s Island is much lighter than ordinary examples, having the entire plumage tinged with brown, and the feathers of the nape and mantle broadly margined with yellowish brown.
Mr. original description of this fine Skua was taken from a specimen procured by Sir
Numerous examples have since been obtained in both Islands.
I had a live one in my possession for several years, and as this bird afforded me an opportunity of observing the habits of the species, under new conditions of life, I will venture to reproduce here, with a few additions, an account of it which I communicated to the Wellington Philosophical Society in September 1878 Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xi. pp. 373, 374.
“The living example of this fine Skua-Gull, referred to in last year’s volume, is still an inhabitant
Larus dominicanus). The history of this bird is somewhat remarkable. About a year and a half ago it was captured somewhere in the vicinity of Kapiti, and came into the possession of the Hon. Wi Parata, who kept it in his
To the above full record of his life, I have nothing to add but a notice of his death, a year later, which appeared to be the result of sheer old age. His obituary was communicated to me by my wife in the following terms:—“Like a sensible bird he first had a hearty breakfast, then a bath, and then laid himself down in a comfortable place on the lawn and quietly died.”
“I have mentioned before that this capture is the first known instance of the occurrence of the Southern Skua in the North Island. I have lately, however, met with another on the West Coast. Travelling by coach we found one, apparently a male in full plumage, on the sandy beach, not far from the Otaki river. He was evidently worn out with fatigue, and would not rise till the coach was within a few yards of him; then rising with a slow and laboured flight, he proceeded a few hundred
Circus gouldi), with hoary white plumage, suddenly appeared from the sand-hills and swooped down upon the intruder. The Skua, without making any show of resistance, instantly disgorged from its crop the entire body of a Diving Petrel (Pelecanoides urinatrix). The Hawk, balancing himself for a moment with outspread tail, dropped his long talons into the stream and clutched up his prey without wetting a feather of his plumage, and then disappeared among the sand-hills, while the terrified Skua hurried off, only to be pursued again by the clamorous Sea-Gulls. Thus we have examples of ‘retributive justice’ even among birds.”
On the range of the three allied species of this larger form of Skua, Mr. Saunders writes:—“The northern species, S. catarrhactes, whose breeding-range stretches from the coast of Norway, the Faroes, and Iceland, away through the Nearctic region/and the Pacific, appears to be nowhere numerically abundant, and is fast becoming exterminated in Europe…… It has occurred in California; but descending that coast, we find no trace of a large Skua until we enter the fish-abounding, and therefore Gull-frequented, waters of Humboldt’s Current, which cools the coasts of Chili and Peru throughout a width of about 300 miles, and sweeps outwards to diminish the natural heat of the equatorial Galapagos Islands. In these productive waters is found a large Skua, S. chilensis, separable from the northern S. catarrhactes by its brighter and more chestnut underparts and axillaries—differences which are constant, although it is true that they are merely those of colour. Its bill is perhaps a trifle more slender than that of the northern bird, a point which should be borne in mind, because on passing through the Straits of Magellan, where this species appears to stop, we come at once to another large Skua, S. antarcticus, which, although in such close geographical proximity to S. chilensis, yet differs far more from it than S. chilensis does from S. catarrhactes! The Antarctic Skua ranges from the Falkland Islands down to the edge of the pack-ice, the shores of New Zealand, and up to Norfolk Island, and thence by way of the chain of Kerguelen Island, St. Paul’s Island, the Crozets, &c., it reaches the Cape of Good Hope and, as a straggler, Madagascar. From the Cape it works round by Tristan d’Acunha and the South Atlantic islands, till the chain is completed at the Falklands again. S. antarcticus is a uniformly dusky bird, with stronger and shorter bill than either of its near relatives.” (Journ. Linn. Soc., Zool. vol. xiv. pp. 392, 393.)
The flight of this bird is heavy, and performed by slow regular flappings of the wings, with the shoulders much arched. It possesses, however, the faculty of turning quickly in the air, as I observed when the Gulls were in pursuit. On the wing the white mark across the primaries is very conspicuous, but it is not sufficiently apparent to distinguish the bird when the body is at rest.
In the Otago Museum there are two eggs of this Skua, which differ appreciably. Although of similar size, one is narrower or more elliptical than the other, measuring 3·1 inches in length by 2 in breadth; of a pale, creamy-brown colour, blotched all over the surface, and pretty equally, with blackish and purplish brown. On one side these blotches are confluent, and they are generally darker towards the middle circumference. This specimen was collected at Campbell Island. The other, which came from Macquarie Island, is more ovoid, measuring 3 inches by 2·2, and is of a dull olive-brown sparingly blotched with dark brown, the intervening spaces being marked with small, irregular spots of the same colour, more or less distinct.
Larus crepidatus, Gmelin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 602 (1788).
Stercorarius crepidatus, Vieill. N. Diet. d’Hist. Nat. xxxii. p. 155 (1819).
Lestris richardsonii, Swains. Fauna Bor.-Am. p. 433, pl. 73 (1831).
Lestris parasiticus, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 208 (1857, nec Linn.).
Lestris longicaudata, Finsch, J. f. O. 1872, p. 126 (nec Briss).
Stercorarius parasiticus, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 268 (1873, nec Linn.).
Ad. (exempl. ex N. Z.) suprá cinerascenti-brunneus, tectricibus alarum saturatioribus, supracaudalibus exterioribus versùs basin albicantibus: pileo summo pallidiùs brunneo, plumis albicante obsoletè terminatis: facie laterali, gulâ et collo postico albis, plumis versùs apicem brunnescentibus: corpore reliquo subtùs albo, hypochondriis cum crisso et subcaudalibus cinerascenti-brunneo lavatia: subalaribus et axillaribus cinerascenti-brunneis: remigibus brunneis, extùs nigricantibus, intùa ad basin albidis, scapis brunnescenti-albis, exteriorum purè albis, secundariis intimis dorso concoloribus: caudâ saturatè brunneâ: rostro saturatè brunneo: pedibus cinerascenti-nigris: iride nigrâ.
Ad. Crown, nape, and sides of the head dull greyish brown; neck all round, breast, and sides of the body greyish white; shoulders, and all the upper surface, dark olivaceous grey of different shades; primaries and tail-feathers blackish brown, the former with white shafts; inner surface of wings, axillary plumes, and abdomen ashy grey tinged with brown; some of the under tail-coverts uniform ashy grey, others white barred with grey. Irides black; bill dark brown; tarsi and toes greyish black, the claws darker. Length 16·5 inches; extent of wings 38; wing, from flexure, 11·75; tail 5·5; bill, along the ridge 1·2, along the edge of lower mandible 1·7; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 1·6; middle toe and claw 1·5.
Young (N.-Z. example). General upper surface blackish brown, more or less varied with pale brown and fulvous, many of the feathers having pale margins; crown of the head and hind neck brownish grey, the former with narrow linear black markings, and the hind neck washed with fulvous brown; the edges of the wings speckled with white; the upper tail-coverts fulvous white, each feather with two broad irregular bars of brownish black; primaries brownish black with white shafts, also white on their inner webs towards the base; tail-feathers brownish black, perceptibly darker towards the tips, and pure white at the base under the coverts; entire under surface greyish white, thickly speckled and freckled on the fore neck, breast, and abdomen with brown; the axillary plumes, the sides of the body, and the under tail-coverts washed more or less with fulvous, and marked with broad, transverse, somewhat unequal, bars of blackish brown. Bill greyish black; legs and feet brownish black, with a conspicuous yellow spot towards the base of the inner interdigital web.
Obs. In the adult example described above, the two middle tail-feathers are being reproduced, and present a remarkable denuded appearance (see woodcut in Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xi. p. 358). In the young bird the tail-feathers are broad and acuminate, the two middle ones extending about half an inch beyond the rest.
The above description of the adult is taken from an example shot by myself on the sea-beach at Horowhenua, in the provincial district of Wellington, on the 30th of April, 1864, and presented to the Colonial Museum with the rest of my original collection.
When I published my former edition this was the only known instance of its occurrence in New
In my former edition I referred the first-named example to Stercorarius crepidatus, and I feel bound to accept the determination by one who has made this group of birds his special study Stercorarius parasiticus, Linn., and added the following remarks:—“Dr. Finsch, to whom I submitted the skin, is of opinion that it is an immature bird; and Mr.
Professor Hutton, adopting another view, wrote to me:—“Your Lestris is no European bird, but appears to be a representative of the Arctic Skua. I think it is a young bird.”
Commenting on my account of this bird, Mr. Saunders, in his paper on the Stercorariinæ (P. Z. S. 1876, p. 330), said:—“His general description suits S. crepidatus; and he expressly states that the shafts of the primaries are white, the characteristic which particularly serves to distinguish it from Buffon’s Skua, with which he has identified it. At the time that I examined the specimen in question I was not aware of this distinctive feature: the skin also had been badly preserved; and, to make matters worse, the plumage was so worn and abraded that it is a marvel that the bird was able to fly at all.” Referring thereto, in a communication which I afterwards made to the Wellington Philosophical Society, I observed:—
“Mr. Saunders has evidently, in this case, trusted more to his memory than to the notes which, we may assume, he would make on examining a novel specimen—one which, in fact, he took to be ‘a new and hitherto undescribed species.’ It will be seen, at a glance, that the specimen now before the meeting (which passed through Mr. Saunders’s hands in the same condition) instead of being a ‘badly-prepared’ skin is a first-class cabinet specimen, and that, instead of having ‘the plumage so worn and abraded as to make it a marvel that the bird could fly at all,’ the wings are in perfect plumage, the only abraded feathers being about the head and neck, which could not well affect the flying capabilities of the bird.” (Trans. New-Zealand Inst. vol. xi. p. 356.).
On comparing the two adult birds there is a manifest difference in the coloration, the one described above having the breast greyish white, and the abdomen ashy-grey tinged with brown, whilst the other has the entire under surface white, marked on the breast and sides with interrupted bars of sooty brown. In both, however, the under surface of the wings and the axillary plumes are of a uniform dark ashy grey. These individual differences are thus accounted for by Mr. Saunders in treating of S. crepidatus (P. Z. S. 1876, pp. 328, 329):—“It is now well known that there are two very distinct plumages to be found in birds of this species, even in the same breeding-places—an entirely sooty form, and one with light underparts,—and that white-breasted birds pair with whole-coloured birds as well as with those of their respective varieties. If this species is ‘dimorphic,’ the offspring of one particoloured and one white-coloured bird ought to resemble one or other of their parents without reference to sex; my examination of upwards of a hundred specimens from widely different localities and in all stages inclines me to the belief that this is not the case, and that the young of such union will be intermediate, whilst the offspring of two similar parents will ‘breed true.’ This point can only be solved by some ornithologist who will devote his attention to a colony during the breeding-season, observing the produce of all these unions, and, if possible, marking the nestlings before they take wing… . It is worthy of notice that in Spitzbergen, its most northern breeding-ground, neither Dr. Malmgren nor Professor Newton found a single example of the dark whole-coloured form; all those which Admiral Collinson’s and Dr. Rae’s Expeditions brought home from the far north are also white-breasted specimens, which looks as if the dark form was a more exclusively southern one.”
Sterna frontalis, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds, p. 19 (1844).
Sterna albifrons, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exped., Birds, p. 279 (1848).
Sterna atripes, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7473.
Sterna longipennis, Finsch, J. f. O. 1867, p. 339.
Ad. ptil. æstiv. suprà albicanti-cinereus, remigibus cano lavatis, primarii primi pogonio externo nigro, pennis minoribus ad apicem latè albis, reliquis intùs versùs apicem albis: caudâ albâ: capite et nuchâ nigris, fronte et facie laterali albis: subtùs albus: rostro nigro, ad basin brunnescente: pedibus rufescenti-brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Ad. ptil. heim. similis ptilosi æstivæ, sed fronte albâ latiore et vertice plus minusve albo vario.
Juv. capite cinerascenti-nigro, albido vario: suprà dilutè cinereus, obscurè-nigricante fasciatus et notatus: tectricibus alarum minimis nigricantibus.
Adult in summer. Crown of the head and nape black; a band immediately over the bill, the lores, and cheeks pure white; back and upper surface of wings pale ashy grey; the rest of the plumage pure white; the breast and sides of the body often suffused with a delicate rosy tint, which fades after death. Irides and bill black; legs and feet reddish brown. Length 16 inches; extent of wings 33; wing, from flexure, 11; tail 7 (the middle feather 3 inches shorter); bill, along the ridge 1·6, along the edge of lower mandible 2·25; bare tibia ·4; tarsus ·6; middle toe and claw 1·1.
Adult in winter. Differs in having the white frontal band more extended, and the black crown mope or less varied or spotted with white.
Young. Forehead, crown of the head, and nape greyish black, obscurely spotted or mottled with white; the whole of the back, the feathers composing the mantle, and some of the larger wing-coverts dark silvery grey, varied with white, and handsomely mottled and barred with dusky or greyish black; the smaller wing-coverts uniform greyish black, except along the edge of the wing, where they become white; underparts silky white, as in the adult. The barred character is most conspicuous on the scapulars and long inner secondaries; and both these and the tail-feather have crescent-shaped markings near the tips.
Nestling. Covered with buffy-white down, tinged with fulvous on the head and neck, and mottled with grey on the back.
Fledgling. Feathers of the back and the scapulars greyish white, with broad crescentic marks of black; wing-coverts prettily variegated with black; the down on the back buffy white, mottled and marbled with dark grey; wing-feathers (half an inch in length) silvery grey, broadly margined with white.
Obs. I have noticed in a bird so young that it was unable to fly the same roseate tint mentioned in the description of the adult.
This elegant species is extremely abundant on our coasts, flocks of five hundred or more being often met
ke-ke-ke. But if approached quietly they mount into the air, not confusedly but commencing at the nearest point and rising in succession, like a lifting net, then hover in lines that intersect each other in all directions, but without any contact, their black caps conspicuous, and the snowy whiteness of their plumage making them gleam in the sunlight like a shoal of flying-fish. When passing from one feeding-ground to another they close their forked tails, and perform a direct and rapid flight, often at a considerable elevation.
Some years ago, when exploring among the shoals and sand-banks of the great Kaipara heads or basin, I observed thousands of these birds; and in this wild and unfrequented part of the coast they were so fearless that they coursed about our boat within a few feet of our heads, and the discharge of a gun among them only tended to increase their apparent interest in us.
This species of Tern breeds in large colonies, as many as 200 or more being sometimes associated together. My son
On the small island of Motiti I found a large community of them occupying one end of it, and the Red-billed Gull the other, the two nesting-places being as far apart as possible. On the high intervening ground Larus dominicanus had established a breeding-place, as already mentioned.
On its nesting-ground being invaded this Tern shows fight in a very determined manner, coming in a bee-line for the intruder’s face, till within about a couple of feet, and then darting off at a sharp angle with a snapping cry of remonstrance. Captain Fairchild has known them even bolder, and has had his hat knocked off by the rapid action of their wings. By the end of February the young birds have joined the general community on the sand-banks, but they may be easily distinguished by the dark plumage of their upper surface and by their more sibilant cry. The eggs are deposited on the bare rock, often within reach of the sea-spray; and, as a rule, there are two eggs to each nest. They are usually of an elegant ovoido-conical form, measuring 1·9 inch in length by 1·3 in breadth; and they present great beauty and diversity in their colouring. The ground-tint varies from a clear greyish white to a delicate greyish green, and from a pale yellowish brown to a dark cream-colour. They are marked and spotted with purplish and dark brown in every variety of character: some have the entire surface studded with clear rounded spots, occasionally confluent; others have the marks broad and irregular; while in some examples they are spread into large dark biotches, covering a great portion of the surface. Some specimens are freckled all over with light brown, and splashed at intervals with darker brown; others have a smudged appearance, as though an attempt had been made to obliterate the markings. In the Canterbury Museum there is a curious example, having the entire surface covered with marbled veins of dark brown; and another (collected by Mr. Fuller on the Waimakariri beach) is of a delicate pinkish-brown tint, with a broad zone of confluent spots towards the larger end, and numerous scattered specks of a rich reddish-brown colour.
Sterna antarctica, Wagler, Isis, 1832, p. 1223.
Hydrochelidon albostriata, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds, p. 19, pl. 21 (1844).
Sternula antarctica, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 773 (1856).
Hydrochelidon albistriata, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 773 (1856).
Sterna cinerea, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7473.
Hydrochelidon hybrida, Finsch, J. f. O. 1867, p. 347.
Ad. æstiv. suprà saturatè cinereus, uropygio conspicuè albo: capite summo nuchâque nigris: lineâ faciali a rostri basi directè per regionem paroticam ductâ, albâ: genis et corpore subtùs toto pulchrè cinereis, subcaudalibus albis: remigibus extùs cinerascentibus, intùs albis, scapia albis, primario primo extüs nigricante: caudâ dilutè cinereâ, rectricibus versùs basin albis, rectrice extimâ ferè omninô albâ, versùs apicem cinerascente: rostro lætè flavo: pedibus lætè flavis, unguibus saturatè brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Ad. hiem. similis ptilosi æstivæ, sed fronte et pileo cinerascenti-albis, nigro variis.
Juv. pileo summo et laterali saturatè cinerascentibus: lineâ a basi rostri per oculum ductâ et ad torquem nuchalem angustam conjunctâ, nigricante, albo variâ: tectricibus alarum, scapularibus et secundariis intimis brunneo subterminaliter notatis: rostro nigro, versùs apicem brunnescente: pedibus sordidè flavis.
Adult in summer. Top and sides of the head and nape velvety black; from the gape a broad streak of white passes under the eyes, and is continued to the nape, forming a border to the black plumage; upper and lower tail-coverts pure white; the rest of the body beautiful pearl-grey, darker on the upper surface; wing-feathers darker grey, with white shafts, the first primary margined on the outer web with dusky black; tail-feathers dark pearl-grey, the outermost ones inclining to white, and all of them white on their under surface. Irides black; bill bright yellow, sometimes shaded with brown towards the base of the upper mandible; legs and feet bright yellow, the claws dark brown. Total length 12 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·25; tail 4·5 (middle feather 1·75 inch shorter); bill, along the ridge 1·1, along the edge of lower mandible 1·5; tarsus ·6; middle toe and claw 1; hind toe and claw ·2.
Adult in winter. Differs only in having the forehead and crown greyish white, mottled with black.
Young. Top and sides of the head dark ash-grey; the lores, a mark beyond the eyes (sometimes the vertex), and a narrow nuchal collar obscurely mottled with black; throat whitish; upper wing-coverts, scapulars, and long inner secondaries with a subterminal mark of brown, and with paler tips; the rest of the plumage as in the adult. Bill black, inclining to light brown towards the base; legs and feet dull yellow.
Younger state. Crown and nape greyish brown mottled with black; a small spot of black in front of the eyes, and a larger one behind covering the ears and spreading outwards; plumage of the upper parts much darker than in the adult; upper wing-coverts, scapulars, and inner secondaries blackish brown, darker towards the end and terminally margined with dull ochreous yellow; tail-feathers blackish brown in their apical portion and narrowly tipped with white; underparts clouded with grey; throat, part of fore neck, and under tail-coverts pure white. Bill brown, changing to yellow towards the base of lower mandible.
This handsome Tern is very common in every part of the South Island, but is not so plentiful to the north side of Cook’s Strait.
In the Canterbury Province it is particularly abundant, frequenting all the river-courses, and often spreading far over the plains. Within a few miles of the city of Christchurch I have observed it, in large flights, following the farmer’s plough and picking up grubs and worms from the newly turned earth. I once saw a Hawk swoop down amongst a flock occupied in this manner and single out a bird for pursuit, but the active Tern easily evaded its enemy and then returned to its occupation behind the plough. It also frequents the cornfields and pastures, and, by devouring caterpillars and other insect pests, proves itself a valuable friend to the agriculturist.
It is remarkably active on the wing, performing very rapid evolutions, and often chasing its fellows in a playful manner and with much vociferation. When resting on the ground, the members of a flock stand closely packed together, and may be seen constantly stretching their wings upwards in the peculiar manner already noticed in treating of Sterna frontalis.
There is a spot of great beauty on the Waikato river where the Karapiro creek empties its placid waters into the turbulent stream of the “tua-whenua.” The place I refer to is just below the bridge on the outskirts of the township of Cambridge—the furthest point on the river navigable for steamers. Immediately below this bridge there is a rocky obstruction in the bed of the river which causes an eddy of considerable force and velocity. The basin below is comparatively smooth, the river widening again at this point; and the banks, clothed with rank verdure, rise abruptly on both sides of the Waikato. Beyond are the well-kept homesteads of the settlers and far away in the background the rugged outlines of Maungakawa and Pukekura. In this picturesque spot, for the best part of a fine Sunday afternoon in spring, my thoughts absorbed “with the fairy tales of science and the long result of time,” I watched a pair of these birds disporting in the air. For hours together they coursed up and down this little reach in the river, never once dipping to the stream—indeed the water was too rapid at this point to allow of surface fish being found there: high above the water, now with a winnowing Pigeon-flight, now hovering a moment in the air—rising and falling with the play of their changeful fancy—coursing first up stream to near the bridge, then wheeling round; sometimes skimming low at the place where the rapids were boiling over their rocky bed, as if to take a closer observation, and then, on reaching the bend in the river, sharply wheeling back again; and so on and on, now higher now lower, regulating their more rapid actions by a dexterous movement of their swallow-tails, and at every turn showing the snowy whiteness of their tail-coverts and their lovely coral bills. So these pretty fairy beings for hours together, without a rest and apparently for sheer enjoyment, continued to beat the air with their pointed pinions, seldom uttering a sound except when in close proximity to each other, and then ke-e was the simple watchword.
From watching these aerial performers in their fantastic flight till the sun had declined and its shadows had vanished, I ascended the high bank overlooking the river and witnessed one of those gorgeous sunsets on the Pirongia range for which this part of the North Island is so justly celebrated. No artist’s brush can depict the glory nor human tongue describe the splendour of this sunset display. Presenting to the eye mountains of burnished gold in a sea of matchless colours and brilliant effects, the illusion lasts but a little while and then melts away in ever-varying coruscations of golden light till the sky is bathed in a soft grey twilight, to be quickly succeeded by the shades of night. Even Mr. Procter, the famous astronomer, declares that although in the sunset displays of America and Australia he has seen colours more striking, yet “for combined beauty and grandeur” the sunset which he once witnessed in New Zealand surpassed anything he had ever seen.
From Hamilton Bridge, lower down the river, on a subsequent occasion, I watched a pair of these Terns engaged in the more serious business of fishing. Here, again, nothing could be more pretty than the arrowy flight of this bird up and down the stream. Skimming near the surface and
Galaxias. Immediately on capturing this it would sweep upwards so as to have some play in the air as the little fish fell from its beak and had to be caught again in the right position for swallowing. Up and down the open reach these birds kept up this untiring flight for hours together, their lively grey and white plumage shown off to the best advantage against the dark banks and deep waters of the Waikato.
On one occasion, however, when travelling in the Lower Waikato, I observed a very considerable flock in a meadow quite close to the railway-line, where several ploughs were at work. I have also met with smaller flocks at Onehunga, Maketu, Hastings North, and at the mouths of the Rangitikei and Wanganui rivers.
Mr. Kirk writes that the local name of this bird, in the neighbourhood of Cape Kidnappers, is the “Plough-bird” or “Plough-boy,” given on account of the persistent manner in which it follows the farmer’s plough for the purpose of picking up the grubs and worms that are exposed in this operation.
On the habits of this species far inland, Captain Mair has sent me the following interesting note:—“During the calm summer evenings in December, 1879, I observed hundreds of these little birds flying round the clumps of black birch trees which here and there dot the course of the Takiahuru stream, running through the Murimotu-karioi plain on the S.E. base of Ruapehu mountain. My curiosity being aroused, I climbed to the top of one of these trees, just after sunset, and obtained a close view of these birds hovering round the trees, and ever and anon darting hither and thither, very much in the zigzag manner in which bats pursue their prey. I found that the birds were chasing small moths, beetles, &c., and now and then when a large green beetle came booming along in its flight from the plain seeking a resting-place in the trees, a score of these pretty little birds would dart after it, uttering soft plaintive cries, till one more lucky than the rest carried off the prize. Both in that month and in the preceding one I found numbers of the young of this species lying, or squatting, on the sand-banks far up the course of the Whangaehu river.”
Like the other Terns Respecting Sterna frontalis Mr.
Sterna tschegrava, Lepechin, N. Comm. Petrop. xiv. p. 500 (1769).
Sterna caspia, Pallas, N. Comm. Petrop. xiv. p. 582 (1769).
Sterna megarhynchos, Meyer and Wolf, Taschenb. deutsch. Vögelk. ii. p. 457 (1810).
Thalasseus caspius, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 563.
Hydroprogne caspia, Kaup, Natürl. Syst. p. 91 (1829).
Sylochelidon balthica, Brehm, Vög. Deutschl. p. 769 (1831).
Sterna schillingii, Brehm, tom. cit. p. 770 (1831).
Sylochelidon caspia, Brehm, tom. cit. p. 770 (1831).
Helopus caspius, Wagler, Isis, 1832, p. 1224.
Thalassites melanotis, Swains. B. of W. Afr. ii. p. 253 (1837).
Sylochelidon strenuus, Gould, P. Z. S. 1846, p. 21.
Sylochelidon melanotis, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 772 (1856).
Sterna melanotis, Hartl. Orn. Westafr. p. 254 (1857).
Sterna vulgaris, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7472.
Thalasseus imperator, Coues, Pr. Phil. Acad. 1862, p. 538.
Ad. ptil. æstiv. suprà dilutè cinereus, uropygio et supracaudalibus albis: caudâ albâ: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus extùs canescentibus, primariis versùs apicem saturatioribus, scapis albis, pennis minoribus et secundariis dorsalibus pallidè cinereis: pileo et nuchâ cristatä nigris: facie laterali a narium basi ductâ cum collo laterali et corpore subtùs toto albis: rostro lætè corallino, flavo vario, versùs apicem brunnescente, spice ipsâ corned: pedibus nigricanti-brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Ad. ptil. hiem. similis ptilosi æstivæ, sed pileo albo minutè nigro striolato.
Adult in summer. Forehead and upper part of the head, described by a line from the posterior edge of the nasal groove, on each side, passing immediately under the eyes, and meeting in an acuminate point below the occiput, satiny black; back, rump, and upper surface of wings and tail delicate silvery grey; primaries darker grey, with white shafts; the rest of the plumage pearly white. Irides black; bill beautiful coral-red, mixed with yellow, and shaded with brown near the tips of both mandibles, which are horn-coloured; legs and feet blackish brown. Length 22 inches; extent of wings 53; wing, from flexure, 16·25; tail 6·25 (middle feather 1·5 shorter); bill, along the ridge 2·6, along the edge of lower mandible 3·6; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 1·75; middle toe and claw 1·5.
Adult in winter. Differs in having the black plumage of the head largely spotted with white, especially on the forehead and lores.
Obs, At the breeding-season this bird has the plumage suffused with an extremely delicate roseate hue, which fades away after life is extinct, but does not wholly disappear from the preserved skin.
Young. Has the vertex and crown similar to the adult in winter, but the white preponderating, and the coronal cap extending halfway down the cheeks; the primaries are sooty grey, and the wing-coverts greyish brown with paler edges. Bill reddish brown.
Note. Dr. l. c.), makes the following remarks on the synonymy of this species:—“The proper specific appellation of the Caspian Tern is not ‘caspia, Pallas,’ but ‘tschegrava, Lepechin,’ which latter name is proposed in the same work in which Pallas calls the bird ‘caspia,’ but has priority by several pages. As, however, the word is not only barbarous, but exceedingly cacophonous, and especially as caspia has become so well established by common consent, I do not think it would be expedient to supersede Pallas’s name in view of the very slight priority of that of Lepechin.”
The history of this fine Tern has already been so fully written that I deem it almost sufficient to record here that it occurs all round the New-Zealand coasts, where its habits are the same as in other parts of the globe. It inhabits the Palæarctic and the greater part of the Nearctic Regions, also the African, Indian, and Australian coasts. It is a rare summer visitant to the eastern and southern shores of England.
It is usually met with in pairs; but I have occasionally observed parties of five or more resting on the sands near the mouths of our tidal rivers. It subsists entirely on small fish, for which it plunges into the water with considerable force; and at certain seasons it is accustomed to follow the shoals of sprats far up the river-courses, where it may be seen hovering lightly over the water in pursuit of its finny prey, and occasionally alighting to rest on a jutting stump or projecting point of rock. I have seen one capture a small flounder, and kill it by battering before swallowing it. It often makes several feints at the water before dropping into it; but the bird never misses its aim, and on rising again with a fish usually takes a wide sweep on the wing whilst stowing it away in its capacious crop. I have observed that, on the wing, this species does not move its head to and fro in the manner of the smaller Terns, but carries it vertically, with its powerful beak pointing downwards. “When resting on the ground the apparently disproportionate head gives the bird an ungainly appearance; but this disappears the moment the wings are expanded; and the flight, which is generally performed in wide circles, may be described as very easy and graceful. It is less active, however, on the wing than the smaller Terns. Nevertheless it appears to have the most perfect self-control; for example, I observed one pursuing a direct flight up a river-course, at a high elevation, when it met another coming in the opposite direction at a lower level. Moved by some sudden impulse it abruptly and quickly wheeled right-about, dropped to the lower plane, and succeeded in overtaking the other bird. Writing of it, the Earl of Pembroke says: “The Tern, if the sea be smooth, has a neat little way of picking up small morsels from the surface, and, if necessary, makes a very respectable Gannet-like splash; never, however, as far as I have seen, immersing himself, and always keeping his wings in motion to get him up again.” Its ordinary cry is harsh and unmusical, consisting of a loud rasping note, not unlike the low cry of the domestic Goose; at other times it utters a long peevish squeal or whistling cry, fairly represented by the syllables queeâ-queeâ. When resting on the sands it is habitually silent, but always utters its guttural cry when preparing to take wing.
The breeding-season of this species extends from November to January. The young birds, however, follow their parents up to the end of March, settling down with them on the sands, quivering their wings as if impatient of attention, and making an incessant squealing or whining cry. The eggs, usually two in number, are deposited on the bare sand, a slight hollow in the surface meeting the requirements of a nesting-place. They are ovoido-conical in form, measuring 2·7 inches in length by 1·9 in breadth, and varying from creamy white to a delicate greenish-white tint, the whole surface marked with spots and blotches of dark brown, intermixed with pale splashes of purple, these markings being most numerous at the thicker end. It should be mentioned, however, that, as in the case of other Terns, the eggs present some variety both as to size and colour; there is a specimen in the Canterbury Museum (of a pale yellowish-brown tint, thickly marked and spotted with dark brown) which measures only 2·4 inches by 1·6.
Sternula nereis, Gould, P. Z. S. 1842, p. 140.
Sterna parva, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7473.
Sterna nereis, Pelz. Verh. zool.-bot. Gesellsch. Wien, xvii, p. 818 (1867).
Sterna minuta, Finsch, J. f. O. 1867, pp. 337, 347.
Ad. ptil. æstiv. suprà dilutè cinereus, tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus intùs albis, extùs cano lavatis, primariis duobus externis extùs nigricantibus, scapis albis, pennis minoribus versùs apicem albis, secundariis intimis dorso concoloribus, dorso postico et uropygio cum supracaudalibus albis: caudâ albâ: pileo postico et nuchâ cum regione oculari et supraparoticâ nigris: fronte latâ, genis et facie laterali et corpore subtùs toto albis: rostro lætè flavido: pedibus flavis, unguibus nigricantibus: iride nigrâ.
Ad. ptil. hiem. similis ptilosi æstivæ, sed pileo summo albo nigro vario: nuchâ nigrâ.
Juv. fronte et pileo cinerascenti-albis fuscescente variis: lineâ crescente ab oculo postico circà nucham productà nigrâ: suprà dilutè cinereus, plumis versùs apicem fasciâ irregulari brunneâ transnotatis: rostro flavicantibrunneo: pedibus sordidè flavis.
Adult in summer. Forehead and along the base of upper mandible white; spot in front of each eye, crown of the head, and nape black; throat, fore neck, and all the under surface silvery white; hind neck, shoulders, back, and upper surface of wings delicate silvery grey, darker on the primaries; rump and tail, with the upper and lower coverts, pure white. Irides black; bill bright yellow; tarsi and toes yellow, the claws darker. Length 9 inches; wing, from flexure, 7·5; tail 3 (median feathers 1 inch shorter); bill, along the ridge 1·25, along the edge of lower mandible 1·35; tarsus ·6; middle toe and claw ·7.
Adult in winter. Differs in having the crown of the head white, mixed with black, darkening outwards, the nuchal collar being entirely black.
Obs. In some examples the first primary is margined on the outer web with black; in others it is of a uniform dark grey.
Young, Forehead and crown greyish white, mottled with dusky; from the eyes a crescent of greyish black, which encircles the occiput; the plumage of the upper parts silvery grey, mixed with white, and many of the feathers with an irregular wavy mark of dark brown near the tip; the smaller wing-coverts greyish brown; underparts white, as in the adult. Bill yellowish brown; feet dull yellow. The tail is less acuminate at the sides than in the fully adult bird.
This is the smallest of our Terns, and is the southern representative of the Sterna minuta of Europe. It is tolerably common on all our coasts, and occurs also very plentifully along the shores of Western Australia.
It is very active in its movements, flies high, turns in the air with facility, and dips into the water after its prey in a very adroit manner. When resting on the sands it appears, owing to the
crek-crek. Sometimes four are seen in company, but this only represents a family party, the additional members being the young birds of the year.
During the breeding-season it is very clamorous, especially when its nesting-ground is invaded or even approached. It deposits its eggs on the bare shingle, without any attempt at forming a nest, merely selecting a natural depression suited to its own size; and the colour of the eggs harmonizes in a remarkable manner with their surroundings.
There is nothing more interesting in the study of oology than the systematic way in which the colouring of eggs (and particularly those of sea-birds) is adapted to their natural environment.
Captain Mair has furnished me with a remarkable instance of this law of assimilative colouring for protective purposes. In December, 1875, he visited the Rurima Rocks, in the Bay of Plenty, and found large numbers of Larus scopulinus breeding there. In some localities the nests—roughly formed and lined with feathers—were placed in the thick masses of wild spinach or in the midst of “sand-fire.” In all such cases he observed that the eggs which these nests contained were splashed over their entire surface with large green blotches, thus assimilating their colour to the surrounding vegetation; whilst other eggs (belonging to the same species), deposited on the white sand in the immediate vicinity, had a totally different appearance, being of a light stone-colour, and so marked as to harmonize exactly with their sandy surroundings.
It is difficult, however, to account for the very intricate marking that distinguishes the eggs of Larus bulleri from those of its near allies, the breeding-habits of these birds not being, so far as I am aware, in any way dissimilar. An egg of the last-named species in my son’s collection is of a creamy stone-colour, with a broad irregular inky zone near the larger end, splashed on its edges with umber-brown, the rest of its surface marked, in a very eccentric way, with widely-spread hieroglyphics of the same dark colour. Possibly these markings are intended to simulate minute fragments of seaweed.
But assuming this protective resemblance to be a chief factor in determining the natural colours and markings on the surface, it is indeed very curious to observe how sometimes the eggs in one nest, produced at short intervals and all subject alike to the same conditions as to their future safety, differ from one another in their coloration. There can be no doubt that the colouring of birds’ eggs, which is chiefly due to animal matter deposited on the surface of the shell and capable of being rubbed or scratched off, must be to a large extent influenced by the state of the producer’s health and by any special sensations to which the bird may be subjected shortly before the extrusion, for it is well known that, even in the case of many birds that produce highly-coloured eggs, the hard shell is found to be perfectly white only the day before it is laid. Even Mr. Hewitson, who, in his ‘Eggs of British Birds’ (Intr. p. viii), declines to admit the general rule that the varied and beautiful hues which adorn the eggs of birds are given as a protection against discovery and destruction, is constrained to say:—“That there are several instances in which the eggs of birds are admirably adapted to and closely resemble in colour the ground upon which they are deposited, I have frequently found, much to my annoyance, when in search of them; and these are just the instances where such protection is most necessary, and where contrasting colours would lead to detection; such is the case amongst those birds which, making little or no nest, deposit their eggs, for the most part, upon the bare ground, or the shingle of the sea-beach, and leave them uncovered on the least alarm.”
This species usually lays two eggs; these are of a regular oval form, measuring 1·4 inch in length by 1·05 in breadth, and are of a yellowish white, the whole surface marked with obscure spots of purplish grey.
Sterna fissipes, Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat. ii. p. 338 (1811).
Sterna leucoptera, Meisner u. Schinz, Vög. d. Schweiz, p. 264 (1815).
Hydrochelidon leucoptera, Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 563.
Viralva leucoptera, Steph. Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 170 (1825).
Hydrochelidon nigra, Gray, Gen. of B. iii. p. 660 (1846).
Ad. ptil. æstiv. suprà niger, niger, dorso et scapularibus paullò fumoso lavatis: dorso postico et uropygio albis: caudâ albâ: tectricibus alarum minimis albis, medianis et majoribus pulchrè cinereis: remigibus nigris, primariis interioribus canis, secundariis nigris dorso concoloribus: facie laterali et corpore subtùs toto nitidè nigris: crisso et subcaudalibus albis: subalaribus nigris, extùs albo notatis: rostro nigro: pedibus pallidè rubris: iride nigrâ.
Ad. ptil. hiem. suprâ dilutè cinereus, collo postico nigricante notato: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, quibusdam minoribus versùs basin brunnescentibus: remigibus nigricantibus, scapis ochraceis, primariorum pogonii interni dimidio albo, secundariis cinereo lavatis: rectricibus suprà cinereis, externis albicantibus angustè albido limbatis: facie et collo lateralibus torquem interruptum collarem formantibus: subtùs omninò albus: rostro nigro, versùs basin rubescente: pedibus flavidis.
Adult in summer. Head, neck, and all the under surface shining black; the whole of the scapulars, and the back, smoky black; upper wing-coverts dark grey, becoming white towards the edge of the wing; first two primaries greyish black, with white shafts, and broadly marked with white on their inner webs; the rest of the primaries dark silvery grey, smoky on their inner webs; secondaries sooty grey, the inner ones darker; rump and tail, with upper and lower coverts, pure white. Irides and bill black; legs dull red. Total length 8·5 inches; extent of wings 21; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 2·75; bill, along the ridge ·9, along the edge of lower mandible 1·25; bare tibia ·25; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw 1; hind toe and claw ·2.
Adult in winter. Forehead, sides of the head, and all the under surface pure white; occiput, ear-coverts, nape, and hind neck greyish black; upper surface of back, wings, and tail dark grey; the small wing-coverts shaded with brown; the primaries sooty black, with white shafts; the secondaries with dark shafts, and tinged more or less with grey.
I know of only one instance of the occurrence of this beautiful Tern in New Zealand. On the 12th of December, 1868, Mr. Sterna frontalis; but whether they were actually nesting themselves, Mr. Monro was not able to ascertain. He mentions, however, that there was only a single pair of this species in the flock, and that they uttered at intervals a harsh croaking note.
This Tern has likewise been discovered in Australia since the publication of Mr. Gould’s ‘Handbook’; and, as it is unquestionably the same form as that inhabiting the Palæarctic Region, the species enjoys a wide geographical range.
Anous cinereus, Gould, P. Z. S. 1845, p. 104; id. B. Australia, vii. pl. 76 (1848).
Procelsterna albivitta, Bp. Compt. Rend. xlii. 1856, p. 773.
Sterna cinerea, Schlegel, M. P.-Bas, Sternæ, p. 38 (1863).
Anous albivittatus, Finsch, P. Z. S. 1877, p. 776.
Pelecanopus pelecanoides, Gray, List B. Brit. Mus. pt. iii. p. 180 (1844).
Ad. suprà dilutè cinereus: pileo cum collo postico et corpore subtùs toto albis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus pallide brunneo paullò lavatis: primariis schistaceo-cinereis: secundariis conspicuè albo terminatis: caudâ omninò schistaceo-cinereâ: rostro nigro: pedibus nigricanti-brunneis, palmis sordidè flavis.
Adult (N.-Z. example). Head, neck, and underparts generally pure white; upper surface delicate French-grey, fading away to nothing on the hind neck, and deepening to dark ash-grey on the quills and tail-feathers; the outer web of the first primary blackish brown; the inner webs of all the primaries whitish on their anterior margin; the shafts dark brown above, whitish at the base, and entirely white on the under surface; the secondaries with a conspicuous terminal margin of white. Bill black; legs and feet blackish brown, with yellowish webs. Length 11·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 4·25; bill, along the ridge 1, along the edge of lower mandible 1·4; bare tibia ·25; tarsus ·85; middle toe and claw 1·25.
Obs. On a comparison of this species with the more northerly Anous cæruleus, Mr. “A. cæruleus is smaller than A. cinereus, Gould, and is darker all over, especially on the underparts, which are blue-grey, whereas in A. cinereus they are nearly white. The differences are too great to be explained away as being due to age, and I admit the distinctness of the two species; but they are very closely allied. The fact of their being found in such close proximity within so limited an area is very remarkable.”
The unique New-Zealand example of this bird was obtained at Cape Maria Vandieman in the early part of 1882. Mr. Robson, to whose kindness I am indebted for the skin, furnished me with the following account of it:—“After a heavy S.W. gale my sons were going through some large flax bushes and came upon this Tern in the middle of one of them. It was still living, but so much exhausted that it could only flutter a short distance, so that it was secured without difficulty. I may add that another was observed on the wing, one very calm day, there being very little doubt about the dientification.”
Dr. Crowfoot says of this species (Ibis, 1885, p. 265):—“These Grey Terns, called by the Norfolk-Islanders the ‘Little Blue Petrel,’ are fairly numerous during the breeding-season. They lay their eggs on Phillip and Nepean Islands and the neighbouring rocks. The eggs are usually placed on inaccessible ledges, but often on the sand, sometimes not many feet above the sea, but usually from 80 to 2000 feet. They make no attempt at a nest, and lay only one egg, which is the most easily broken of all the sea-birds’ eggs found on these islands. The eggs much resemble those of the other species of Noddy, but the ground-colour is rather darker, and the spots are numerous, small, and more generally distributed over the whole surface than in the eggs of the other species. They measure on an average 1·6 inch in length by 1·12 in breadth, and vary but little either in size or in markings.”
The description of Porphyrio cyanocephalus, Vieill. N. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. xxviii. p. 28 (1819), appears to agree with the above, but no locality is assigned; and in the absence of more positive proof that it relates to the same bird, I am unwilling to sink so well-established a name as P. melanonotus.
Porphyrio melanotus, Temm. Man. d’Orn. ii. p. 701 (1820).
Black-backed Gallinule, Lath. Gen. Hist. ix. p. 427 (1824).
Porphyrio melanotus, Buller, Birds of N. Z. 1st ed. p. 185 (1873).
So called by the Ngatipukeko tribe of Whakatane; just as the Ngatikahungunu called the hapuku “Kauaeroa” (long-jaw), in deference to the old chief to whom the name of that fish had been applied, and as the Ngapuhi changed the name of the Wood-Pigeon from Kukupa to Kuku, out of respect to Te Tirarau’s father, who had taken the former name.
Ad. suprà nigricans, scapularibus et rectricibus vix brunneo externè lavatis: collo postico et laterali, tectricibus alarum, genis et corpore subtùs sordidè cæruleis: remigibus nigris, primariis extùs obscurè cæruleo lavatis: mento cum abdomine imo et cruribus nigris: subcaudalibus albis: rostro et pedibus pallidè coccineis: iride lætè coccineâ.
Adult male. Head and nape sooty black; back and upper surface of wings and tail shining black, glossed in some specimens with green; neck, breast, sides of the body, outer edges and lining of wings bright indigo-blue; abdomen and feathered portion of tibia sooty black, tinged more or less with indigo-blue; under tail-coverts pure white. Irides cherry-red; frontal plate and bill bright cherry-red, paler on the edges, yellowish towards the tips of both mandibles; legs and feet pale lake-red, brownish at the joints. Total length 21 inches; extent of wings 36·5; wing, from flexure, 11·5; tail 4·5; frontal plate, across the top, 1; from posterior edge of frontal plate to the tip of upper mandible 2·75; bill, along the edge of lower mandible, 1·75; bare portion of tibia 1·5; tarsus 4; middle toe and claw 4·75; hind toe and claw 2.
Female. Somewhat smaller in all its proportions, with the colours of the plumage duller and the bill and legs of a paler red.
Young. Has duller plumage, with the chin pale brown, the fore neck and breast more or less tipped, and the abdomen and flanks strongly suffused, with pale brown.
Younger states. The following descriptive notes on a series of specimens will exhibit at a glance the changes that take place in the young in their progress towards maturity:—
No. 1 (newly hatched). Covered with dense black down, the head, neck, wings, and back thickly sprinkled with white points; bill greyish white, black at the tip; legs purplish grey.
No. 2 (a few days older). Presents fewer of the white points, which are in reality terminal sheaths and are rapidly cast off.
No. 3 (about ten days old). Covered with sooty down; on the back and sides of the head, also on the wing, numerous stiff hair-like filaments with white apices; bill dusky black, greyish in the centre and white near the tip; frontal plate soft and of a reddish flesh-colour; crown of the head without any down, but covered with black thick-set bristles, which are continued over the eyes to the beak, and are long and
No. 4 (more advanced stage). Body covered with sooty down; a line of soft pale blue feathers on each side of the fore neck and breast; stiff white filaments on the crown and sides of the head; bill black, with a whitish spot in its median portion and also at the tip of the upper mandible.
No. 5 (partially fledged). Head, nape, and upper parts generally blackish brown, edged with paler brown, tinged on the scapulars and wing-coverts with blue; throat and abdomen dusky brown; fore neck and breast pale blue; all the plumage fluffy, and with downy filaments adhering to the feathers; soft tuft under the rudimentary tail pale fulvous.
No. 6 (fully fledged). Head, hind neck, and upper surface blackish brown, with numerous touches of lighter brown, and tinged on the wings with blue; chin pale brown; fore neck, breast, and sides dull mazarine-blue, some of the feathers edged with fulvous brown; abdomen pale fulvous brown; under tail-coverts yellowish white; irides brown; bill brownish black, inclining to red towards the base and on the frontal plate; legs dark brown, with a reddish tinge.
Obs. As already shown, the colours of the bill and legs are regulated by conditions of age and sex; but they likewise differ somewhat in richness in individual examples of the male. The intensity of the blue colouring in the plumage is likewise variable; and in some specimens it extends right up to the bill, being perfectly bright on the cheeks and chin.
Varieties. The bird figured as Porphyrio stanleyi in Mr.
The following is the description of a partial albino obtained at Manawatu, and now preserved in the Colonial Museum:—The head, neck, and sides of the breast as in ordinary examples, except that the nape is freckled with pale brown and white; breast, sides of the body, abdomen, and flanks brownish white, clouded and obscurely banded with pale blue; under tail-coverts white; upper parts of the body brownish white, clouded and blotched with dark brown, excepting on the rump, where the brownish white is uniform; the primaries are dingy white, crossed at the base, and again in their apical portion, by a band of bluish brown, the inferior ones tipped also with brown; the coverts are white, washed with yellowish brown and obscurely banded with darker brown; outer edges of wings bright blue; tail-feathers brownish white, their coverts dark brown; bill and frontal plate as in ordinary examples; legs pale yellowish red.—Another, not unlike the last mentioned (also preserved in the Colonial Museum), has the plumage of the back, wings, breast, and abdomen entirely creamy white and brown, the former preponderating; tail-feathers and the under coverts pure white; bill and feet yellowish red. There is a similar sport of nature in the Canterbury Museum, differing, however, from the bird just described in the larger amount of white on the back and in the darker colour of its wings. In this specimen the head and neck are spotted with white, and the under-parts are handsomely variegated with pale blue on a whitish ground.—Another, in the Otago Museum, has merely a few white feathers in the wings and tail; whilst a specimen in my own collection has the head and upper half of neck bluish black, with numerous scattered white feathers, which are thickest on the crown; the whole of the upper surface dull yellowish brown, clouded and barred on the mantle, wings, and tail with darker brown, and shading into blackish brown on the back and rump; the quills tawny white with broad transverse bars of brownish black flushed with blue; fore neck, breast, and sides dark brown, with obscure crescentic markings of lighter brown, and flushed all over with pale blue; abdomen and femorals dull tawny brown, with numerous rayed markings of darker brown; under tail-coverts white. Bill and legs pale red.
Another remarkable specimen, which I presented to the Colonial Museum, is somewhat similar to the above, but is several shades darker, except on the head and upper part of neck, the plumage of the breast and underparts being suffused with blue; the back and mantle blackish brown, with dull crescents of yellowish brown; the quills and their coverts more clouded with brown, and the wings at their flexure, as well as the bastard quills, washed with blue.
In both the last-mentioned specimens there is what may be termed a break in the plumage halfway down the neck, the head being appreciably darker than the body-plumage in one and as much lighter in the other.
Another abnormal example in my collection (represented by the distant figure in my Plate) has the wings pure white, with an occasional touch of colour, and the rest of the plumage as in the ordinary bird with here and there a single white feather.
Captain Mair informs me that at Whangarei (north of Auckland), during a period of fifteen years—from 1850 to 1865—he never saw one in that district. After that date they began to make their appearance, and now they are comparatively plentiful, being met with in flocks of twenty or thirty together.The Swamp-hen is widely distributed over Tasmania, the greater part of the continent of Australia, New Zealand, and the Chatham Islands. It occurs also in New Caledonia; and the Maoris have a tradition that tame ones were brought by their ancestors, in their migration from the historic “Hawaiki.” It is abundant in our country in all localities suited to its habits, such as marshes, flax-swamps, and lagoons covered with beds of raupo and rushes. It also frequents the banks of freshwater streams; and in places contiguous to these haunts it is accustomed to resort, in the early morning, to the open fields and cultivated grounds in quest of food. It subsists principally on soft vegetable substances, but it also feeds on insects and grain. By the aid of its powerful bill it pulls up the inner succulent stems of the raupo, or swamp-reed, and nips off the soft parts near the root, holding the object in the toes of one foot while feeding, something after the manner of a Parrot. It is a noticeable fact that in many of the settled districts its numbers have perceptibly increased within the last few years, owing, no doubt, to the greater abundance of food afforded by the farms and plantations of the colonists
The late Mr. “We landed on Booby Island, a curious mass of coral rock with no other vegetation than a few stunted bushes and some coarse grass, where we nevertheless found some Quail and two or three kinds of Land-Rail, one of them identical with the Pukeko of New Zealand.”—Sir Tyrone Power.
The Swamp-hen may fairly be considered one of the best of our native birds. The brightness of its plumage and the extreme elegance of its movements at once arrest and please the eye, while, on the other hand, it is in very good repute as a game bird. It is interesting to watch it as it strides proudly about, balancing its body with ease on its long slender legs, jerking its head gracefully, and flirting its tail with every movement. Along the sedgy margins of the lagoons and swamps it affords good shooting, although it is impossible to flush it without a retriever; and, if hung sufficiently long and properly dressed, it makes an excellent dish. When stewed the flesh is hardly to be distinguished from that of the Capercailzie.
It is naturally shy and timid; and although I have on several occasions obtained very young ones from the swamps, and reared them with every care, I have never succeeded in completely subduing their wild nature. Some years ago, however, I had the pleasure of seeing, in the Government Domain
Its usual note is a short harsh cry, but when disturbed or frightened it utters a long, peevish scream; and as the bird is seminocturnal in its habits, this rather melancholy sound may sometimes be heard, at intervals, all through the night.
At Tokanu (at the southern extremity of Lake Taupo) the natives snare thousands of them in June and July, at which time they are very fat. They are caught by a very simple artifice. The natives, having marked their principal haunts, drive rows of stakes into the swampy soil at distances of a few feet. These are connected by means of flax-strings, from which are suspended hair-like nooses (made of the fibrous leaf of The thievish propensities of this bird are traditional with the Maoris; and the following characteristic evidence in relation thereto was given in the Native Land Court at Marton during the hearing of the famous Rangatira case. The witness under examination, on behalf of the Ngatiapa claimants, was the old warrior, Cordyline) arranged in close succession, with the edges overlapping, and placed just high enough from the ground to catch the bird’s head as it moves along the surface in search of food. As the Swamp-hen is crepuscular in its habits, being most active after dusk, it has less opportunity of avoiding the treacherous loops. It frequents the Maori plantations in considerable numbers and proves very destructive to the young crops, and later in the season it plunders the potato-fields and kumara-beds moko-mokai). I helped to eat him. I saw the head. It was a huge head with crisp hair like a negro’s (poriki), and had the face completely covered with ‘tatooing.’ We took the preserved head with us to Turakina, and then used it for a long time stuck on a pole, as a ‘scare’ to keep the Pukekos away from our potato-grounds.”
This bird often leaves its home in the marshes to travel over the sand-dunes amongst the tauhinu bushes in quest of grasshoppers. The footprints with their long toe-marks may be observed every-where in the loose dry sand, testifying to the diligence of the search. At one season, when the little-Coprosma, is in berry, they come out of cover to feast upon it, the plant being a stunted one and the berries easily accessible to the Pukeko with its long neck and somewhat stilted legs.
A favourite resort of this bird is the swamp at Te Aute, in the Hawke’s Bay district, one of the best shooting-grounds in the colony. Here there is a morass over three thousand acres in extent, more or less wet according to the season of the year, with a broad lagoon or mere in the centre, and swarming with wild fowl of every kind. At the time of my last visit to this familiar ground (14th December) the growth of raupo bulrush was young and vividly green, looking like an Egyptian “paddy-field.” It was interesting to see the Pukekos come out in swarms on the adjoining meadows, accompanied by their young, some only the size of pullets, others more than half-grown, and all readily distinguishable by their dark bill and frontal shield. In this well-frequented place they have become quite accustomed to the railway traffic, and may be seen walking about in the most unconcerned manner within twenty or thirty yards of the passing train.
If pressed to take the water, they swim well, as I have often had an opportunity of seeing; and on this point Mr. Moore, of Waimarama, sends me the following note:—
“Several times when passing the Maraetotara, a deep limestone creek between rather high banks, I have seen these birds swimming across fifteen yards of water of about twelve feet deep. I told lots of people of this, but they would not believe it; but I have lately been able to convince several of my friends (Messrs.
In January 1881 the following paragraph appeared in a Hawke’s Bay paper:—“A Pukeko dashed through the window of a railway carriage the other day, between Kaikoura and Te Aute. The glass was a quarter of an inch thick, and the bird was killed by the force of the concussion.” I happened to be travelling by the evening train and saw both the broken glass and the dead Pukeko, the author of the mischief.
The spread of this species into districts where it had hitherto been comparatively unknown, and its then becoming very abundant, is a very curious fact. Mr. Shrimpton tells me that at Amuri, in 1861, and at the Hawea Lake, a few years later, they appeared first in small parties and then in considerable force, the bird having been previously quite a stranger to that part of the country. The increase was too rapid to have been the result of natural breeding, and must have been occasioned by a sudden migration from the swamps near the coast. The same thing has happened since at Whangarei, in the North Island, as already mentioned.
It usually breeds in swampy situations, the nest, which is composed of dry grass and flags, being in some instances entirely surrounded by water. In the Lake District they are everywhere abundant; and there they build their nests on the silica terraces, not in groups or colonies, but singly and without much attempt at concealment. In these localities Captain Mair has found as many as fourteen eggs in one nest, and eleven in another. Mr. Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1870, vol. iii. p. 102.Carex, and forming a compact mass some 8 inches in length, and not very easily to be distinguished, as the material of the nest was as green as the surrounding grasses.” Mr.
Mr. Owen, of Wangaehu, informs me that he found a nest containing thirteen eggs. According to my experience the number of eggs in a nest varies from two to seven; but five may be considered the complement. They are broadly ovoido-conical in form, measuring 2·2 inches in length by 1·5 in breadth, and are usually of a pale yellowish brown, spotted and blotched with purplish and reddish brown; but while differing slightly from one another in size and form, they present also great individual diversity of colouring. The eggs from one nest, however many in number, generally preserve a common family likeness, and therefore admit of easy classification. A series of twelve specimens in the Canterbury Museum exhibits the following varieties of character:—A set of four (presumably from one nest) are of a pale greyish brown, marked over their whole surface with rounded spots of purplish brown; another set of four are of a warmer yellowish-brown tint, and more thickly studded with dark spots, especially at the larger end: a specimen showing a very narrow form has the entire surface covered with minute round spots, very equally distributed; another has the thick end blotched with dark purplish grey, as though the colours had been partially washed out; and another,
The series of eggs belonging to this species in my son’s collection comprises upwards of twenty specimens. There is a slight variation in size and form, and also in the details of the markings. They vary from the true ovoid form to a decided ovoido-conical, the average size being 2 inches in length by 1·5 in breadth. One example differs from all the rest in being more rounded in form, measuring 1·8 inch in length by 1·45 in breadth. They are of a warm cream or stone colour, varied over the entire surface, but more particularly at the larger end, with scattered spots of reddish brown: in some the spots are rounded and widely scattered with minute specks between; in others they are irregular and smudgy; in others, again, they present underlying or washed-out spots similar to those in the eggs of Ocydromus. One has the entire surface covered with pretty evenly distributed roundish spots; another has the spots more thickly aggregated at the larger end; another exhibits them entirely confluent at the pole, having a smudgy appearance and ranging in tint from dull purple to chocolate-brown; whilst another, differing from all the rest, is conspicuously washed towards the larger end, and sparingly over the rest of the surface, with dark blots and smudges of yellowish and purplish brown.
Notornis mantelli, Owen, Tr. Zool. Soc. iii. p. 377, pl. lvi. figs. 7–13 (1848).
Ad. suprà viridis: pileo et collo undique cum corpore subtùs toto nigricantibus, ultramarino nitentibus: tectricibus alarum cyanescentibus viridi lavatis: remigibus nigris, primariis extùs cæruleo marginatis, secundariis intimis dorso concoloribus: caudâ suprà viridi dorso concolore: subcaudalibus albis: rostro lætè rubro, versùs apicem flavicante: pedibus pallidè rubris: iride rubrâ.
Adult male. Head and throat bluish black, passing into dark purplish blue on the hind neck; the whole of the back, rump, upper tail-coverts, lesser wing-coverts, and scapulars dull olive-green, tipped more or less with verditer-green, and of a darker shade towards the shoulders; fore neck, breast, sides of the body, and flanks beautiful purplish blue; a band of the same colour, half an inch wide, separates the dark blue of the nape from the olive-green of the upper surface; thighs, abdomen, and vent bluish black; under tail-coverts white; wing-feathers rich deep blue on their outer webs, dusky brown margined with blue on their inner; the greater coverts with broad terminal margins of verditer-green, forming crescentic bands in the expanded wings; tail-feathers dark olive-green, with brown shafts, dark brown on their under surface. The plumage of the back and rump is soft and thick, and on being disturbed is found to be dull greyish brown towards the base. Irides red; frontal plate and bill bright red, yellowish towards the tips of both mandibles; tarsi and toes lighter red; claws horn-brown. Total length 24 inches; wing, from flexure, 9·75; tail 4·5; from posterior edge of frontal plate to tip of upper mandible 3·25; from gape of the mouth, along the edge of lower mandible, 2; tarsus 3·25; middle toe and claw 3·75; hind toe and claw 1·7.
Female. A second specimen in the British Museum, which is supposed to be a female, is somewhat smaller than the above in all its dimensions, has the colours generally duller, and the olive-green of the upper parts shaded with brown.
Obs. A third example (now in the Dresden Museum) has since been captured in the Otago District. This bird, of which a detailed description will be found in the text below, is apparently a female, and differs noticeably from the two British-Museum specimens in the entire absence of the bright crescents on the wing-coverts, which are so conspicuous a feature in the latter, and particularly in the male.
At a Meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society on September 3, 1881, after the reading of a paper by the Author on the capture of another example, as narrated on p. 89, during the discussion that followed, Mr. Mantell disclaimed any credit for the discovery of the original bird with which his name had been connected. He observed it hanging in a whare at a native settlement in Otago, along with Kakapos and Kiwis that had been brought from the west coast, and, recognizing it to be new, obtained it from the owner. The second specimen was sent to him by Captain Howell of Riverton. The Author, in reply, vindicated the name by which this bird was now distinguished The name of Dinornis and its allies, read before the Zoological Society from time to time, and published in the ‘Transactions.’ Not only has Mr. Mantell contributed largely to our knowledge of the geology and palæontology of the country, but he has likewise made additions to our ornithology, the most important of these being his discovery of a living species of Notornis,
(Notornis mantelli), and stated that more than a year before the discovery of the bird itself on Resolution Island, Professor Owen had drawn the generic characters of a large brevipennate Rail, then supposed to be extinct, from the fossil remains collected by Mr. Mantell, and had named it Notornis, dedicating the species to the discoverer of the bones. It was somewhat curious that it should have fallen to the lot of the same scientific explorer to discover the living bird itself; and although Mr. Mantell now modestly disclaimed any merit, it seemed peculiarly fitting and right that, in commemoration of his services, his name should be permanently associated with the species. (See Report of Proc. W. P. S.)
“Amongst the fossil bones of birds collected by my eldest son in the North Island of New Zealand, which I had the honour of placing before the Zoological Society in 1848 in illustration of Professor Owen’s description of the crania and mandibles of Zoological Transactions, vol. iii. p. 366. Geological Journal, vol. iv.Dinornis, Palapteryx, &c., there were the skull, beaks, humerus, sternum, and other parts of the skeleton of a large bird of the Rail family, which, from their peculiar characters, were referred by that eminent anatomist to a distinct genus of Rallidæ allied to the Brachypteryx, under the name of NotornisNotornis, and crania and mandibles of Palapteryx. The results of my son’s observations on the geological phenomena presented by the eastern coast of the Middle Island are embodied in a paper read before the Geological Society in February last, and published in vol. v. of the ‘Quarterly Journal.’ It will suffice for my present purpose to mention that they confirm in every essential particular the account given of the position and age of the ornithic ossiferous deposits in my first memoir on this subject( Phormium tenax) once grew luxuriantly. Bones of the larger species of Moa have from time to time been obtained from this spot by the natives and European visitors; and, as in the menaccanite sand-beds at Waingongoro, they are associated with bones of one species of dog and two species of seal. My son also collected crania and other remains of a species of
“This bird was taken by some sealers who were pursuing their avocations in Dusky Bay. Perceiving the trail of a large and unknown bird on the snow with which the ground was then covered, they followed the footprints till they obtained a sight of the Notornis, which their dogs instantly pursued, and after a long chase caught alive in the gully of a sound behind Resolution Island. It ran with great speed, and upon being captured uttered loud screams, and fought and struggled violently; it was kept alive three or four days on board the schooner and then killed, and the body roasted and ate by the crew, each partaking of the dainty, which was declared to be delicious. The beak and legs were of a bright red colour. My son secured the skin, together with very fine specimens of the Kakapo, or Ground-Parrot, a pair of Huias, and two species of Kiwi, namely Apteryx australis and Ap. oweni; the latter very rare bird is now added to the collection of the British Museum.
“Mr. Dinornis, Palapteryx, and related forms were coeval with some of the existing species of birds peculiar to New Zealand, and that their final extinction took place at no very distant period, and long after the advent of the aboriginal Maoris.”
In the paper which Mr. Gould read at the same Meeting, he prefaced his detailed description of the bird with the following remarks:—
“Dr. Mantell having kindly placed his son’s valuable acquisition in my hands for the purpose of characterizing it in the ‘Proceedings’ of this Society, and of afterwards figuring and describing it in the appendix to my work on the birds of Australia, I beg leave to commence the pleasing task he has assigned me.
“The amount of interest which attaches to the present remarkable bird is perhaps greater than that which pertains to any other with which I am acquainted, inasmuch as it is one of the few remaining species of those singular forms which inhabited that supposed remnant of a former continent—New Zealand,
“Upon a cursory view of this bird it might be mistaken for a gigantic kind of Porphyrio; but on an examination of its structure it will be found to be generically distinct. It is allied to Porphyrio in the form of its bill and in its general colouring, and to Tribonyx in the structure of its feet, while in the feebleness of its wings and the structure of its tail it differs from both. From personal observation of the habits of Tribonyx and Porphyrio, I may venture to affirm that the habits and economy of the present bird more closely resemble those of the former than those of the latter; that it is doubtless of a recluse and extremely shy disposition; that being deprived, by the feeble structure of its wing, of the power of flight, it is compelled to depend upon its swiftness of foot for the means of evading its natural enemies; and that, as is the case with Tribonyx, a person may be in its vicinity for weeks without ever catching a glimpse of it. From the thickness of its plumage and the great length of its back-feathers, we may infer that it affects low and humid situations, marshes, the banks of rivers, and the coverts of dripping ferns, so abundant in its native country: like Porphyrio, it doubtless enjoys the power of swimming, but would seem, from the structure of its legs, to be more terrestrial in its habits than the members of that genus. I have carefully compared the bill of this example with that figured by Professor Owen under the name of Notornis mantelli, and have little doubt that they are referable to one and the same species; and as we are now in possession of materials whence to obtain complete generic characters, I hasten to give the following details, in addition to those supplied by Professor Owen…… I cannot conclude these remarks without bearing testimony to the very great importance of the results which have attended the researches of Mr.
Mr. Mantell was fortunate enough to secure a second specimen of the Notornis; and these examples, the only two then known, having been carefully mounted by Mr. Bartlett, were placed side by side in the National Collection of Great Britain, and, like the remains of the Dodo in the adjoining gallery, have continued to the present time to attract the attention of thousands of daily visitors!
Sir George Grey tells me that in 1868 he was at Preservation Inlet and saw a party of natives there who gave him a circumstantial account of the recent killing of a small Moa (? Palapteryx), describing with much spirit its capture out of a drove of six or seven. The same natives pointed out to him a valley where the Notornis was said to be still plentiful. This was at the head of Preservation Inlet. Besides being swampy, the ground was covered with vegetation so close and thick that it was impossible to penetrate it on foot, and under this cover the Notornis might roam about in perfect security; for the recluse habits of such a bird, as long ago pointed out by Mr. Gould, would in these localities be its best protection.
Sir Notornis; and this man assured him that “there were plenty of them at the head of the N.W. arm of Te Anau Lake, near a small lake in the valley that leads to Bligh Sound.” In confirmation of the above report about the Moa, Sir J. Hector
In my former edition I said:—“Although no examples of the Notornis have since been obtained, it does not necessarily follow that the species is absolutely extinct. The recluse habits of such a bird, as already pointed out by Mr. Gould, would account for its hitherto escaping notice in the only partially explored portions of the country; and the following extract from a letter, addressed to me by Dr. Hector in December 1866, would lead us to hope that at least one specimen more may yet be found to grace a shelf in the Colonial Museum:—‘At Motupipi, about three months ago, Mr. Gibson, who is a really good careful observer, a capital botanist, and a new comer to the country, saw a bird within a few feet of him, in tall swamp-grass, which, from his description, I have no doubt was a Notornis!! He had never seen the plate or description of the Notornis; and as he knows the Pukeko (Porphyrio melanonotus) quite well, there is no other bird that would answer to his account. I am going back there, and will get further particulars about it.’
“Dr. Hector likewise informs me that, during his exploration of the South-western portion of the Otago Province in 1861–62, he met with some traces of the Notornis near Thompson Sound and on the middle arm of the Anau Lake.”
Since the above was written, another example has been obtained; and as a special interest always attaches to a species on the verge of extinction, I will reproduce here portions of a paper on the subject which I read before the Wellington Philosophical Institute on September 3, 1881:—
The capture of a specimen of the rare Notornis mantelli in the South Island is an event of sufficient importance to warrant a special memoir in our ‘Transactions,’ and I have therefore much pleasure, at the request of our President, in bringing before you this evening all the information I have been able to collect on the subject.
I may here mention—and I do so with regret—that the specimen which I am about to describe is no longer in the colony, having been despatched by the ‘Waitangi’ about three weeks ago for sale in England. It will be interesting to watch its ultimate fate; but as there are already two fine examples in the National Collection, it will most probably find its way into one of the continental or American museums The specimen was offered to public competition at Stevens’s Rooms, in Covènt Garden, and purchased for the Dresden Museum at £105, the representative of the Cambridge Museum having unfortunately ceased his bidding at £100. Its bones have since been described by Dr. Meyer, the Director of that Museum, who proposes to refer it to a new species under the name of Notornis hochstetteri.
The two fine specimens now in the British Museum (supposed to be male and female) were obtained through the exertions of our former President, the Hon.
The third specimen, to which I have now specially to refer, was recently obtained on what are called the “Bare-patch Plains” (between the Maruia and Upokororo rivers), on the eastern
Notornis, at once accepted the offer and took the bird home to the station, where he carefully and very successfully skinned it, preserving also all the bones of the body.
The weather had been exceptionally severe, and it is supposed that this was how the Notornis came to be found on the flats, having been driven down from the high country. The man who caught it said that it seemed quite tame, whereas Mantell’s bird (as already mentioned) made a vigorous resistance on being taken.
Professor Parker having undertaken to describe the skeleton for our ‘Transactions,’ Dr. Hector invited me to undertake the same duty in regard to the skin, in order that, in default of the specimen itself, we might have on record in the colony as complete a monograph as possible of this interesting bird. I cheerfully undertook the task, and made a visit to Dunedin specially for this purpose.
On being introduced to this rara avis I experienced again the old charm that always came over me when gazing upon the two examples in the British Museum—the lingering representatives of a race co-existent in this land with the colossal Moa! Then, retiring to the Museum library, I shut myself in with Notornis, handled my specimen with the loving tenderness of the naturalist, sketched and measured its various parts, and made a minute description of its plumage.
Like many other New-Zealand forms of an earlier period, the Notornis is the gigantic prototype of a well-known genus of Swamp-hens. It is, in fact, to all appearance a huge Pukeko (Porphyrio), with feeble or aborted wings and abbreviated toes, the feet resembling those of Tribonyx—a bird incapable of flight, but admirably adapted for running. Similar, no doubt, was the relation borne by the powerful Aptornis to our present Woodhen (Ocydromus); but in that case the prototype has disappeared, leaving only its fossil bones for the study of the scientist, and its place in nature to be filled by its existing diminutive representatives.
The interest attaching to Notornis has been greatly enhanced by the discovery that the white Swamp-hen, of Norfolk Island, belongs to the same genus, as this has an important bearing on the study of geographic distribution Notornis alba is established, by Herr von Pelzeln, on a specimen acquired at the sale of the Leverian Collection, which was without doubt the type of Fulica atra of White’s ‘Voyage’ and the Gallinula alba of Latham. This bird had been erroneously considered by Temminck and Porphyrio melanonotus.
The characters of the genus Notornis were first determined by Professor Owen, in 1848, from certain fossil remains collected by Mr. Mantell in the North Island of New Zealand, and consisting of the skull, beaks, humerus, sternum, and other parts of the skeleton of a large brevipennate Rail. The sagacity with which the learned professor had interpreted these bones, and the absolute correctness of his prevision, were exemplified in the discovery which enabled Mr. Gould, in 1850, to communicate to the Zoological Society the complete generic characters of the bird, already known to science as Notornis mantelli, Owen. In illustration of these, Mr. Gould furnished to the Society a coloured sketch of the head of Notornis, in his usual artistic style; and at a later period he published, in the Supplement to his ‘Birds of Australia,’ a full-sized drawing of the bird. These plates are very beautiful, but on a close comparison with the specimen to which these notes more especially refer, I find that some of the minor features have been overlooked by the artist, or sacrificed to pictorial effect.
In the following descriptive notes I have therefore deemed it best to record the characters (generic as well as specific) with some minuteness of detail.
The bill is somewhat shorter than the head, greatly compressed on the sides, and much arched above, the culmen having a convex or rounded aspect, with a uniform width of three eighths of an inch from above the nostrils to within half an inch of the tip, when it rapidly diminishes, terminating in a rounded point. Where it merges into the frontal shield, the culmen is five eighths of an inch in width. Gould has somewhat exaggerated in his drawings the angle of declination towards the corners of the mouth, also the serrated edge of the upper mandible. In this specimen there is only the slightest indication of pectination. The cutting-edges of both mandibles are sharp to the touch. The horny covering of the bill rises on the forehead to a line with the posterior angle of the eye, forming a depressed frontal shield (not arched as in the drawing). Nostrils oval, placed in a depression near the base of the bill, and forming an oblique opening, nearly twice as large as shown in Gould’s sketch of the head (Proc. Zool. Soc.). Wings short, rounded, and slightly concave; ample in appearance, but useless for purposes of flight; first quill shortest, second half an inch shorter than third; third, fourth, and fifth longest and about equal; sixth scarcely shorter than fifth. On examining the wing-feathers they are found to be feeble and pliant, the outer webs being almost as broad as the inner. The tail-feathers are likewise soft and pliant, with disunited filaments, much worn at the tips. The tarsi are long, strong, and well proportioned to the bird; longer than the toes (exclusive of claws), rounded in form, and armed in front with fourteen more or less broad, regular, transverse scutellæ, forming an effective shield; on the middle toe there are twenty-three transverse scales, all very regular, but narrowed at the joints; on the inner toe fifteen, and on the outer toe twenty-one. On the hind toe there are five scales. The claws are strong, thick, not much arched, rather sharp on the edges, but with blunted points, especially on the hind toe. The palate is deeply grooved.
Head and upper part of neck very dark blue, changing according to the light into brownish black on the crown and nape, brighter on the cheeks and sides, and passing into dark purplish blue on the lower part of the neck; the whole of the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts rich olive-green, varied more or less, and particularly on the shoulders, with dull verditer-green, the feathers shading off into that colour at the tips, the general olive hue, however, predominating towards the sides of the body; fore neck, breast, sides of the body, and inner portion of flanks beautiful purplish blue; the lengthened pectoral plumes which overlap the sides and the outer portion of flanks vivid purplish blue, mixed and varied, especially on the former, with verditer-green; abdomen, thighs, and vent dull indigo or bluish black, more or less mixed with brown; under tail-coverts pure white. The general upper surface of the wings is a rich mixture of blue and verditer-green, very difficult to express exactly in words, the combination having something of the effect, in certain lights, of lapis lazuli.
On a close examination of the larger coverts it is found that they are marked transversely with numerous delicate rays of a darker purplish blue, adding much to the beauty of the plumage. On the lesser coverts this rayed character, although present, is less conspicuous, and the olive hue is more pronounced, while on the scapulars it becomes predominant, resembling the plumage of the back. The outer edges of the wings and the tertial plumes are very rich purplish blue or obscurely rayed with green. The outer primaries are blue on their outer webs, but this rapidly changes to dull sea-green, which colour prevails on both webs of the secondaries, only washed with a brighter tint on the outer vane. This colour deepens again into olive on the inner secondaries and their coverts, thus harmonizing with the plumage of the back. The under surface of the quills is uniform blackish brown, and the shafts are white towards the base; the axillary plumes and the larger inner coverts are of the same colour, tipped on their outer aspect with blue, and the smaller coverts, which are of very soft texture,
According to Radde’s ‘Nomenclature of Colours,’ my “olive-green” of the back in the above description is grass-green No. d mixed with yellow-green No. d; my shades of “verditer-green” on the shoulder-plumage &c. correspond to blue-green No. P, or come between that and No. Q, with a mixture of grass-green No. K, although brighter; but there is no standard in the whole of Radde’s formulary that realizes my “vivid purplish blue”—No. G comes nearest, but it lacks the depth and brilliancy. It is quite obvious that where the colours run from one shade of brilliancy into another on the same feather and the general tone and effect vary in different parts of the same plumage, it is quite impossible to make any standard of colours exactly applicable for purposes of minute description.
The bill has lost its original colour through being dried. On the frontal plate and along the basal edges of both mandibles it appears to have been dark red, fading outwards. The culmen still has traces of its original pinky colour; but the sides of both mandibles, in the present condition of the specimen, are reddish horn-colour, fading to whitish horn along the cutting-edges. The tarsi and toes appear to have been originally light red, having now faded to a transparent reddish brown, paler on the toes. Claws dull brown, lighter towards the tips.
The texture and general appearance of the plumage on the head, neck, and underparts generally is very similar to that of the Pukeko (Porphyrio melanonotus), although the latter bird lacks the produced bright-coloured pectoral plumes which overlap the sides of the body, under the wings, in Notornis. The plumage of the back is very long and thick, but at the same time soft and somewhat silky to the touch, being evidently adapted to haunts where the bird is constantly subject to drippings from wet herbage. On moving this plumage with the hand it is found that the basal portion, comprising more than two thirds of the feathers, is of a uniform blackish brown, whereas the basal plumage on the other parts of the body is dark grey. The plumage of the head and neck is short and close, as in Porphyrio, the feathers having a soft texture. The whole of the upper surface has a slight sheen upon it (amounting almost to a glint on the tips of the shoulder-plumage), and the bright hues of colour on the back and wings change slightly under different lights. The plumage covering the flanks and overlapping the thighs is dense and long, while its brilliant blue and green colours contrast strongly with the olive plumage of the back and rump. When looked at in front, with the wings closed in against the body, the purplish vivid blue already described is very conspicuous. The carpal spur is shaped like the claw of the hind toe, but is less arched; it is nearly one eighth of an inch thick at the base, and is dark brown, fading into horn-colour at the tip.
Measurements.—Approximate length (measuring from tip of bill, following its curvature, and from the forehead to the end of the tail) 24·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 10; from humerus to flexure 3·75; carpal spur ·4; tail (to extreme tip) 4·75; bare part of tibia 1; tarsus 3·5; middle toe 3, its claw 1·1; inner toe 2·2, its claw 1; outer toe 2·4, its claw ·8; hind toe ·75, its claw ·75. Bill, from posterior edge of frontal plate to tip of upper mandible 3·4, from gape along edge of upper mandible 2·5, along edge of lower mandible 2·25; greatest width of bill, measuring across from the summit of the arch, or culmen, to the junction of the rami 2.
Observations.—Taken altogether, the specimen is a very fine one—probably an adult female. The plumage is somewhat worn, the primaries and tail-feathers having their webs more or less abraded on their outer edges and tips. The edges and sides of the mandibles are considerably worn, indicating a fully adult state. The claws of the toes, and particularly that of the hind toe, appear to be much blunted by use. The colours of the plumage generally are brighter than in the supposed female specimen in the British Museum, but they are, I think, less brilliant on the whole than in the British-Museum male: notably there is an entire absence of the well-defined terminal margins of verditer-green on the wing-coverts which form crescentic bands in the type specimen. There are, however, as mentioned above, different blending shades of green and blue on the plumage of the
Note.—There appears to have been originally very little colour in the beak except on and below the frontal shield and along the basal edges of both mandibles. The legs are in much the same condition as that presented by the legs in a dried Pukeko skin, the colours having faded out; but there is enough colour left in the tarsi to show that the legs and feet were originally, as described above, a light (probably pinkish) red. The skin is much stretched by unskilful treatment after being removed from the body; but I have allowed for the stretching in taking the measurements given above.
I remarked to Professor Parker, on first taking up the specimen, that the legs appeared to be more attenuated than in the British-Museum examples, and the measurements which I afterwards made, as given above, prove that the toes are somewhat longer proportionately to the size of the bird, which is altogether slightly larger than the type-specimen. The frontal shield is, however, somewhat smaller, being just one inch across in its widest part, and ascending barely half an inch from the base of the culmen; it has a corrugated shrivelled appearance in the dried specimen, and from the sides of the bill, at its base, the cuticle is inclined to peel off. The skin (in the dried state) is very tough, having the appearance and consistency of fine leather.
Still more recently a fresh skeleton of Hab. South-west portion of South Island. As already mentioned, the first recorded specimen (in 1849) was obtained on Resolution Island, the second, nearly three years later, on Secretary Island in Thompson Sound, and the third, which has formed the subject of this paper (in December 1879), on the eastern side of Te Anau LakeNotornis has been found, the event being thus recorded in ‘The Dunedin Herald’:— “Curiously enough close to the spot in the Mararoa district where the live Takahe was caught, a skeleton very nearly complete has been found. There are all the large bones, with the beak and thirteen of the vertebræ. Most of the ribs, toes, and tops of the wings are missing. The longest leg-bone measures 6¼ inches. The head is nearly 5 inches, measured round the curve of the beak.” The skeleton was subsequently secured by Professor Parker, and is now in the Otago Museum.Notornis over a considerable area of very broken and rugged country. As its fossil remains testify, its ancient range was far more extensive, including the North Island, and in prehistoric times probably reaching much further.
Since the casual discovery of the third example of Notornis mantelli mentioned above, an active search for this bird has been prosecuted in many parts of the South Island, but hitherto without success. The most enthusiastic of these Notornis hunters is undoubtedly Mr. Notornis, and also affords at the same time a glimpse of the hardships he has gone through in his persistent search for the bird, as the following passages will show:—
“I again write to you something more from my diary. This time it will be a trip from the Paringa Station to the glacier region in the Alps behind. The weather had been wretchedly bad—nothing but a continuation of rain, snowstorms, and gales, lasting a long time, which caused very heavy floods; but on December 12, in the evening, I was rejoiced to find the glass rising, and, with the hope that there would now be a few fine days, I at once packed my swag with provisions, ammunition, blanket, &c., and made an early start at 3 A.M. next morning, my dog Cæsar being my companion. I took a south-westerly direction up the mountain, following an overgrown track which
“In the evening the track got to an end, when I came out on the grass country, at 3500 feet above sea-level. Here I camped. Three dwarf birch-trees formed the roof of my shelter, and a few tussocks formed my bed. After lighting a good fire, I searched for water, which is generally found on these Alps clear and good; but in this case I was doomed to disappointment, for all I could get was stagnant water full of insect-life. In spite of my fire and shelter, I found it bitterly cold; a sharp wind came from across the ice and snow of the glaciers which chilled me to the marrow. Sleep was out of the question; and as the moon had now risen, I took some provisions and a gun and ascended higher.
“It was a lovely night indeed, and Nature had put on her most romantic garb. How I wish I could describe it to you! Imagine the silver shimmer of the moon lighting up the landscape, causing endless shades and reflections of the hills and vegetation; the valleys covered with a silver-grey mist, the sparkling stars competing with the glaciers in brightness, and the dark cliffs dotted over with patches of snow. All this grandeur and the solemn silence of the scene put me in mind of the fairy tales of my childhood. Yes! here is loveliness enough, but the fairies have gone. I walked on for about three hours, up and down these mountains and gullies, when I heard the booming noise of some bird. Thinking I had now come on the bird I had so anxiously searched for on all my West Coast trips (Notornis mantelli), I carefully followed up the sound, which led me to a lagoon; but my disappointment was complete, for instead of a Notornis it proved to be a Bittern. Through the silence the booming appeared to be far louder than the usual sound of the Bittern. I was indeed much surprised to find this bird at an altitude of about 4000 feet. Journeying over huge blocks of rocks (which lay as if they were on purpose thrown together) on one side and deep precipices on the other, I came to a stop, and there was nothing for it but to await daylight. There being no vegetation, I could not light a fire, so had to walk about to keep warm. Dawn at last appeared, and no Laplander ever welcomed the glorious sun more joyfully than I did in this region. Still ascending, I crossed snow-fields which were of considerable depth in some places. The snow had been blown together, and was frozen so hard that I had to take my tomahawk to chop it down so as to get softer snow to refresh myself with a wash. My breakfast was snow dissolved in my mouth, with a little oatmeal and a few biscuits. The walking now became easier over the snow, and I was able to travel much faster. At last I arrived at the source of the left branch of the Paringa river, and a short distance from the Hooker Glacier. The grandeur of the scene caused me to stop, and although I have travelled through many of the mountainous parts of Europe, and have ascended some of the glaciers, I never beheld anything more beautiful than this charming scene before me. The sky was clear and cloudless. The Paringa river was seen winding its course, like a huge eel, through the valley in a northerly direction to the ocean; N.W., Lake Paringa, like a horseshoe, and Lake Roskill lay buried in the dense forest below; W.S.W., the Blue river with its oblong lake; S. and S.E., a large extent of forest with dark cliffs and enormous fissures, and rugged snow-clad peaks. Then Mount Cook came in full view with his companion snow-capped mountains, and their network of glaciers stretching out for miles. It was bitterly cold and freezing. Then the sun rose higher, throwing his rays on the masses of ice and snow, and making them scintillate like mountains of diamonds. This imposing scene did not last long, I am sorry to say, for the heat of the sun caused a vapour to rise which soon covered up this lovely panorama.”
Rallus philippensis, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 263 (1766).
Râle rayé des Philippines, Buff. Pl. Enl. 774 (1784).
Philippine Rail, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 231 (1785).
Rallus assimilis, Gray, App. Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 197 (1843).
Rallus pectoralis, Gould, B. of Austr. vi. pl. 76 (1848, nec Less.).
Rallus forsteri, Hartl. Arch. f. Naturg. 1852, p. 136.
Hypotænidia philippensis, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 599 (1856).
Rallus hypotænidia, Verr. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. xii. p. 437 (1860).
Rallina philippensis, Wall. P. Z. S. 1863, p. 36.
Rallus (Eulabeornis) philippensis, Martens, J. f. O. 1866, p. 28.
Rallus pictus, Potts, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. iv. p. 202 (1871).
? Note on Rallus macquariensis, Hutton, Ibis, 1879, p. 454Rallus macquariensis, Hutton, This, 1879, p. 454 (♀, obtained at Macquarie Island).—Is this form specifically distinct, or is it a mere variety of the widely-spread R. philippensis? Compared with some New-Zealand examples of the latter it might perhaps pass for a distinct species; but on being judged along with a series exhibiting much variation in the plumage, its claims to separate recognition are seriously damaged. The nuchal colour is indicated by a wash of rufous among the plumage, and I observe, on moving the feathers, that this colour is more pronounced on one side than on the other, indicating, it would seem, a transitional state, or at any rate an indeterminate condition of plumage. The rufous colouring shades into brown on the bar which crosses the eyes and fills the lores, exhibiting only a tinge of rufous on the ear-coverts; but the shape of that bar, spreading as it does below the eye, is the same as we find it in Australian examples of Rallus philippensis. The grey superciliary stripe is certainly indistinct, but it is nevertheless present, forming a mere line immediately over the eyes, but spreading out beyond. The banded markings on the sides and flanks are far less pronounced than in the bird of which I have given a figure; but I have in my possession younger specimens with even less of this character than the Macquarie Island bird. At first glance the upper surface of the body would seem to be entirely without spots, but on moving the plumage it will be seen that there are very distinct round white spots on some of the feathers composing the mantle, while on the primary-coverts they are of a tawny colour, and blend with the surrounding plumage. The quills are barred with chestnut, exactly as in R. philippensis, and the plumage on the crown of the head, throat, fore neck, and abdomen is the same; there are slight indications of white spots on the lower sides of the neck, and there is a wash of rufous chestnut forming a broad band across the breast. There are no structural characters by which to differentiate the species. Slight differences in the plumage are observable, but these are less than are to be found on a comparison of the New-Zealand bird with that inhabiting Fiji, and certainly not more than those existing between our bird and that from the Pelew group. Judging by the indistinct character of the markings on the sides and flanks, and the general softness of the plumage, I should conclude that Prof. Hutton’s type is a somewhat immature bird; and, for the reasons I have stated, I doubt very much its being more than a local variety of Rallus philippensis.
Patatai, Popotai, Mohotatai, Moho-patatai, Moho-pereru, and Puohotata; “Land-Rail” of the colonists.
Ad. suprà brunneus, interscapulio saturatiore, plumis omnibus latè olivaceo-fulvo lavatis et marginatis, plerisque albo maculatis aut interruptè transfasciatis, uropygio tantüm unicolore, supracaudalibus minùs albo notatis:
pileo summo olivascenti-brunneo, unicolore: strigâ superciliari angustâ, anticè albidâ, posticè cinereâ: strigâ alterâ a basi maxillæ per oculum ductâ ad collum laterale conjunctâ, sordidè castaneâ, torquem collarem distinctam vix formante: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus et eodem modo albo notatis, majoribus extùs fulvo, intùs castaneo conspicuè maculatis: alâ spuriâ remigibusque brunneis castaneo transfasciatis, primariis extùs fulvescente notatis et albo angustè transversim lineatis: caudâ brunneâ olivascente lavatâ: mento albo: genis et gutture toto cinereis, parte inferiore paullò olivascente lavatâ: corpore reliquo subtùs cinerascenti-brunneo, fulvo aut albido crebrè transfasciato: torque pectorali pallidè ferrugineâ, plus minusve distinctâ hypochondriis et subcaudalibus nigricantibus albo distinctè fasciatis et fulvescente terminatis: abdomine imo fulvescenti-albo: rostro flavicanti-brunneo, ad basin rufescente: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride rufescenti-brunneâ.
Adult. Crown of the head and all the upper surface brownish olive; the feathers of the back and the inner scapulars broadly centred with brownish black; the feathers of the hind neck and upper part of the back, as well as the upper wing-coverts, marked on both webs with two spots of white, surrounded more or less distinctly with blackish brown; streak over the eyes, chin, and throat greyish white, deepening into dark grey on the sides of the head and on the fore neck; a band of chestnut-red, commencing at the base of the upper mandible, passes through the eyes and down the-neck, uniting on the nape in a broad patch of the same colour varied with brown; breast and sides of the body brownish black, crossed by numerous narrow well-defined bars of white, tinged more or less with fulvous, and tipped with olive-grey; on the sides and flanks the ground-colour is darker, and the bars are further apart; across the breast a broad zone of reddish buff; abdomen, thighs, and vent buffy white; under tail-coverts black, barred with white and largely tipped with buff; primaries dark brown, the two outer ones crossed by narrow interrupted bars of fulvous white, and the rest broadly barred on both webs with dull chestnut-red, varied more or less on the third quill with white; secondaries barred in a similar manner, but with a whitish spot near the extremity of both webs; outer scapulars brownish black, with numerous elliptical spots of white on both webs, and edged with pale-olive-brown; tail-feathers olive-brown, with darker shafts. Irides reddish hazel; bill reddish brown at the base, fading into yellowish brown at the tip; tarsi and toes light brown. Total length 12 inches; extent of wings 17·5; wing, from flexure, 5·5; tail 2·5; bill, along the ridge 1·6, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2; hind toe and claw ·65.
Female. The colours generally are duller, the nuchal collar is indistinct, the pectoral band is reduced to a narrow indeterminate zone of yellowish brown, and the bars on the underparts of the body are far less conspicuous than in the male, being much interrupted or broken.
Young. Differs from the adult in having the upper surface lighter, the feathers having broader margins of fulvous brown, with very small white spots, and these widely scattered. The facial streak and nuchal collar are dull chestnut-brown, and not well defined. On the breast there is a mere wash of pale chestnut; and the underparts and flanks, instead of being striped or banded, present only obscure broken bars, the whole plumage of the under surface being several shades lighter than in the adult, and suffused with pale fulvous. The axillary plumes, however, are perfectly black, with widely separated narrow white bars. The barred markings on the wing-feathers are even more pronounced than in the old bird, and extend higher on the coverts. Bill and legs pale brown.
Chick. Covered with sooty black down of silky texture, but without any gloss; bill greyish white; legs blackish brown, darker behind.
Var. At Napier I examined a partial albino which had been shot in the vicinity of the town:—The vertex, broad line over each eye, the cheeks and throat, also a broad irregular patch on the breast, nearly covering the place of the chestnut band, pure white; on the neck and shoulders likewise some touches of white; the rest of the plumage normal.
Handbook to the Birds of Australia, vol. ii. p. 384.Remarks. Like other members of the group to which it belongs, this form is liable to considerable variation of plumage. In the numerous examples which have come under my notice, the pectoral band, although never entirely absent, has varied both in extent and colouring from a narrow interrupted line of sandy buff to a broad zone of rich chestnut. Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub, in a communication to the Zoological Society
Rallus forsteri is nothing but a state of plumage due to age or season. The extent and colour of the facial band is likewise variable: in some it is of a rich dark brown with well-defined edges, the grey plumage above forming a long narrow streak, while in others it is diffused, largely mixed with rufous, and spreading considerably on the hind neck. The distinctness of the white bars on the underparts varies in different individuals; but this seems to be in some measure dependent on the age of the bird. An example which died in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, and was kindly forwarded to me by Dr. Sclater for examination, had the whole of the upper surface spotted with white, largely tinged on the wings with fulvous; others, again, I have seen in which the spotted markings were almost entirely confined to the hind neck and shoulders; but as it would be easy to bring together a complete intermediate series, this is of no value as a distinguishing feature. Mr. Potts’s so-called Rallus pictus, characterized by its decidedly superior size, would certainly be entitled to recognition but for the great variation in this respect to which this species is subject. The garter, or bare tibia, mentioned by Mr. Potts in his description of Rallus pictus (l. c.), is to be found also in ordinary examples of our R. philippensis, although, of course, this feature is proportionally more conspicuous in the larger birds. No weight can be attached to the slight peculiarity in the shape of the bill, unless it should prove to be a constant character; for I can give an instance within my own experience of a very manifest modification in the bill of a Rail through purely accidental causes. On this point Dr. Finsch writes to me as follows:—“I received in Haast’s last collection a specimen of the so-called Rallus pictus from the Okarita lagoon; but I find that it differs in no way from those collected in the Pacific and elsewhere.” Mr. Gould also, in treating of this species
Among those in the Colonial Museum collection, one has the narrow superciliary streak perfectly white in front; another has the pectoral band of a rich buff colour, and about an inch in width, with the banded markings of the underparts very pronounced and extending up to the commencement of the fore neck.
Notwithstanding this extreme tendency to variation, I have never met with any instance of albinism except the one mentioned above.
I have examined and compared a pretty extensive series from different regions with the following result:—An example of Rallus philippensis from Fiji is more spotted than our bird, the round white spots spreading all over the mantle, wings, and upper tail-coverts; there is absolutely no pectoral band, not even an indication of it; the nuchal collar of chestnut is very much enlarged, being about an inch and a half in depth, blending with the brown colour on the nape, but giving a rufous blush to the crown and forehead, and extending in a broad bar across and somewhat under the eyes to the base of the upper mandible. In this tendency of the chestnut colouring to overrun the crown and vertex this bird shows an approach to Rallus striatus of India, in which the rufous crown and nape is a distinguishing feature. There is a further resemblance in the absence of the pectoral band; but the striated character is entirely different, the wings of the latter being adorned with transverse and wavy lines or bars of white, which at once distinguishes this bird from all the others. In a bird from Pelew Island, on the other hand, there is only the slightest indication of a nuchal collar, and the crown is faintly suffused with chestnut; whilst a bar of dull chestnut brown covers the lores, passes through and under the eyes, and then becoming narrower, passes over the ears and fades away on the nape; the spotted markings on the back and wings are less distinct, and in place of the pectoral band there is a mere wash of rufous yellow, forming a narrow zone. Moreover, the bill is decidedly more slender than in any of the preceding forms. The Australian bird is similarly marked to ours, the pectoral band and the banded markings on the underparts being very conspicuous, the former measuring more than half an inch in width, and being of a rich chestnut-brown. Owing to the absence of this interrupting pectoral band in the Fijian bird, the striped appearance of the underparts is very pronounced, especially as it reaches almost to the fore neck. In addition to this special feature, the bill, legs, and toes are appreciably stronger than in any of the other forms enumerated above.
We are standing on the banks of the Horowhenua Lake, perhaps the most picturesque sheet of water in the North Island. Shaded by a lofty forest, and its banks clothed with beautiful evergreens to the water’s edge, studded with lovely wooded islets, and along the shore fringes of raupo alternating with overhanging bush and charming little beaches, it is the perfection of a New-Zealand lake and a favourite resort for numerous waterfowl. We have just quitted our canoe, after a long day’s duck-shooting, and our Maori attendant is now securing it to a stake in the bank. The evening is advancing and all is still. A string of Black Swan, high in the air, are winging their way to some favourite feeding-ground near the coast; a pair of Papango, having just emerged from a bed of reeds, are floating on the placid waters; a small Black Shag with much awkward fluttering is settling itself for the night in a kowai bough overhanging the lake; a solitary Pekapeka is flitting silently overhead, chasing in zigzag lines the minute insect-life upon which this bat subsists; the locust has ceased his drumming, and the melancholy note of the Fern-Sparrow, calling to his fellows among the rushes, has grown languid and finally died away; now, with the deepening shade comes the doleful cry of the Morepork, and at intervals of five minutes the Koekoea, from a distant clump of bush, sends forth one long and plaintive scream, and then all is quiet again. We listen, and in the stillness of the evening there falls upon the ear, with peculiar effect, a sharp, shrill cry, like the scream of a startled sea-bird. Still we listen, and the cry is repeated over and over again before we are able with any certainty to locate the sound; at first it seems in front of us, then to the left of us, then to the right; and whilst we are still in doubt it ceases altogether. This is the cry of the Patatai, the subject of this article. It is a difficult sound to denote by syllables, but easily distinguished from all the other voices of the field and forest.
That the bird is semi-nocturnal in its habits I have no doubt, for on one occasion in the Heretaunga district I heard its unmistakable cry long after darkness had set in. It is also frequently heard in the early morning.
Allowing that the varieties enumerated above are all referable to one and the same species, we find that this Rail enjoys a very extensive territorial range. It is found all over the southern portion of the Australian continent; and, unless Mr. Gould’s specimens from the north coast and from Raine’s Islet should hereafter prove to be a distinct species, it has an almost unlimited range northwards, migrating from one part of the country to another with the changes of season. It occurs also in Polynesia proper, the Celebes, the Navigators’, the Caroline Islands, New Caledonia, and the Philippine Islands The Otago Museum contains a veritable example from Macquarie Island, a fact of considerable interest from a zoo-geographical point of view.Crex pratensis) of Europe.
It is also to be met with in the mangrove-swamps, in the branches of the Waitemata and Kaipara, at the Whangarei heads, and in other similar localities.
This is one of the few native birds that have perceptibly increased with the progress of settlement, the new conditions of life being favourable to their existence. Twenty years ago it was an extremely rare bird in all parts of the country; now it is to be met with in suitable localities everywhere, and especially in the settled and cultivated districts. I have even heard its unmistakable cry on quiet evenings, from my own garden on Wellington Terrace, and very recently the local newspapers recorded the capture of one in the Union Steamship Company’s Offices in the very heart of the city.
I had a live one in my possession for several months; but it was so incessantly active in its movements that I had the utmost difficulty in making a life-sketch of it. This bird was brought to me in the early part of March, and the plumage was then old and faded; but the seasonal moult had already commenced, and about the end of May it was in beautiful feather. On being turned loose in a room it ran swiftly from one corner to another seeking concealment, and occasionally stretched its body upwards in a very grotesque attitude, as if surveying its new quarters. It partook readily of cooked potato, and drank freely from a saucer of water, after which it stalked about the room in an inquisitive manner, and several times flew upwards to the window. It was afterwards placed in a wooden cage; but it seemed very impatient of this restraint, and manifested remarkable perseverance in its efforts to escape. It could be heard night and day tapping the bars with its slender bill as it wandered up and down its little prison, and it seemed never to relinquish for a single moment the hope of delivery from its unnatural bondage. Although always timid, it became sufficiently tame to take food from the hand; and when in the act of feeding, especially if supplied with fresh meat or insects, it often expressed its satisfaction in a low chuckling note. It frequently thrust its head into the water-vessel, but never bathed itself.
Long afterwards I had another captive “Land-Rail,” for which I was indebted to Mrs. Mountfort, of Feilding. Although shy before strangers, it had become familiar with the inmates of the household, taking food from the hand, &c. I observed that after every mouthful of food thus administered the bird would run to its trough and take a sip of water. It also exhibited the restless habit, already described, of running up and down in the front of its cage, trying each bar with its bill, as if endeavouring to escape. I had this bird in my possession for about six months; but owing to its being kept in a solitary part of the conservatory, it soon relapsed into wildness, and ultimately made such vigorous and persistent attempts to get through the cage that the top of its head became completely abraded and so bruised and injured that the bird actually died. It was almost carnivorous, but seemed to prefer fresh meat minced up to any other diet.
In its wild state it loves to climb the kiekie ( Freycinetia banksii), which clings to the trunks of forest trees, and feed on its ripe
Another which was kept for some time in the Colonial Museum, shut up in the same cage with a tuatara lizard, exhibited a like spirit of restlessness, in strange contrast with the sluggish movements of its reptilian companion. In the centre of its capacious cage a large Asplenim bulbiferum had been planted, and when not prancing up and down its chamber, the bird appeared to spend its time digging with its bill around the roots of this fern, thus affording an indication of its habits in the wild state, where grubs and earthworms no doubt contribute to its sustenance.
The eggs of the Banded Rail, which are placed in a rude nest on the ground, are from four to six in number, and sometimes even more; they are of a very rounded form, measuring 1·5 inch in length by 1·2 in breadth, with a polished surface, and of a creamy-white colour, marked all over, but more conspicuously at the larger end, with rounded spots of chestnut-red. There are three specimens in my son’s collection, all of similar size, being exactly of the measurement given above. They vary from pure white to a warm stone-colour with a pinkish tinge, spotted thickly at the larger end, and sparingly over the entire surface, with reddish brown. In the finest coloured of these specimens the spots are rounded and distinct, varying from dark purple to reddish umber, thickly set and sometimes confluent at the larger end, scattered in the middle circumference of the egg, and almost entirely absent at the smaller end. In the second specimen the markings are not so distinct, of paler colour, and not so thickly set at the larger end. The third, which has a white ground, presents only a few purplish-brown markings at the larger end, the rest of the egg being almost entirely clear, with the exception of a few washed-out looking specks, which are widely scattered over the surface.
Rallus brachipus, Swains. Anim. in Menag. p. 336 (1838).
Rallus lewinii, Swains, ibid. p. 336 (1838).
Rallus lewinii, Gould, Birds of Australia, fol. vi. pl. 77 (1848).
Lewinia brachypus, Bonap. Compt. Rend. de l’Acad. Sci. tom. xliii. (1856).
Ad. similis R, philippensi, sed minor et saturatior et dorso haud albido maculato, primariis concoloribus: supercilio cineraceo nullo, facie laterali et colli lateribus saturatè cinereis, minimè rufis, fasciâ pectorali cervinâ nullâ distinguendus.
Adult. Crown and sides of the head and hind neck dark rufous, each feather centred with black; chin greyish white; cheeks, fore neck, and breast olivaceous grey tinged with rufous; upper surface dark olivaceous brown, the interscapulars largely centred with glossy brownish black; the whole of the upper wing-coverts, the sides of the body, and the upper part of abdomen brownish black, fasciated with narrow and pretty regular bars of white; quills and tail-feathers dark brown, the scapulars black with olivaceous-brown margins; flanks and lower part of abdomen with broken transverse bars of fulvous; under tail-coverts crossed and tipped with white; bill and feet dark brown. Total length 8·75 inches; wing, from flexure, 4; tail 1·5; bill, along the ridge 1·3, along the edge of lower mandible 1·6; tarsus 1·2; middle toe and claw 1·5.
Young. Has the head very similar to R. philippensis in its immature state; plumage generally duller; there is very little rufous on the head, and only a dull wash of rufous on the hind neck; the fore neck and breast paler than in the adult, whitish on the throat and abdomen.
Baron A. von Hügel thus records (in a letter to ‘The Ibis,’ 1875, pp. 392, 393) his good fortune in obtaining a specimen of this Rail from the Auckland Islands, this being indeed my only authority for including the species in the Avifauna of New Zealand:—
“I have received a Rail killed on the Auckland Islands by the unfortunate Captain Musgrave of the ‘Grafton.’ As soon as I got the bird I was struck with its resemblance to one of the Rallidæ I was acquainted with, but for some time could not make out which. At last it struck me that it must be the Australian Rallus brachypus; and on comparing the Auckland with the Australian bird, I found them to agree very closely, though the colouring seemed different; but as the Canterbury-Museum specimen appears to be very old and faded, it is impossible to judge. I shall be able to determine if my Rail is Rallus brachypus, or new, as soon as I get to Melbourne, there being a good series there. At all events it is the first Rail known to have been procured in the group.”
The Baron has since informed me that a further comparison of specimens confirms his first conjecture. The specimen is now packed away with the rest of his collection, so that I have not yet had an opportunity of examining it; but I feel no hesitation in accepting his identification of the species.
Tabuan Rail, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 235 (1785).
Rallus tabuensis, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 717 (1788, ex Lath.).
Crex plumbea, Gray, in Griffith’s Anim. Kingd. iii. p. 410 (1829).
Gallinula immaculata, Swains. Classif. of B. ii. p. 358 (1837).
Rallus minutus, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 178 (1844).
Corethrura tabuensis, Gray, Gen. of B. iii. p. 595 (1846).
Zapornia spilonota, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 244 (1848).
Porzana immaculata, Gould, B. Austr. vi. pl. 82 (1848).
Porzana tabuensis, Hartl. J. f. O. 1854, p. 169.
Zapornia umbrina, Cass. Pr. Phil. Acad. viii. p. 254 (1856).
Zapornia umbrata, Hartl. Wiegm. Arch. 1858, p. 29.
Rallus minor, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7470.
Porzana? tabuensis, Gould, Handb. B. of Austr. ii. p. 341 (1865).
Ortygometra tabuensis, Finsch & Hartl. Beitr. Faun. Centralpolyn. p. 167 (1867).
Zapornia tabuensis, Gray, Hand-1. of B. iii. p. 63 (1870).
Ad. suprà obscurè chocolatinus, alis dorso concoloribus, primariis nigricantibus, extùs dorsi colore lavatis: caudâ nigricante vix dorsi colore lavatâ pileo sordidè plumbescente, obscurè brunneo adumbrato, facie laterali paullò pallidiore: corpore subtùs sordidè cinereo, hypochondriis crissoque obsoletè, subcaudalibus latiùs et magis conspicuè albo transfasciatis: subalaribus cinerascenti-brunneis albo variis: rostro nigricanti-brunneo: pedibus pallidè rubris: iride saturatè rubrâ.
Adult. Head, neck, and all the under surface dark slate-grey, shaded on the crown with dull brown, and fading into light cinereous grey on the chin; the whole of the back and upper surface of wings chocolate-brown, becoming darker on the rump and upper tail-coverts; wing-feathers blackish brown, dusky grey on their under surface; the first primary narrowly margined on the outer web with greyish white; tail-feathers dull brownish black; inner lining of wings slaty brown, largely varied with white; axillary plumes and feathers covering the flanks tinged with brown, the former presenting obsolete bars and the latter minutely tipped with white; under tail-coverts dark brown, with numerous transverse bars of white. Irides and eyelids bright red; tarsi and toes paler red; bill uniform brownish black. Total length 7·25 inches; wing, from flexure, 3·3; tail 2; bill, along the ridge ·7, along the edge of lower mandible ·8; bare tibia ·4; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 1·4; hind toe and claw 1·55.
Young. Plumage darker and with less brown on the upper parts. Irides, bill, and feet black.
Chick. Covered with black down of a silky texture and delicately glossed with green. Bill black, with a minute white spot near the tip of upper mandible; irides and legs black.
Obs. The sexes are precisely alike in plumage.
Variety. An example in the Otago Museum has the throat white, with slight indications also of white down the fore neck and breast.
This elegant little Rail has a wide geographical distribution. According to Mr. Gould it is universally spread over the whole of Australia, Tasmania, and the islands in Bass’s Strait. It also occurs in the Society, Tonga, and Fiji groups, and probably over the whole extent of the Polynesian archipelago. It is sparingly dispersed with us over both Islands, frequenting wet and swampy localities, and especially the dense beds of raupo (Typha angustifolia), which afford it abundant shelter. Its compressed form enables it to thread its way among the close-growing reed-stems with wonderful celerity; and although its low purring note (resembling that of a brood hen) may sometimes be heard on every side, it is extremely difficult to obtain a glimpse of the bird. Its body weighs only two ounces; and its attenuated toes are well adapted for traversing the oozy marsh in search of its food, which consists of small fresh-water mollusks, insects, seeds of aquatic plants, and the tender blades of various grasses. It seldom takes wing, and then only for a very short distance; but it runs with rapidity, swims very gracefully, and often dives to escape its enemies.
Mr. Cheeseman writes to me:—“I had supposed that this bird had disappeared from the vicinity of Auckland, but only a few months ago (1881) Mr. Symons sent me a specimen shot in the mangrove-swamps of Shoal Bay, quite close to Devonport. He assures me that he frequently sees the bird there. I have received specimens from Raglan and the Waikato.”
It is still comparatively plentiful in a marshy spot near the mouth of the Ngaruhe creek, in the Hawke’s Bay district. After leaving the Petane village for the Maori settlement a few miles inland, the traveller passes over a sandy belt of some extent separating the ocean from a picturesque lagoon called Tangoio, deeply fringed and almost choked in some places with the luxuriant raupo vegetation. At the time of my last visit the weather was beautifully fine, there being not a breath of wind to ripple the surface of the lake, on the glassy face of which the fern-clad hills above, with their patches of native evergreen, were reflected as in a natural mirror. Amongst these raupo sedges the Swamp-Rail has its home, and may be heard, on every side, producing the peculiar purring note which denotes its presence, although the bird itself is so rarely visible. From this locality I have received some fine specimens through the courtesy of Mr. Hamilton, who resides in the neighbourhood.
Mr. Gould was never able to find the nest or eggs in Australia, nor have I been more successful in New Zealand; but on one occasion I was fortunate enough to secure a brood of four newly hatched chicks. The old birds took refuge in a bramble-bush; but on hearing the feeble cheep of their captured offspring they left cover, and, under a good running shot, I secured them both. The young birds, before they were caught, ran briskly, and, taking immediately to a ditch of water, endeavoured to elude further pursuit by diving.
For specimens of this bird I have been chiefly indebted to a good-natured household cat, who was accustomed to bring them in killed, but otherwise undamaged, and allow herself to be robbed of her prey. Surely this cat merits an apotheosis in the Colonial Museum!
An egg of the Swamp-Rail in the Canterbury Museum is broadly elliptical in form, measuring 1·3 by ·95 of an inch, and is of a uniform pale creamy brown, minutely and obscurely freckled over the entire surface with a darker tint. The shell is slightly glossed.
Ortygometra affins, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 14(1844).
Porzana affinis, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 599 (1856).
Rallus punctatus, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7470.
Dr. Finsch says:—“Ortygometra pygmæa, Finsch, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. viii. p. 202Ortygometra pygmæa, Naum. A specimen received from Dr. Haast, under the name of O. affinis, belongs really to this widely-distributed species. I compared it with specimens from various parts of Europe, Australia, and Japan, and cannot detect the slightest constant character to keep it separate.”
Ad. suprà ochrascenti-olivaceus, dorsi plumis medialiter nigris et albo vermiculatim aut irregulariter notatis vel marginatis: pileo paullulum obscuriore, nigro notato: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus ferè immaculatis, majoribus autem versus apicem albo ocellatis: remigibus brunneis concoloribus, primario extimo albido angustè marginato, secundariis medialiter nigricantibus dorsi colore marginatis et extùs maculis albis notatis: caudâ nigrâ saturaté ochraceo lavatâ: supercilio distincto, facie laterali et corpore subtùs toto cinereis, abdomine imo cum hypochondriis et subcaudalibus nigricantibus, albo aut maculatis vel transfasciatis: subalaribus cinerascentibus, albo notatis: rostro et pedibus pallidè brunneis olivascente tinctis: iride sordidè rubrâ.
Adult. Crown of the head, nape, and all the hind neck rusty brown, with a broad mark of black down the centr of each feather; lower sides of the neck and the upper wing-coverts pale rusty brown, some of the feathers tipped with white; back and mantle brownish black, varied with white and broadly margined with rusty brown; the secondary wing-coverts conspicuously ocellated on both webs, and terminally margined with white; upper tail-coverts dark rusty brown; sides of the head, throat, fore neck, and the whole of the breast pale cinereous grey, fading to silvery grey on the chin; sides of the body, flanks, abdomen, and under tail-coverts blackish brown, crossed by numerous irregular bands of white; wing-feathers dull olive-brown, dusky grey on their under surface, the first primary narrowly margined on the outer web with white; lining of wings greyish brown, obscurely marked with white; tail-feathers blackish brown, with rusty margins and obsolete spots of white. The tongue is furnished with a horny tip. Irides dull red; bill, tarsi, and toes pale brown, tinged with olive. Total length 7·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 3·25; tail 1·6; bill, along the ridge ·7, along the edge of lower mandible ·8; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 1·05; middle toe and claw 1·5; hind toe and claw ·6.
Young. Differs from the adult in having the plumage of the upper surface generally lighter and the sides of the neck and upper parts of the breast much suffused with pale rufous; the banded markings on the flanks are less distinct, the white bars being broken and the black more or less suffused with brown. Irides bright reddish brown; bill pea-green shading into black on the upper mandible; tarsi and toes pale olive, the joints and claws brownish; tongue bluish green. Total length 7 inches; extent of wings 10; wing, from flexure, 3·2.
Obs. The bands on the flanks are more conspicuous in the male, and the ferruginous of the upper parts is brighter; in other respects the sexes are alike. There is no appreciable difference in size.
This species closely resembles the Australian O. palustris, but is distinguishable by its somewhat larger size and the absence of white markings on the primaries.
Ortygometra pygmæa (another Australian species) differs from our bird only in having the chin, lower part of breast, and abdomen almost pure white.
Note. On comparing a specimen from Oamaru in the South with one from North Waikato, the former differed only in having the cheeks and the abdomen lighter.
This handsome little Rail is found in both Islands; but it is everywhere extremely rare and difficult to obtain. It frequents the sedgy banks of creeks and rivers and the reed-covered lagoons near the sea-coast. It swims with great facility, and, like other members of the genus, often eludes pursuit by diving. Its food appears to consist principally of aquatic insects and small freshwater mollusks, in the pursuit of which its compressed form enables it to pass deftly among the close-growing vegetation of the swamps. It is also light on its feet; and I have observed it on the Hotuiti lagoon run nimbly along a floating raupo-flag without even dipping its feathers. Except that it nests early in the season (probably about August or beginning of September), very little is at present known of its breeding-habits; but it may be safely inferred that they are in no respect different from those of the closely-allied species inhabiting Australia.
This is, however, one of those recluse species that may exist for years in an inhabited district without ever being detected; such birds, for example, as the Tristan d’Acunha Rail ( Proc. Zool. Soc. 1861, p. 260, pl. xxx.Gallinula nesiotis), of which Sir George Grey gave me the following interesting account. He had incidentally heard of the existence of a flightless Swamp-hen in that island, and, at his instance, both Mr.
Unlike the Banded Rail, which is on the increase, this bird is becoming almost extinct. At one time it was comparatively plentiful in the Hawke’s Bay district and further south. The only one I have heard of for some years past was captured alive at Waipawa. The frightened little creature had taken refuge in a bunch of tussock, where it attempted to conceal itself, but was caught by the hand without any difficulty.
It has always been very rare in the far north. The description of the young bird is from a specimen caught by my son’s dog when Pheasant-shooting in the Upper Waikato in November 1882. On dissection it proved to be a male. The stomach contained seeds and black comminuted matter, among which I detected insect-remains and an aquatic grub an inch long. There is a single specimen in the Auckland Museum which was obtained at Whangarei.
A broken specimen of the egg of this species, recently brought by Mr. Henry Travers from the Chatham Islands, is described by Hutton as ·77 inch in breadth, of an olive-brown colour, and highly polished.
On the synonymy of this species Professor Hutton has sent me the following note:— “I am sure that you are right about the identification of “I. “2. “3. “4. “I doubt I do not admit Ocydromus earli, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 165 (nec Ocydromus earli. I always agreed with you, and I do not understand how Finsch thinks otherwise. I think the following is about right:—O. earli, Gray; ‘Ibis,’ 1862, p. 26; also, O. australis, Gray, ibid. in part; Buller, ‘Birds of New Zealand.’ Whether or not it is the Rallus rufus of Ellman I have no means of judging.O. fuscus, Dubus, R. troglodytes, Forster, ‘Descr. An.’ p. 110; R. fuscus, Ellman?; Buller, ‘Birds of New Zealand.’O. australis, Sparrm.; Gray, in ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror’ (young only); Buller, ‘Birds of New Zealand,’ in part (not the figure).O. troglodytes, Gmel.; O. australis, Gray, ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror’ (adult); and Buller, ‘Birds of New Zealand,’ in part, with figure.O. brachypterus, Lafr., being a synonym of either of these. Finsch thinks it is the same as O. hectori, mihi, which is very probable. I have had two specimens of O. fuscus sent to me from the Waiau district, on the eastern side of the Alps—the region of O. finschi, mihi; so I now think that O. finschi is probably only the young of O. fuscus.”O. troglodytes as a species; my plate in the former edition therefore represents a highly coloured example of O. australis.
Ad. ♂ rufescenti-fulvus: plumis corporis superioris medialiter nigricantibus, rufescenti-fulvo marginatis: pileo summo et collo postico saturatè rufescenti-fulvis indistincté nigro variis: supercilio distincto sordidè cinereo, parte anticâ fulvescente: facie laterali rufescente, regione paroticâ fulvo variâ: genis cum collo laterali imo et gutture toto sordidè cinereis: pectore superiore et laterali rufescente: corpore reliquo subtùs lætiùs cinereo, hypochondriis rufescenti-brunneis: rostro brunneo, versus apicem cinerascenti-corneo, culmine saturatiore: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride rufescenti-brunneâ.
Ad. ♀ mari similis, sed valdè minor et obscurior.
Adult male. Upper parts rufous fulvous, darkest on the crown and nape, each feather shaded with black in the centre; throat, fore neck, a superciliary streak widening outwards and extending to the nape, lower part of breast and the abdomen dull cinereous, tinged more or less with rufous; lores, sides of the head and neck, upper part of breast and surface of wings bright rufous fulvous; lower part of back, rump, sides of the body, and thighs obscure rufous brown; wing-feathers fuscous black, with rufous-brown edges, the primaries banded on their inner vane with bright rufous; tail-feathers fuscous black, with paler edges; under tailcoverts fuscous, banded with bright rufous. The feathers of the body are plumbeous at the base, with pure white shafts. Irides bright reddish brown; bill reddish brown, darker on the ridge, and changing to horn-grey at the tip; tarsi and toes pale brown, claws darker. Total length 21 inches; extent of wings 22·5; wing, from flexure, 7·75; tail 4·75; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·25; tarsus 2·5; middle toe and claw 3; hind toe and claw 1.
Adult female. Plumage similar to that of the male, but generally of a darker shade, and with the barred markings on the primaries more regular and distinct. It may readily be distinguished by its smaller size. An example taken on the nest (with egg and young bird) gave the following measurements:—Length 17 inches;
Young. The colours of the underparts duller and more blended than in the adult; upper parts darker and more uniform in colour. Throat, breast, and under surface generally dull brownish grey, paler on the throat, washed with ferruginous on the lower part of fore neck and on the sides of the body; no rufous band on the sides of the face.
Fledgling. The whole of the plumage of a dingy rufous brown, the feathers of the upper parts shaded in the centre with fuscous black; paler on the underparts; tinged on the sides of the head and breast with cinereous; feet pale brown. In the specimen above described there is no appearance yet of quills, and there is much fluffy down still adhering to the plumage, especially on the head, lower part of back, and flanks.
Chick. Covered with soft down of a brownish-black colour; bill dark brown, with a small white speck near the tip of the upper mandible.
Obs. Individuals vary considerably in the general tone of their plumage, as well as in the details of their colouring, seldom two specimens being found exactly alike. The ground-colour of the upper parts varies from a dingy rufous brown to a bright reddish fulvous. In some specimens the soft overlapping plumage of the wings is banded on both webs with light fulvous brown. The extent of the rufous colouring on the breast likewise varies very much, and in some specimens is entirely wanting, while in others in which this feature is conspicuous the rufous bands on the under tail-coverts are absent. This individual variability of colour, although due in some measure to conditions of age and sex, is characteristic of the genus.
Partial albino. The following is the description of a very singular specimen obtained in the Manawatu district, and presented to me by Mr.
There is another somewhat similar specimen in the Colonial Museum, but more largely marked with white on the back, breast, and flanks.
Forster’s description of The Weka Rail or Woodhen is one of the few New-Zealand birds that already possess a literature. Cook mentions it in his ‘Voyages;’ the naturalists who accompanied him figured and described it, but without being able to discriminate the different species Ocydromus australis, in his MS. account of the Voyage, was published by Sparrman in 1786.
In my former edition, I treated the North-Island Woodhen (as every one else had done before) as the Ocydromus earli of Mr.
Dr. Finsch was the first naturalist to raise any question about it; for in a communication to
Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 231.O. earli, Gray, and not having compared it myself, I am unable to make out whether the true earli is indeed the bright cinnamon-red bird as Captain Hutton and I believe, or whether it is the same as O. australis figured under the name of earli by Dr. Buller.”
In 1878 I published Ibid. vol. x. pp. 213–2216.infrà, p. 120), in which I adhered to the nomenclature I had adopted, and added a fourth species (O. brachypterus) to the list.
In the autumn of 1885 I had an opportunity of examining at Auckland a large collection of birds brought by Mr. Reischek from the South Island. Among the most interesting of these was a species of Woodhen, closely resembling the North-Island bird, but distinguishable by its more cinnamon-coloured plumage and its brighter legs and feet. Of this Woodhen, Mr. Reischek had obtained five specimens, two of which (male and female) I was fortunate enough to secure.
On coming to England I hunted up the type of Mr. Ocydromus earli at the British Museum, and then discovered to my surprise that this was identical with the new bird brought by Reischek from the South Island, which must therefore stand as Ocydromus earli. This specimen was brought from New Zealand by Mr.
It thus follows that the common Woodhen of the North Island is still without a distinctive name.
I find, on looking over the old type-collection of birds in the British Museum, that Sir George Grey, K.C.B., was one of the earliest and most liberal contributors of specimens from New Zealand. I have therefore decided to distinguish this form as To myself personally it is very gratifying to be in a position to pay this compliment to Sir George Grey. He was the valued friend of my late honoured father and, in the early days of the colony, encouraged and aided him in his laborious missionary work. Moreover, I have a grateful recollection of many personal acts of kindness to myself in my younger days. But his real claim to special mention here is that, while holding high office, he has always taken an active interest in the furtherance of Ornithological science. In illustration of this I may mention that, as far back as 1863, when Governor of New Zealand, he urged upon me the preparation of a handbook on the subject for the use of colonial students. When, some ten years later, I published my ‘History of the Birds of New Zealand,’ he was the first of my many colonial friends to send me a cordial letter of congratulation. And when, at a subsequent date, at the request of the Colonial Government, I produced an illustrated ‘Manual of the Birds of New Zealand,’ he sent me the following appreciative note:— “I am very much obliged to you for the copy of your ‘Manual of the Birds of New Zealand,’ which you have been good enough to send me. I regard it as being in every respect a work of great value; and it possesses this great advantage, that from the Diagram of a Bird which you have introduced into it, to illustrate the technical terms used in describing the various species, and from the lucid language in which each bird is described, you have rendered your work a most valuable introduction to the study of the science of ornithology, with the aid of which any student may readily master that subject in so far as it relates to New Zealand, and thoroughly understand any other ornithological work that he may read. In this respect you have rendered a great benefit to the youth of New Zealand.Ocydromus greyi. In thus dedicating the species to that veteran statesman and scientist, I feel sure that I shall have the approval of my ornithological brethren, both in this country and abroad. I do this the more readily because I have been compelled (as stated in Vol. I. p. 178) to destroy the only other connecting-link of the kind by expunging Stringops greyi from our list of speciesMy Dear Buller,—
“ G. Grey.”
The range of this species is strictly confined to the North Island. Speaking generally, it is a rare bird in the country lying north of Auckland, is sparingly dispersed over the Waikato district, and is very abundant in the southern parts of the island. In former times, according to the accounts of
Among the farmers it has rather a bad reputation. There can be no doubt that it does sometimes commit depredations. A friend of mine living in a country place was continually missing eggs from his poultry-yard; and he determined to set a watch, when it was discovered that the Woodhen was the culprit. He observed the bird make straight for a nest full of eggs, tap a hole with its bill in each of them in succession, and suck up the contents.
The Woodhen is furnished with ample wings, but they are so feebly developed as to render the bird quite incapable of flight. The quill-feathers have broad webs, but are soft and flexible, while the long inner secondaries take the form of a loose overlapping mantle. The legs, on the other hand, are very strongly developed, and the bird is, in some measure, compensated for its disability of wing by being able to run almost with the swiftness of a rat. Its anterior extremities, although useless for the ordinary purposes of flight, appear to be of some assistance to the bird when running, as they are briskly fluttered, apparently for the purpose of steadying the body. Like most other Rails, its wings are armed below the carpal joint with a sharp spur, the object of which, unless as a means of defence, it is not easy to divine. Even in very young birds it is strong and sharp, and at maturity attains a length of ·25 of an inch. I have observed that when two of these birds are fighting they often buffet each other with their wings; and I have frequently myself been made aware of the existence of this spur on seizing the bird with the hand. As, however, in the case of the smaller Rails, the spur is too diminutive to be at all effective as a weapon of defence, it may serve some other useful end in the economy of the bird, which has hitherto escaped discovery.
It is a notorious fact of late that this species, notwithstanding its feebly developed wings, rendering it quite incapable of flight, is getting every year more plentiful in the settled districts of the North Island. The reason is doubtless to be found in the fact that while its natural enemies, hawks and wild cats, diminish with the progress of settlement, the cultivation of the country increases its advantages in the every-day struggle for existence. The nocturnal cry of the Woodhen is now very familiar in districts where a few years ago it was quite unknown.
In discussing the osteology of this highly aberrant form of Rail, a curious fact was pointed out by Professor Newton, in a communication to the Zoological Society, namely that the New-Zealand Referring thereto, Professor Newton has favoured me with the following note:—“This I pointed out at a meeting of the Zoological Society, held 12th December, 1865, when I described, for the first time in public, a portion of the scapular arch in The late Professor Garrod sent me the following valuable communication on the same subject:—“In its osteology and visceral anatomy, as well as in its myology, “There are two carotid arteries as in the Rails; and the cæca of the intestine are just three inches long, the intestine itself being a little over two feet from pylorus to anus. The gizzard is weak; the oil-gland on the coccyx carries a densely feathered tuft at its apex. “So many features have they in common, that it would be difficult for any one to bring convincing arguments against the statement that Ocydromus and the Dodo of the Mauritius are the only two known forms (excepting, of course, the Struthiones) in which the angle formed by the axes of the coracoid and scapula is greater than a right angle Didus, in which the same thing occurs, and stated that, so far as I then knew (and, for the matter of that, still know), this feature was peculiar to these two genera alone among non-struthious birds. The remarks I made at this meeting were never printed; for, learning that Prof. Owen wished to describe those portions of the skeleton of Didus which Mr. Cf. Phil. Trans. 1869, p. 341, note.) I cannot attempt to give any reason that would plausibly account for this singular deviation of structure from the normal Carinate form in two birds so unlike as Ocydromus and Didus: there the matter is, and one must leave it at present.”Carinatæ and Ratitæ Ocydromus agrees completely with the Rails; and its close relationship to Tribonyx is undoubted. The peculiarities depend on the reduction in the development of the anterior extremities, which causes the typically ralline sternum to be much reduced in size and the coracoid bones to be separated at their lower ends. The slenderness of the furcula, which is also peculiarly large, depends on the same cause. As in the typical Rallidæ, the skull is schizognathous and holorhinal; in other words, the maxillo-palatine bones of either side do not anchylose along the middle line, and the nasal bones are not split up as in the true Waders or the Gulls. The vomer is well developed, and reaches forward, as far as the anterior border of the maxillo-palatines; it is bifid behind. The wing-bones are feebly developed, and those of the leg are unusually strong. The pollex carries a long claw; the hallux is small and raised at its base.Ocydromus is one of the nearest allies of the Apteryx. This similarity may be the simple result of similar influences acting on different natures, the diminished necessity for the use of the anterior limbs allowing them to dwindle in both. But, with the facts of geographical distribution to back it, the opinion may be fairly maintained that Apteryx and Ocydromus had the same ancestor not far back in time. It may be said that the pelvis is very different; but the same remark partly applies to Tinamus, an undoubted ally, and a bird also most probably of the same stock, though residing so far off.”
The Woodhen is seminocturnal in its habits, and during the day usually remains concealed in the thick fern or scrub which covers its haunts, or takes refuge in a hollow log or other natural cavity. Sometimes, however, it excavates a home for itself underground, the work being performed entirely with the bill and with great rapidity, as I have frequently had an opportunity of observing. These subterranean burrows are often of considerable length, and not only serve as a diurnal retreat, but furnish also a convenient breeding-place.
This species is comparatively plentiful in the snow-country adjacent to Ruapehu and Tongariro, notwithstanding the severity of the climate at this altitude during a large portion of the year. As is well known, several berry-producing trees, such as the totara and the kahikatea, reappear on these mountain-heights in a remarkably dwarfed form, being indeed little more than scrub spreading over the ground. These diminutive representatives of forest-growths nevertheless produce berries of the full size, and these being accessible from the ground are eagerly sought after by the Woodhen, which becomes at this season excessively fat, and is in great demand among the Maoris in consequence. When proving, in the Native Land Court, the tribal title to this country, where, owing to the extreme poverty of the soil, it was difficult to discover the necessary acts of ownership in former times on the part of the claimants or their ancestors, I was always glad to fall back upon evidence of Weka-hunting within the disputed boundaries, as affording proof of ancient title.
As we descend from the mountain-slopes to the Murimotu downs—the land of the snow-grass and tussock—the Woodhen becomes less numerous, but in the widely scattered clumps of bush a few of them are always to be met with. In one of these localities, at the back of Mr. Moorhouse’s station, I found that they had been digging up and feeding upon the so-called vegetable caterpillar (Cordiceps robertsii), which was unusually abundant there.
As the evening shades begin to cover the land, the first note to be heard in the scrubby plains or at the edge of the darkening forest is the cry of the Weka, two of them invariably calling in concert. The female leads off with a sharp shrill whistle, followed before she has half finished by the male, the cry commencing with a peculiar growling note, like c-r-r-u, which breaks into a whistle. These cries are repeated by both several times in rapid succession, and then for a few minutes the birds are quiet; again the shrill clamour and a pause; and so on till the darkness of advancing night has silenced for a time even the vigilant Weka, and all around is still.
As will appear further on, the Woodhens inhabiting the South Island belong to several totally distinct species, although closely resembling the present one both in form and habits of life. Now it is a curious fact that while all the southern species are remarkably bold and fearless (so tame, indeed, as to visit the farmer’s yard, and sometimes even to enter the house), the northern bird is naturally shy and recluse—a development of character which Sir
I have on several occasions kept caged Woodhens for a considerable time; but, although I persevered in one instance for more than two years, I could never succeed in completely domesticating them. I was thus afforded, however, an opportunity of studying their character, which may be summed up in two words—pugnacious and gluttonous. The introduction of a piece of red cloth, or other brightly coloured object, was generally sufficient to excite the bird and make its feathers rise; but the presence of another Weka, whether male or female, would instantly provoke a display of hostility, and after some light skirmishing a fight would ensue, which generally, in the end, proved fatal to the intruder. On one occasion I introduced into the cage a small mirror, and watched the effect: ruffling its feathers and stretching out its neck, the Weka advanced slowly towards the glass, and then made a sudden dash at its supposed adversary, and continued to repeat the attack with so much passion and violence, that I thought it prudent to remove the exciting object, to save the bird from injuring itself. On the charge of gluttony I may say that not only were my captives omnivorous, devouring fish, flesh, and fowl, whether cooked or raw, boiled potato and other vegetables, green fruit, and, in short, every thing within the digestive power of the gizzard, but they also had a most inordinate and voracious appetite. As a proof of this, I may state, by reference to my note-book, that a single bird in the course of two months consumed nearly a hundredweight of cooked potatoes! In a wild state it subsists on berries of various kinds, with earthworms, grasshoppers, and other insects, while it never loses an opportunity of entombing in its capacious stomach a mouse or lizard. In the South Island Sir
In the daytime it moves about under thick cover with a stealthy gait, and continually flirts its tail upwards after the manner of the true Rails. The tail-feathers are of peculiar texture, having stiff shafts with loose disunited barbs; and in some specimens the shafts are found denuded at the tips for the space of nearly an inch. In skinning this bird, one is struck with the extraordinary development of the tibial muscles as compared with the humeral, betokening at once the habits of life already described. The skin is very tough, and adheres firmly to the body, especially on the thighs. There is another circumstance worth mentioning—namely that some Wekas have a strong inherent odour, which communicates itself to the hand if rubbed along the plumage, and does not entirely leave the dried skin, while others are wholly free from it. It is not dependent on sex, nor is it peculiar to any season of the year; but where it does exist, it differs perceptibly in degree in different examples. Possibly this may result from the long-continued occupation of a burrow rendered foul by the omnivorous habits of the bird.
It commences to breed early in September; for on the 30th of that month I saw a fine Weka chick at Archdeacon Hadfield’s house, at Otaki, and another at Wanganui some days earlier.
The sharp whistling cry of the Woodhen is a familiar sound to the benighted traveller as he
chop-chop-chop, or the far-off cry of the Koheperoa; but the note that will last, at intervals, through the long watches of the night is that of the Weka, generally thrice repeated and followed by a shriller one, the two sexes, as already stated, performing in concert. In the dark Fagus-forests of the hills, where even Owls are scarce, the cry of the Woodhen is the only sound that breaks the stillness of the night; and, owing to its peculiar shrillness, it may be heard to a considerable distance. In some conditions of the atmosphere, indeed, it is almost impossible to distinguish it from the piercing call of the Apteryx.
During certain seasons of the year the Weka keeps strictly to the woods, seeking its subsistence among the fallen débris of the forest vegetation, and digging for worms and grubs in the loose vegetable mould that accumulates around the roots of the trees. It may often be seen leisurely crossing the narrow bush-path, or turning over the fallen leaves in the more open parts of the forest; but in these localities it is always difficult to procure because of the abundant cover, and the impossibility of hunting it far even with a dog. In the soft sunshine of November, when the noisy hum of insect life betokens the presence of midsummer—when the low underwood is spangled with the snow-white flowers of the wild convolvulus and the air is laden with a delicious perfume from the waxy blossoms of the small Clematis—the Weka leaves the dark shade of the forest and comes forth with her well-grown brood to feed on the ground-berries that ripen at this season, and to feast on the crickets and beetles that are brought into activity by the genial warmth of the sun. Here it may be easily hunted down and captured with the aid of a dog.
As already stated, the Woodhen often converts its burrow into a breeding-place; but the following description of a nest found on the banks of the Manawatu river will show that other situations are sometimes selected. An aged kahikatea in tumbling to the ground had fallen athwart a huge gnarled stump, and remained in that position. Under the shelter afforded by the overlying trunk and among the knotted roots of the supporting stump the Weka had placed her nest, forming it of dry flags of the puwharawhara ( Astelia cunninghamii) loosely arranged. The nest was so admirably concealed by a growth of ferns that nothing but accident could have led to its discovery. It contained two eggs, which is the usual number, although I have occasionally met with a nest of three. These are slightly ovoido-conical in form, measuring 2·4 inches in length by 1·7 in breadth, and are of a creamy white colour, marked all over, but especially at the larger end, with small obscure spots of purple and brown. Examples differ slightly both in size and form; and in some the markings at the thick end assume a rounded well-defined character, similar to those which adorn the eggs of
On the outskirts of the woods this Rail may sometimes be seen consorting with the half-wild barndoor fowls from the Maori villages, and there is a widespread popular belief that they often interbreed, producing a hybrid offspring with hairy plumage and aborted quill-feathers. One of these supposed hybrids (a fine male bird) was sent to me by Dr. Lewis, the Medical Superintendent at Rotorua, and having brought the specimen to England, preserved in spirits, I placed it in the hands of the well-known comparative anatomist, Dr. Murie, for examination. He made a careful dissection and sent me a full report, showing that, notwithstanding a certain outward or superficial resemblance to a Weka, all the characters are Galline and not Ralline. Another specimen (an adult female), which I obtained at Manawatu, was submitted to Mr.
Gallirallus fuscus, Du Bus, Esquisses Orn. pl. 11 (1847).
Ocydromus nigricans, Buller, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. i. p. 111 (1868).
Ocydromus fuscus, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 354.
Ocydromus finschi, Hutton, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vi. p. 111 (1873).
Ad. brunnescenti-niger, plumis plus minusve rufescenti-brunneo marginatis: gutture et facie laterali cinereis vix brunneo tinctis: abdomine medio sordidè cinereo: remigibus brunnescenti-nigris, intùs rufescenti-brunneo maculatis: caudâ nigrâ: subcaudalibus ferrugineo transfasciatis: rostro nigricanti-brunneo: pedibus pallidé brunneis: iríde saturaté brunneâ.
Adult. General plumage brownish black, each feather margined more or less with rufous brown; throat and sides of the head cinereous, slightly tinged with brown; middle portion of abdomen dull cinereous; quills brownish black, obscurely banded or spotted on the inner webs with rufous brown; the soft feathers lining the wings faintly margined with rufous; tail-feathers black; under tail-coverts transversely barred with rufous. Irides bright reddish brown; bill dark brown, tinged with red towards the base; legs bright reddish brown; darker on the hind part of tarsi and on the under surface of toes. Total length 22 inches; extent of wings 23·25; wing, from flexure, 7·25; tail 5·25; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·4; tarsus 2·25; middle toe and claw 3; hind toe and claw 1.
Young. In young birds the plumage of the upper surface is more or less varied with rounded spots of rufous brown, and the primaries are obscurely banded with rufous. These quill-markings disappear after the first or second moult, the spots vanish, and the rufous streaks on the upper surface diminish as the bird gets older.
Obs. Examples vary in the amount of rufous colouring that pervades the plumage, some being almost wholly black and without any markings on the quills. A specimen in Sir
An apparently adult female specimen of this bird in the Canterbury Museum (obtained at Preservation Inlet) has the general plumage brownish black; throat dark grey mixed with smoky brown; the plumage of the fore neck, lower hind neck, and upper surface of wings presenting dull streaky marks of rufous, each feather being irregularly touched with this on each web; tail-feathers black; under coverts obscurely marked with rufous. On the underside of one of the primaries (an old feather which came out on being handled) there are obsolete rufous bars; and the scattered new feathers appearing on the upper surface of the body are almost entirely black; bill bright reddish brown at the base, horn-grey towards the tips of both mandibles; legs and feet reddish brown. It may be inferred from this state of plumage that the tendency of this species is to darken towards maturity.
Remarks. The type of Hutton’s Ocydromus finschi, with a label in his handwriting attached, is now in my collection. Prof. Ward, of Rochester, obtained it by exchange from the Otago Museum, and I was fortunate enough to get it back from New York six months afterwards. In this bird the primaries are very distinctly
O. fuscus the breast is like the rest of the plumage; but I have had specimens in which this grey feature was quite conspicuous. I have come to the conclusion, therefore, that these differences merely denote transitional states of plumage.
There is a similar specimen in the Canterbury Museum from the West Coast (South Island), and there is another from Preservation Inlet (marked ♂, Jan. 1873), in which the plumage is intermediate between the type of O. finschi and ordinary examples of O. fuscus, the general coloration being black with brown edges to the feathers. Judging by analogy I feel no hesitation in pronouncing this the immature condition of the Black Woodhen. Professor Hutton himself has already conjectured that his “O. finschi is only the young of O. fuscus”; and Dr. Finsch, to whom he had dedicated the supposed new species, has expressed a strong suspicion that one was a mere variety of the other. I think we may now take it that the matter admits of no further doubt.
Cook’s Second Voyage, edit. 4to, i. p. 97.This species of Woodhen, which is quite distinct from all the others, although for a long time confounded with them, inhabits the sea-shore and feeds among the kelp and seaweed. Hitherto it has only been found on the south-west coast of the South Island, where it is said to be extremely abundant. There can be no doubt that this is the bird referred to by Captain Cook in the following passage:—“Although they are numerous enough here [Dusky Bay], they are so scarce in other parts that I never saw but one … . . They inhabit the skirts of the woods, and feed on the sea-beach, and were so tame or foolish as to stand and stare at us till we knocked them down with a stick … . . They are a sort of Rail, about the size and a good deal like a common dunghill hen. Most of them are of a dirty black or dark brown colour”Gallirallus fuscus, appeared (l. c.) in 1847; but, owing to a doubt as to its native habitat, it was not admitted into the accepted list of New-Zealand birds. More recently, however, it was rediscovered by Dr. (now Sir James) Hector, and described by myself (l. c.) under the name of Ocydromus nigricans. Dr. Finsch having, at my request, compared one of my specimens with the type of Gallirallus fuscus (Du Bus), there could no longer be any doubt about their identity.
Sir J. Hector informs me that he never met with this kind of Woodhen at any distance from the sea-coast, and that it appears to subsist entirely on shell-fish and other marine productions.
Like its congeners, it may be easily snared by dangling a small bird or a mouse at the end of a stick, about a yard long, and then, by means of another stick somewhat longer, slipping a noose of green flax over the bird’s head as it attempts to seize the bait, the operator partially concealing himself by lying in the fern or grass.
The following record, in Hammett’s Journal of the West-Coast exploration in 1863, refers apparently to the same bird:—“Thursday, August 20 [after being on the verge of starvation for forty days]. Still raining in torrents! My blankets and my clothes are saturated. All that I can do is to stand in the pitiless rain, which can make me no wetter, and watch the surf as it rolls towards my feet. It is impossible to get a fire. I have caught two Woodhens; for as God sent the Ravens to feed Elijah, so these birds came to me, and my faithful dog caught them. I am thus provided with food for a day or two; but unless I can manage a fire to cook them, I must even eat them raw. I live in hope that the weather will clear, as the wind has changed. My faithful dog, how serviceable in many ways have you been to me!” Thus poor Hammett records his gratitude for the gift of Woodhens—the only inhabitants, besides rats, of this inhospitable coast. The occasional capture of one of these birds sufficed to keep him from absolute starvation, and through much suffering and privation Hammett survived to tell the melancholy fate of the rest of his party.
My late brother, Mr. Ocydromus greyi), which I had introduced, met with a similar fate. In fact, when deprived of its marine bill of fare, this species is quite as omnivorous as the others. In connexion with this, the ‘Canterbury Mail’ records the following case of anthropophagism:—“A returned digger relates that he captured a Woodhen in the act of feeding on the remains of a man, and being himself almost famished he quickly devoured the bird. To use the words of a well-known banker in London, who is the gourmet par excellence of the day,—‘That man, Sir, would eat his own father; he has the stomach of an Ostrich.’”
Lady Barker, in her charming little book, ‘Station Life in New Zealand,’ gives the following amusing account of her first acquaintance with the Woodhen:—“I lay back on a bed of fern watching the numbers of little birds around us. They boldly picked up our crumbs, without a thought of possible danger. Presently I felt a tug at the shawl on which I was lying. I was too lazy and dreamy to turn my head; so the next thing was a sharp dig on my arm which hurt me dreadfully. I looked round, and there was a Weka bent on investigating the intruder into its domain. The bird looked so cool and unconcerned, that I had not the heart to follow my first impulse and throw my stick at it; but my forbearance was presently rewarded by a stab on the ankle which fairly made me jump up with a scream, when my persecutor glided gracefully away among the bushes, leaving me, like Lord Ullin, ‘lamenting.’” The same pleasing writer, in giving an account of the Island of Wekas in Lake Coleridge, observes:—“No one can imagine how these birds came here; for the island is at least two miles from the nearest point of land; they can neither swim nor fly; and as every man’s hand is against them, no one would have thought it worth while to bring them over; but here they are in spite of all the apparent improbabilities attending their arrival, more tame and impudent than ever! It was dangerous to leave your bread unwatched for an instant; and, indeed, I saw one gliding off with an empty sardine-tin in its beak; I wonder how it liked the oil and little scales! They considered a cork a great prize, and carried several off triumphantly.”
Mr. Reischek informs me that, at the West Coast sounds, long after dark, he observed a bird swimming near the shore and sent his dog into the water after it. On being pursued the bird dived; and on being captured it proved to be a Black Woodhen. It is as mischievous as its cousin of the plains. An enterprising one entered Reischek’s tent during the night and carried off his last candle; and he surprised another, in the early dawn, carrying off one of his slippers.
Although, as already mentioned, it frequents the sea-shore and feeds on the kelp, the last-named naturalist met with it also, but only on rare occasions, at an elevation of 3000 feet above the sea. From a place of concealment he once watched a Black Woodhen hunting for its food; he observed that it scratched up the ground with its feet, just as a domestic fowl would do, and then picked it over with its bill. In illustration of its hardy nature, he told me that one which he had shot and hung up for a specimen soon revived and made its escape. Three days afterwards the dog caught it, and he found the body marked all over with shot. As might have been expected, his collection contained specimens in every condition of plumage. He found it very plentiful on the shores of Dusky Sound and of the Acheron passage; those which he collected at a higher elevation appeared to be larger birds and in much finer plumage than those frequenting the sea-shore.
Ocydromus earli, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 238.
Ad. similis O. greyi, sed pallidior, et tergi colore minus nigrescente: fasciâ pectorali castaneâ vix obsoletâ: hypochondriis subalaribusque fulvo minuté terminatis et fasciatis: rostro rufescenti-brunneo: pedibus aurantiaco-flavis.
Adult. Similar to Ocydromus greyi, but generally lighter, having less black on the upper surface, and the plumage suffused with warm cinnamon-brown; the primaries are more distinctly barred; there is little or no pectoral band, the plumage of the breast being irregularly stained with cinnamon; there is less grey on the underparts; the under wing-coverts and the flanks are obscurely barred and tipped with fulvous brown; and the markings on the under tail-coverts are obsolete. Irides yellowish brown; bill pale reddish brown; legs and feet beautiful pale lake-red. Total length 18·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 4·5; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·1; tarsus 2·4; middle toe and claw 2·6.
Obs. The plumage is perceptibly softer to the touch than in O. greyi, and has a more delicate appearance.
Mr. l. c.), says that the bill and feet are “horn-coloured.” This is applicable to the dried specimen from which his description was taken, but it is obvious, at a glance, that the colours of these parts have faded out in drying.
I have already mentioned (at p. 107) the circumstances under which I discovered that this bird, which belongs really to the South Island, had been, for many years, confounded with the North-Island Woodhen under the above name.
It is, indeed, a strange fact, in the local distribution of species, that a Woodhen so closely resembling in plumage the form inhabiting the North Island should have been met with in two far distant localities on the western side of the South Island. In 1877, Mr. Reischek obtained one of these birds on the summit of Mount Alexander. His dog had caught a downy chick, whose cries attracted the parent, which, on being shot from the camp fire, proved to be a female of this species, with pale reddish-coloured legs. He forwarded the specimen to the late Sir J. von Haast, who sent it on to the Imperial Museum at Vienna. Some years later Reischek met with this bird again in the vicinity of Milford Sound, and two of the specimens then collected by him (male and female) are now in my collection. It may be readily distinguished from the northern bird by the warmer tints of its plumage and the brightness of its irides, bill, and feet.
Its occurrence under the conditions I have mentioned is a very curious and suggestive fact, especially when we remember that at least three other well-marked species of Woodhen occur in the South Island, although not met with in the North Island.
The peculiar whistling cry of the Woodhen, which is usually commenced at sunset and is continued, more or less, all through the night, is very pleasant to hear. A pair of them usually perform together, calling alternately and in quick succession, the female always taking the lead. She commences with a low whistle, preceded by a guttural sound from the chest (only heard on a very near approach), and the call increases in force till it becomes a shrill whistle, the responsive call of the male being pitched in a different key.
Of the five specimens brought by Reischek (three males and two females) one pair was obtained on Cooper’s Island, separated from the mainland by half a mile of sea, and the others in a clump of native fuchsia at an elevation of 1000 feet.
Troglodyte Rail, Lath. Gen. Syn. v. p. 229 (1785).
Rallus australis, Sparrm. Mus. Carls. t. 14 (1786).
Rallus troglodytes, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 713 (1788).
Ocydromus troglodytes, Wagler, Syst. Amph. p. 98 (1830).
Ocydromus australis, Strickl. Ann. N. H. vii. p. 39 (1841).
Ad. suprà læté stramineus, dorsi plumis medialiter brunneis, quasi laté striatis: pileo saturatiore, magis rufescente: supercilio distincto sordidè albicante, posticè cinereo: facie laterali brunneâ vix cinerascente: genis et gutture toto clarè et pallidè cinereis: scapularibus lætè stramineis, medialiter brunnescentibus et irregulariter saturatè brunneo transfasciatis: alis et caudâ rufis, stramineo marginatis, nigro irregulariter transfasciatis, secundariis magis stramineo lavatis, dorso concoloribus: pectore superiore aurantiaco-fulvo, laterali stramineo, plumis medialiter brunnescentibus: pectore medio cinereo lavato: abdomine cinerascenti-olivaceo: hypochondriis et subcaudalibus stramineis, brunneo vel nigro transfasciatis: subalaribus olivascentibus, imis rufescentibus nigro transfasciatis: rostro brunneo, versus basin rufescente: pedibus pallidè coccineis: iride lætè rufescenti-brunneâ.
Adult male. Upper parts generally yellowish buff, varied on the back with a broad dash of black down the centre of each feather, and on the scapulars and wing-coverts with irregular transverse markings of reddish brown and black; crown of the head and nape rufous brown varied with black; the primaries with their superior coverts and the secondaries bright rufous, beautifully marked with regular transverse bars of black; the tail-feathers dark rufous barred and margined with black, and edged near the base with fulvous; upper part of chin, and a line from the base of the upper mandible passing over the eyes, dull greyish white; lores and region of the ears dull rufous brown; throat and sides of the head cinereous grey; sides of the neck, the whole of the fore neck, and upper part of breast bright fulvous, obscurely marked and shaded with brown; lower part of breast, and the whole of the abdomen, cinereous brown, varied more or less with grey, especially on the former; the soft plumage covering the tibiæ pale umber; sides of the body, flanks, and under tail-coverts yellowish brown, conspicuously barred all over with brownish black. Irides bright reddish brown; bill pale reddish brown at the base, brown at the tip; tarsi and toes pale lake-red, claws brown. Total length 24 inches; extent of wings 24; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 7; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2; tarsus 2·75; middle toe and claw 3·25; hind toe and claw 1·25.
Female. Smaller than the male, with darker plumage and duller-coloured legs. Total length 21 inches; extent of wings 21; wing, from flexure, 7; tail 5·5; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2; tarsus 2·25; middle toe and claw 2·75; hind toe and claw 1.
Young. In immature birds the tints of the plumage generally are lighter, the transverse markings are less distinct, and the colours of the bill and legs are paler; the irides are dark brown; there is less rufous on the head, and often considerably more of the cinereous grey colour on the breast and abdomen.
Chick. Covered with thick but soft tawny-brown down, which changes to smoky brown as the chick gets older darker on the sides of the face.
Varieties. Examples from different localities exhibit so much variety in size and plumage as to suggest the existence of another, closely allied species. Mr. Potts says that when he was “camping in one of the gorges of the Rangitata, a very striking variety used to visit the tent constantly: the individuals of either sex were above the average size; the general colour of the plumage light greyish brown, the feathers marked or barred with shades of dark brown; the rump, and in some instances the tips of the primaries, rich chestnut; throat and cheeks grey.”
Albinoes, more or less pure, are occasionally met with. The ‘Canterbury Press’ recorded the capture of one, on the Four-Peaks run, by one of Mr. Walker’s shepherds. This beautiful bird had the entire plumage ashy white, with obsolete spots and markings of pale grey, the bill and legs pale red, and the irides reddish brown. It was forwarded to England by the Canterbury Acclimatization Society as a gift to the Zoological Society, but did not long survive its arrival in the Gardens.
In the Otago Museum I examined a beautiful series of albinoes:—No. 1, obtained near Lake Wakatipu, has the whole of the plumage creamy white, being very soft and silky to the touch; on close examination, and on moving the covering plumage aside, there is the faintest indication of colour, with obsolete markings on the webs but very indistinct; the shafts of the quills pure white. Bill whitish horn-colour. Feet appear to have been originally red, with paler toes; irides stated as red. No. 2 is a less pure albino, also from Lake Wakatipu, presented to the Museum by Miss White. General plumage silver-grey, shading into greyish brown on the head and throat, and again on the breast and abdomen; all the markings that are brown and black in the ordinary bird are represented in this by darker shades of grey, having a washed-out appearance, but not faded, the whole of the plumage being delicately harmonized. On the quills there is a faint wash of chestnut, and, in a lesser degree, on the under surface of the tail-feathers. Bill and feet as in ordinary examples. No. 3 (from South land) shows a progressive step, the whole of the plumage being of a rich tawny colour, brightest on the forehead and breast, and shading into grey on the abdomen; the quills are handsomely barred with chestnut-brown; the plumage of the flanks and under tail-coverts similarly marked, but obscurely; the lores are whitish, and around the eyes there is a shade of grey which imparts to the face a very expressive look. Bill light horn-colour; feet as in the ordinary bird. No. 4 is similar to the last, but of a somewhat darker shade, with the obsolete markings on the plumage more pronounced, although the bars on the quills are not quite so distinct, whilst on the tail-feathers these markings are hardly perceptible. The dark shade around the eyes is absent, and the face has consequently a less coquettish look about it. Bill uniform yellow horn-colour; feet as in the last.
I have seen an example in pied plumage, similar to the partial albino of Ocydromus greyi mentioned at page 106, that is to say, with straggling pure white feathers all over the body.
A specimen obtained by
Much of what I have said in treating of the North-Island Woodhen is equally applicable to the present species, which is spread all over the South Island, being extremely plentiful in certain localities. It has never been met with in the North Island as an indigenous bird, although of late years it has been successfully acclimatized by Sir George Grey at Kawau, where, on account of its predatory habits, it has already become a nuisance.
The tendency of this bird to vary, in a very remarkable degree, has occasioned much difficulty in discriminating the form. The North-Island species, on the contrary, is very distinct in character from the other species, exhibiting only a slight degree of individual variation.
It has the same general habits as the North-Island Weka, and its cry is exactly similar. It differs, however, conspicuously in its nature, being as bold and fearless as the former species is timid and retiring. It frequents the settler’s homestead, enters the farmyard, and occasionally ventures inside the shepherd’s hut, in its prosecution of certain thievish propensities. Many amusing stories are told of its carrying off, out of pure inquisitiveness, such things as forks and spoons, tin pannikins, clasp-knives, and meerschaum pipes, &c. At Alford Forest it is said to have levanted with a silver watch (afterwards accidentally recovered) from a bushman’s hut; and on another occasion one of these
It is more diurnal in its habits than O. greyi, and may often be seen in the broad sunshine feeding about among the tussock-grass and stunted vegetation in the localities it inhabits. It is very pugnacious in character, rival males fighting freely when they meet, each bird spreading forward first one wing and then another, to present a better front to the adversary, and to receive the aimless thrust of his beak in a shield of pliant feathers. It has the same shrill whistling cry as the former species, uttered by a pair in concert or responsively; and on a near approach a loud drumming note may be distinguished as a prelude to the cry. Its food consists of lizards, mice, insects of every sort, certain berries when in season, eggs of all kinds, and the offal round about the stations. When it visits the farmyard it proves very destructive to the chickens, and has even been known to attack and kill a Spanish pullet, six weeks old.
Mr. Lumbricus uliginosus, Hutton. This species measures 12 and 14 inches in length, and is of sluggish habits. As both worms and Wekas are of nocturnal habits, the latter will have no trouble in seizing the worms and dragging them from their burrows. They are superior food to any other the Woodhen could obtain. These worms, I may observe, are limited in their distribution; but where they do exist they are found in considerable numbers. I have no doubt that the excessive size and fatness of the birds I have mentioned may be accounted for by the abundance of this particular food.”
The breeding-habits of this species are in no respect different from those of the North-Island Woodhen; but the eggs, which are from five to seven in number, are more richly coloured. There is a fine series of these in the Canterbury Museum, all of which were collected between the 20th of October and 25th of November. Ordinary examples measure 2·4 inches in length by 1·6 in breadth, and are white, sometimes with a yellowish tinge, marked over the entire surface, but particularly at the larger end, with irregular spots and blotches of pale reddish brown, among which are spots of purplish grey having the appearance of markings under the surface. In some specimens the reddish-brown spots are very rounded and distinct; in others they are splashed or smudgy; and one specimen has a broad irregular blotch of purplish brown near the thicker end.
A nest of this bird (in the Canterbury Museum) from Ohinitahi is a massive bed of dry grass, measuring 20 inches by 14, with a uniform thickness of about 4½ inches. In the centre there is a slight depression, which contains five eggs. These are yellowish-white, irregularly spotted and marked with yellowish-brown and pale washed-out markings of purple. In form they are slightly ovoidoconical, measuring 2·25 inches by 1·6, and presenting very little variety in colour, the spotted markings being generally thickest at the larger end. Mr. Enys states that the ground-colour varies in specimens from different localities, from a pure white to a rich cream-colour. I have observed that they are often much soiled, probably from contact with the bird’s feet during incubation.
My son’s collection contains upwards of twenty specimens exhibiting a considerable amount of individual variation, some of them being very richly marked with reddish brown, particularly at the larger end, others having widely scattered round spots over the entire surface (like the egg of Rallus philippensis), while others, again, have the larger pole washed with reddish brown, irregularly blotched and spotted with purplish brown, diminishing in the middle circumference, and disappearing entirely towards the smaller end, where the shell is creamy white.
Ocydromus brachypterus, Lafr. Mag. de Zool. 1842, pl. 42.
Ocydromus hectori, Hutton, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vi. p. 110 (1874).
Ocydromus brachypterus, Buller, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. x. p. 214 (1878).
Ad. similis O. australi, sed pallidior: supracaudalibus et scapularibus nigricanti-brunneo conspicuè transfasciatis: pectore superiore lætè stramineo: pectore medio cinereo tincto: hypochondriis et subcaudalibus distinctè transfasciatis.
Adult. Of similar size to O. australis, but having the plumage of a more uniform buff or pale olivaceous brown colour, with the wings, sides of the body, and flanks more conspicuously barred with brownish black.
Young. There is a specimen in the Otago Museum, just fledged, in which the distinctive characters described above are sufficiently marked. On comparing it with a fledgling of Ocydromus australis this became the more apparent, the former having obscure barred markings on the flanks, which were entirely absent in the other.
Varieties. A specimen which I refer to this species, on account of the pronounced character of the barred markings on the wings, is a singular example of partial albinism; the entire plumage is pure white, slightly shaded with cream on the nape, excepting only the wing-feathers which are of the normal colours, and completely covered with transverse markings, the bars being very regular and distinct; the tail-feathers are like the body-plumage, pure white; bill whitish horn-colour, tinged with yellow at the base; legs and feet pale brown.
My late brother, Mr.
A specimen brought by Mr. Henry Travers from the interior of the Marlborough, Province has the general plumage of a yellowish-buff colour, very obscurely marked and spotted with brown; and among those obtained by Sir George Grey in the Otago hills, for the purpose of stocking the Kawau Island, I observed that one (apparently a young bird) had similar plumage, although it was more distinctly banded on the sides and flanks. Sir G. Grey informed me that these birds were taken by himself at an elevation of 6000 feet, where they were found concealed under the tussocks or hiding among the loose rocks, the assistance of a dog being required to dislodge them. A specimen in my collection has the whole of the upper surface light fulvous shaded with brown, each feather having a subterminal spot of that colour; the primaries and secondaries are dark rufous brown barred with black, and the soft overlapping feathers are fulvous, stained more or less with rufous and barred with black in their middle portion, margined and spotted towards the end with cream-yellow; the throat, fore neck, and breast pale cinereous brown, mixed with fulvous on the crop; the lower parts dull cinereous brown, fasciated on the sides and flanks with narrow markings of fulvous.
Professor Hutton regards this bird as distinct (Ocydromus troglodytes, Wagler), and says of it:—“The distinguishing marks of this species are its large size, the general olivaceous tints of its plumage, the middle tail-feathers having generally a black streak down the shaft, and the primary feathers of the wing tapering towards the point.”
Obs. All the Woodhens in the Canterbury Museum (excepting O. earli and O. fuscus) appear to me to belong to O. australis. There is one marked (in Prof. Hutton’s handwriting) O. troglodytes, but it does not differ from the rest in any essential respect, although it is an unusually large example, and pale in all its colours.
It is with some hesitation that I accord specific rank to this bird, for although my collection contains some beautifully marked specimens, they intergrade to such an extent that it is extremely difficult to draw any distinct line between this species and O. australis.
I have thought it best, however, to give a figure and description of my most characteristic specimen, and to leave ornithologists to choose for themselves whether they will recognize this form as distinct, or as being only an extreme variety of the highly variable South-Island Woodhen.
My own revision of the group was thus stated in a paper which I read before the Wellington Philosophical Society in January 1878 Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. x. pp. 213–216.
“Although as a group the limits of the genus Ocydromus are sufficiently well defined, considerable difficulty has been experienced in determining the species. Every naturalist who has studied the subject appears to have arrived at some different conclusion as to the number of constant forms; and where the variances as to size and plumage are so well maintained it is difficult to avoid drawing specific distinction. If, however, it can be shown that all these extreme forms graduate in a series, or, in óther words, run into one another, it becomes impossible to find any fixed aberrant characters. Without professing to be able yet to place the matter beyond all dispute, I venture to think that the series of specimens which I have the honour to exhibit this evening affords pretty strong evidence that several of the so-called species in the South Island must be united under the name of Ocydromus australis.
“In my ‘Birds of New Zealand’ (1st ed.), I admitted only three well-ascertained species as inhabiting New Zealand—namely, O, earli, O. australis, and O. fuscus. I mentioned in the introduction to that work that, although Dr. Finsch recognized a fourth (O. troglodytes, Gmel.), I was unable to draw any specific line. Nevertheless, I pointed out very fully, in my account of the South-Island Woodhen, the great variation both as to size and markings which that species exhibits, especially among birds from different localities.
“Captain Hutton, in an article on the New-Zealand Woodhens, read before this Society Op. cit. vi. p. 110.O. troglodytes, and added two more species of his own under the names of O. hectori and O. finschi. He further described a ‘variety or immature’ example of this last-named species, which he suggests my ‘possibly be identical with Gallirallus brachypterus, Lafr.’
“Dr. Finsch, in a paper Ibid. vii. pp. 226–236.O. australis of my text, page 170, but not the plate; of O. hectori he remarks, ‘I consider this a good species after having compared a typical specimen;’ and of O. finschi he flays that, having examined the type, he considers it a good species, although not without some suspicion that it may prove to be a variety of O. fuscus. He confuses Ocydromus australis, Sparrm., with the well-known O. earli; and with respect to the latter in Hutton’s list, he makes the following singular statement:—‘Dr. Buller, in his great work, unfortunately does not mention the typical specimen of O. earli, Gray, and not having compared it myself, I am unable to make out whether the true earli is, indeed, the bright cinnamon-red bird as Captain Hutton and I believe, or whether it is the same as O. australis, figured under the name of earli by Dr. Buller’ Ibid. vii. p. 231.O. earli, and I don’t understand how Finsch thinks otherwise’ Id. ibid. ix. p. 330.
“Baron ‘The Ibis,’ 1875, p. 393.Ocydromus I have, of course, gone in for, and have a lot of notes about it. I don’t believe in more than three good species—O. australis (with endless varieties), O. fuscus, and O. earli. The last two are difficult to procure, although I shall doubtless get a series of the latter in the North Island; but of O. australis one could got a shipload in a very short time. I have got a splendid series, showing every age from embryo to adult, and varieties to perfection.’ It will be seen, therefore, that the Baron, who comes to the subject with a totally unprejudiced mind, adopts my published division of the species in a very positive manner.
“If, on further investigation, it should be found necessary to add a fourth species, this must be Trans. N.-Z. Inst. viii. p. 202.Ocydromus brachypterus, Lafresnaye; for Dr. Finsch, who appears to have examined the type specimen, affirms distinctly O. hectori; and Captain Hutton himself admits that this is ‘very probable’ Loc. cit. ix. p. 330.brachypterus, which expresses no distinguishing specific character, being equally appropriate to all the forms of Ocydromus.”
Rallus dieffenbachii, Gray in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 197 (1843).
Ocydromus dieffenbachii, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 14, pl. 15 (1844).
Hypotænidia dieffenbachii, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 599 (1856).
Hypotænidia dieffenbachii, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 238.
Rallus dieffenbachii, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 179 (1873).
Ad. suprà brunnescenti-olivaceus, ochraceo et nigricante irregulariter transversim fasciatus: dorso postico et uropygio olivascenti-brunneis, supracaudalibus aureo-fulvo transfasciatis: pileo summo brunneo unicolore: strigâ, longâ superciliari, genis et gutture toto cinereis: strigâ alterâ a basi maxillæ per oculum ductâ brunnescenti-castaneâ: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus castaneis, nigro transnotatis, versus apicem brunnescentibus, secundariies intimis dorso concoloribus, fulvo notatis: rectricibus olivascenti-brunneis, unicoloribus: collo laterali inferiore et pectore superiore nigris albido transfasciatis: pectore fulvescenti-ochraceo, nigro transfasciato: corpore reliquo subtùs nigro, albo transversim lineato: subcaudalibus latiùs fulvo transfasciatis: rostro brunneo, versus basin saturatiore: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride rufescenti-brunneâ.
Adult. Crown and nape dark rusty brown; sides of the head and the whole of the throat pale ash-grey, the former traversed by a broad band of rusty brown, which, commencing at the base of the upper mandible, passes across and under the eyes and thence downwards, changing on the ear-coverts to chestnut, and meeting in a broad band of that colour on the lower part of the hind neck; towards the base of the lower mandible, and a streak over the eyes, greyish white; on the fore neck a zone of black with rayed lines of white, bordering the ash-grey, and widening out on the sides into a rounded patch; neck beyond and the whole of the breast bright rufous brown, with narrow transverse bands of black; shoulders and all the upper part of the back fulvous brown varied with black, beautifully barred and spotted with pale rufous brown; lower part of back and rump dark fulvous brown, plumbeous beneath; underparts black, handsomely fasciated with white on the upper part of the abdomen, sides of the body and flanks, less distinctly so and tipped with fulvous on the lower part of abdomen and soft ventral feathers; under tail-coverts black, broadly barred with rufous brown; primaries bright chestnut, with numerous transverse bars of brownish black and tipped with olive-brown; secondaries much browner, with the chestnut considerably diminished and assuming the form of broad toothed markings on both vanes; wing-coverts similar to the plumage of the back, but largely tinged with chestnut; tail-feathers dark rusty brown, with rufous margins in their basal portion. Examined individually, the feathers of the back are blackish brown, crossed by two broad undulating bands of fulvous; those of the breast have the bands broader and more regular; those covering the abdomen and sides of the body are black, with two equidistant bars and a narrow terminal margin of white. Irides reddish brown; bill light brown, darker towards the tip; tarsi and toes light brown. Total length 12·25 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·75; tail 3·25; bill, along the ridge 1·45, along the edge of lower mandible 1·5; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·75; hind toe and claw ·6.
This beautiful Rail was brought from the Chatham Islands by Dr. Dieffenbach in 1842, and named by Mr. Gray in compliment to this enterprising naturalist. The adult specimen in the British Museum, from which my description was taken, is unique, and seems likely to remain so.
In answer to my inquiries, a Chatham-Island correspondent, Translation.—Now with regard to the bird. This bird, the Moeriki, disappeared in the third year after the occupation of this island by the Maoris. If the bird still survives I will catch you some. It was a beautiful bird. I remember seeing it when I was a boy. The Maoris called it a Popotai.] But my friend Roiri, although he had the stimulus of a handsome reward, never succeeded in finding the Moeriki; and we may therefore conclude that it is extremely rare, if not quite extinct, on the main island.
In this very interesting form the plumage bears a strong family likeness, in the style and distribution of the markings, to that of the well-known Rallus philippensis; but, as will be seen from the figures given below, its bill is more Ocydromine in its character.
It has been conclusively shown that the skeleton of the Rail described by Hutton under the name of Cabalus modestus (regarded in my former edition as the young of
Of the last-named group I have treated fully in my accounts of the five species inhabiting New Zealand.
Another allied species, Ocydromus sylvestris (Sclater), is confined to Lord Howe’s Island, a small insular district whose zoological relation to New Zealand has already been discussed in my Introduction.
It is very curious that at the Chatham Islands, lying, as it were, between these points, a generically different Ocydromine from should present itself. The New-Caledonia Rail ( In general appearance it is not unlike Eulabeornis lafresnayanus), although aberrant, comes even nearer to our Ocydromus Ocydromus fuscus in plumage, but it has a much larger bill, which is slightly curved as in O. sylvestris from Lord Howe’s Island. Layard writes (Ibis, 1882, p. 535):—“This queer Rail is, though generally distributed, a rare bird in New Caledonia. It appears to inhabit much the same localities as the Kagou, and is, in fact, a ‘Woodhen,’ like the Weka, and not a swamp-bird. We have kept it in confinement, feeding it on Bulimi, raw meat, and garbage. It is nocturnal, and runs with great rapidity. In walking it elevates the tail with the peculiar flip common to the Rails, and it can climb and jump like a cat. If alarmed it will squeeze itself into the smallest holes and crevices and lic ‘perdue’ and motionless, feigning death for a long time.”
Rallus modestus, Hutton, Ibis, 1872, p. 247.
Rallus dieffenbachii (young), Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 180 (1873).
Cabalus modestus, Hutton, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vi. p. 108 (1874)
I have been favoured with the following interesting note:—“I have found the MS. of a paper all but completed, but never published, ‘Oil a comparison of the skeletons of Cabalus (= Rallus) modestus and Rallus philippensis’; and I take the present opportunity, through Sir Cabalus modestus, Hutton. In the MS. above referred to I incidentally alluded to ornithologists’ recognized genera, which sometimes, when critically examined by the light of their osteology, do not furnish convincing data of stable bony characters in support of their attributed generic rank. In the instance of the Rail here mentioned, I then wrote:—’In anticipation of what follows as a matter of fact, I shall adduce proofs of differentiation such as not only indicate specific separation, but warrant generic relegation.’ I then give proofs of the bird being an adult, or nearly so, and of its being relatively flightless. Then followed comparisons of the bones &c., whereof I may mention, as an epitome of results and as the drawings elucidate, that trenchant distinctions obtain in the sternum and furcula, in the pelvis, and in the cranium and mandible, &c. The octavo plate of illustrations thereof has been lying finished since 1874; and at the recommendation of Sir
Cabalus dieffenbachii (young), Sharpe, App. Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 29 (1875).
Ad. olivascenti-brunneus, unicolor, plumis quibusdam interscapulii et tectricibus alarum majoribus paucis indistinctè fulvo fasciatim terminatis: supracaudalibus fulvo magis distinctè transfasciatis: facie laterali vix cinerascente: gutture sordidè cinereo, brunnescente obscurato: corpore reliquo subtùa brunneo, dorso concolore, sed angustè et magis distinctè fulvo transfasciato: rostro et pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride pallidè bruanneâ.
Adult. General plumage dull olive-brown, plumbeous at the base; throat greyish, each feather tipped with brown; feathers of the breast narrowly fringed with pale fulvous; those covering the upper part of abdomen and sides of the body, as well as the under tail-coverts, crossed by two narrow bars of the same colour; the first three primaries very faintly barred with reddish fulvous; tail-feathers, rump, and thighs obscurely freckled with fulvous. Irides, bill, and legs light brown. The plumage is very soft in texture, and the markings have the indeterminate character peculiar to young Rails.
Young. Covered with thick down of uniform brownish black.
This small Ocydromine form (which I treated in my former edition as the young of Cabalus dieffenbachii) was obtained by Mr. Henry Travers in the small island of Mangare (one of the Chatham Isles) in 1872; and Mr. Walter Hood informs me that it may still be obtained there, although difficult to procure, owing to its semi-nocturnal habits.
Prof. Hutton writes:—“Both the birds obtained by Mr. H. Travers were full-grown, one accompanied by her young one, and the other containing well-developed ova; they were both exactly alike in colour and dimensions, in neither of which do they show any approach to the colour and dimensions of R. dieffenbachii, as may be seen by comparing descriptions of the two; while in all known Rails the young soon acquire a plumage approaching in colour to that of the adult, and always attain their adult plumage before breeding. In its body, tail, wings, legs, and feet. C. modestus is a smaller bird than R. dieffenbachii, while the bills of the two are of nearly the same length; but in all Rails the legs and feet attain the full size very early, and long before the bill acquires its full length.”
Ardea egretta, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 629 (1788, ex Lath.).
Ardea flavirostris, Wagl. Syst. Av. p. 177 (1827).
Herodias flavirostris, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 12 (1843).
Herodias syrmatophorus, Gould, B. of Austr. vi. pl. 56 (1848).
Ardea alba, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7469.
Ardea flavirostris, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 235.
Herodias alba, Gould, Handb. B. of Austr. ii. p. 301 (1865).
Ardea intermedia, Finsch, J. f. O. 1867, p. 832.
Ardea syrmatophora, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 226 (1873).
Ardea egretta, Finsch, J. f. O. 1874, p. 194.
Ad. ubique alba: scapularibus plumis elongatis filamentosis ornatis: rostro lætè flavo: pedibus nigris: iride flavâ.
Adult male. The whole of the plumage snowy white. Irides yellow; loral skin greenish yellow; bill bright yellow, with a polished surface, sometimes inclining to brown towards the point of the upper mandible; legs black, tinged on the tibia and tarsal joints with yellow. Length 40 inches; extent of wings 51·5; wing, from flexure, 17; tail 7; bill, along the ridge 5, along the edge of lower mandible 6·5; bare tibia 4; tarsus 6·25; middle toe and claw 4·75; hind toe and claw 2·6.
Female. Similar to the male, but smaller in all its dimensions.
Nestling. Covered with thick yellowish-white down, which is lengthened on the crown, and being stiff and erectile gives the young chick a very striking appearance. Bill dull yellow with black tip; legs black, more or less tinged with yellow. In the Colonial Museum there are two chicks (apparently from the same nest), one, however, being nearly double the size of the other. The smaller of the two seems a mere mite in comparison with the parent bird; but with the members of this family the development of the young is always very rapid.
Varieties. I have already mentioned that in our bird the bill is yellow all the year round. I have now, however, to record an example with a black bill. I was first informed of it by Mr.
There is a peculiar specimen in the Colonial Museum; the bill is tinged with brown in its apical
Another specimen, which was afterwards submitted to me, and said to have been killed in winter, had the bill of a beautiful orange-yellow, with a narrow mark of black at the extremity of the upper mandible. This bird measured 46 inches in extreme length; bare tibia 4; tarsus 6·5. The legs and feet were perfectly black.
I examined three specimens in the Canterbury Museum. One of these (killed on the West Coast) was an unusually large one, with abundant dorsal plumes, and having the apical portion of the mandibles blackish brown, shading off downwards, and deepening to black at the tip; the tibiæ and tarsi brown, tinged with yellow. Bill, along the ridge 5 inches, along edge of lower mandible 6; bare tibia 3·75; tarsus 6; middle toe and claw 4·1. The second bird is of smaller size, but with ample plumes, the upper mandible exhibiting a line of black along the ridge; and the third, which is entirely destitute of the dorsal adornment, has the bill perfectly yellow, with a tinge of the same colour at the base of the tibia.
A live example in the possession of Mr.
Obs. This species exhibits considerable variation in size. A specimen obtained by Mr. Travers in the South Island has the bill longer and more robust than in ordinary examples, while the legs are remarkably short as compared with others, the tarsus measuring only 5 inches in length.
Both sexes are adorned with the dorsal plumes during the breeding-season; but in the female they are not so fine as in the other sex.
Remarks. The fully adult bird of both sexes has the back adorned by a number of long filamentous plumes, which have their origin near the roots of the scapulars, extending from four to six inches beyond the tail and forming a beautiful train; but this is peculiar to the breeding-season. The plumes are about 15 inches in length, extending fully three inches beyond the tail; and they consist of a rigid tapering shaft, with lateral filaments of extreme fineness, placed about half an inch apart, being, for the most part, five inches in length, but becoming shorter towards the extremity of the shaft. The whole of this ornamental plumage is, like the body, pure white. In some examples (either females or immature birds) these dorsal plumes are very much reduced, a few of the feathers forming the mantle having their shafts produced as far as the end of the tail and furnished with loose filamentous barbs.
As already stated, the bill is of a rich yellow colour. With the rare exceptions mentioned above, I have never seen any with a black bill or in a transitional state, although I have examined scores obtained at all seasons of the year; and I do not believe that any regular seasonal change of colour takes place, in which respect our bird appears to differ from the other closely allied species. My friend Dr. Finsch first of all referred it to. Ardea intermedia, then to A. alba, and lastly to A. egretta; and, although I kept it distinct in my former edition, I feel bound now to adopt the last of these names. Mr. Gould, in surrendering his own application of syrmatophorus, quotes Blyth’s remarks on the subject (Ibis, 1865, p. 36); but I was informed by Mr. Blyth himself that in the Indian bird the change in the colour of the bill, from yellow to black, and vice versâ, always takes place with the change of season.
The White Heron occurs so sparingly in most parts of New Zealand, that “rare as the Kotuku” has passed into a proverb among the Maoris; while in the North Island it is said to occur only once in a lifetime (He Kotuku rerenga tahi).
The first North-Island example I heard of was at Whaingaroa (Raglan) about the year 1853. In 1856 I examined a fine specimen which had been shot at Hurley’s mill-reservoir near Wellington. A year or two later I saw another from the Wairarapa district. In the summer of 1865 a pair visited the mangrove swamp at Whangarei, and remained there several weeks. The year before a pair was seen at Whangape Lake in the Lower Waikato; in 1867 another pair frequented, for some time, the marshy ground at the mouth of the Maketu river, and again in 1867 a pair visited the
Mr. Cheeseman writes to me from the Auckland Museum:—“I have in the Museum a small specimen of this Heron shot by Mr.
Subsisting almost entirely on eels and small freshwater fish, it frequents the sedgy shores of lagoons and the banks of tidal streams; but it sometimes resorts also to the open sea-beach, where I have myself shot it.
It is very interesting to watch this stately bird stalking about in its haunts, or fishing in the shallow water, its snow-white plumage rendering it a very conspicuous object. I have always found it very shy and difficult to approach, the slightest sound exciting its suspicion and making it take wing. It flies high and in wide circles, the wings performing slow and regular flappings, the head being drawn in upon the shoulders, and the legs trailing behind.
None of our birds enjoy a wider geographic range. Major Legge, in his ‘Birds of Ceylon,’ Writing of this bird in Ceylon, Major Legge says:— The late Dr. Jerdon, writing of the closely allied “Breeding-plumage. Iris bright pale golden yellow; bill blackish; loral skin and space round eye greenish yellow; legs and feet black; tibia paler than tarsus… . . The bill remains black a very short time, turning yellow long before the dorsal train is moulted; the tip, however, is black at this stage.”A. modesta in India, says:—“The bill becomes black before the train is developed, and changes again to yellow before the train is shed; so that both black-billed and yellow-billed individuals may be obtained with or without the dorsal train, and others with the bill changing colour in all stages of progress.”
I have already mentioned that in this species the bill does not undergo any change in the breeding-season, being yellow all the year round. In confirmation of this I may quote a letter which I have received from Mr. very thin sixpence. You will no doubt have observed that the eye is not set in a line, or parallel with the bill, but at an obtuse angle, perhaps about 70°.
“My Kotuku at first used to roost on a box in an outhouse; but, after a fight with a hen with chickens that was running in the same garden (or wilderness), took to sleeping about 20 feet up a karaka tree, to attain which elevation it made use of some passion-flower vines that were growing up the karaka tree, as one of its wings had been cropped to prevent escape. Its actions while ascending this natural ladder were not very graceful. During sleeping hours it was completely hidden among the boughs, but in the early morning, especially after a frost, it would come out to the extreme edge of the boughs and sun itself for hours. When the long filamentous dorsal plumes were fully or partially erected it was a really beautiful sight; for though a female it had a very fine train. During its fights with the brood hen the Kotuku would throw itself nearly on its back and dart out its long bill with such vigour that it seldom came off second best. It rarely came down to breakfast, which was put into a large crock of clean water, till the morning was well advanced, and, to my surprise, seemed to prefer beef, or sheep’s liver, to fish.”
The beautiful snow-white plumes from the back of this bird have always been greatly prized by the Maoris, for the personal adornment of both the living and the dead, and their ancient poetry abounds in references to this valued Take, for example, the pathetic lament for Te Hiakai, as given in Sir George Grey’s ‘Poetry of the New Zealanders,’ p. 162:—taonga
Sir
Referring to the above, Mr.
Another visitor to this heronry states that one of the breeding-stations is situated about three miles inland from the sea, on the banks of the Waitangituna stream. He found about twenty-five nests there, placed on trees overhanging the water, at elevations varying from eight to forty feet, and in close association with those of the White-throated Shag, the latter being five or six times as numerous, often forming complete clusters around the larger structures occupied by the White Heron; these were coarsely built of sticks, placed in such a manner as to form a strong platform, above which was a layer of smaller sticks, but without any softer lining, the whole structure measuring about seventeen inches in diameter. The eggs are usually three, but often four, in number, of a pale green colour, rather elliptical in form, and measuring 2·2 inches in length by 1·6 in breadth.
Another breeding-place of the White Heron is supposed to exist at a place about twelve miles north of the Buller River; but there is no positive evidence of this; and Sir
The nest of the White Heron is a rather massive structure, with a flattened top (no appearance whatever of a cup or hollow), rounded in form, and measuring eighteen inches across. It is composed almost entirely of fern-fronds by way of foundation, with a thick rough layer of dry twigs above. It seems difficult to understand how the bird can incubate the eggs without their falling out of this rude flat nest or getting broken against the rough twigs on which they lie, without lining or protection of any kind; for on this structure are deposited the eggs, which are three in number, differing very slightly in size, the largest measuring 2·2 inches by 1·6 inch, of a regular ovoid form, of a uniform pale green colour, and without any gloss.
Sacred Heron, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 92 (1785).
Ardea sacra, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 640 (1788, ex Lath.).
Blue Heron, var. β, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 79 (1785).
Ardea cærulea, var. γ, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 631 (1788, ex Lath.).
Ardea matook, Vieill. Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. xiv. p. 416 (1817).
New-Zealand Heron, Lath. Gen. Hist. B. ix. p. 128 (1824).
Ardea jugularis, Wagl. Syst. Av. Ardea, sp. 18 (1827, ex Forster MS.).
Ardea asha, Sykes, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 157.
Herodias matook, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 196 (1843).
Ardea novæ hollandiæ, “Lath.,” Licht. ed. Forst. Descr. An. p. 172 (1844).
Herodias jugularis, Gray. Cat. Grallæ Brit. Mus. p. 80 (1844).
Demiegretta concolor, Blyth, J. A. S. B. xv. p. 372 (1846).
Herodias pannosus, Gould, P. Z. S. 1847, p. 221.
Ardea pannosa, Gray, Gen. of B. iii., App. p. 25 (1849).
Ardea concolor, Gray, Gen. of B. iii., App. p. 25 (1849).
Herodias asha, Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 280 (1849).
Ardea atra, “Cuv.,” Puch. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1851, p. 375.
Herodias pannosa, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. ii. p. 120 (1857).
Herodias atra, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. ii. p. 121 (1857).
Herodias sacra, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. ii. p. 121 (1857).
Herodias concolor, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. ii. p. 121 (1857).
Ardea (Herodias) albolineata, Gray, P. Z. S. 1859, p. 166.
Ardea cinerea, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7469 (nec Linn.).
Matuku-tai, Matuku-nuia, and Matukutuku.
Ad. suprà fuliginoso-schistaceus, pileo laterali, collo postico et scapularibus elongatis clariùs cinereis: alà et caudà fuliginoso-schistaceis, tectricibus alarum et remigibus extùs clariùs cincreo lavatis: subtùs omninò fuliginoso-schistaceus, gutture purè albo: subalaribus paullò dilutioribus: regione oculari virescenti-flavâ: rostro sordidè flavo, culmine brunnescente ad apicem corneo: pedibus viridescenti-flavis: iride flavâ.
Adult male. General plumage slaty grey, darker on the upper parts, tinged on the lower with brown; a broad line of white down the middle of the throat, and extending, in some examples, down the fore neck. The back is ornamented with a number of narrow lanceolate feathers of a bluish-grey colour, often 7 inches in length, overlying the scapulars; and there are a few similar feathers on the lower part of the neck, over-lapping the breast. The feathers of the nape are long and silky, and of a brighter tint than the surrounding plumage. Irides yellow; loral skin greenish yellow; bill dark yellow, shaded with brown on the ridge and sides, horn-coloured at the tip; tarsi and toes greenish yellow, the claws brown. Length 25 inches; extent
Female. Has the pectoral and dorsal plumes smaller and duller in colour, with a brown tinge over the entire plumage.
Young. In the young of the first year the plumage is largely stained with brown, especially on the upper parts; all the wing-coverts are shaded with brown towards the tip, with a narrow terminal edging of a lighter tint; and, in certain lights, the entire plumage presents an appearance of vinous brown. There are no pectoral plumes; the gular streak of white, instead of being narrow throughout, expands in the middle; and the bill is dark brown, blackish on the ridge.
Nestling. Covered with slate-coloured down.
Albino. There is an albino in the Otago Museum; general plumage pure white, but with slate-coloured feathers cropping out irregularly all over the body, and more abundantly on the crown and back; the primaries pure white, with only a few touches of colour near the tips, whilst some of the secondaries are almost wholly slate-coloured; tail-feathers parti-coloured, the white, however, being entirely absent on two or three of them; bill and feet as in ordinary specimens. Professor Hutton has marked this as the young state of A. sacra, from the Society Islands. This, however, is a mistake. I have already described the young of that species from the nest. This is undoubtedly another example of albinism with the normal colour persistently endeavouring to assert itself.
Obs. A specimen in my collection (adult ♂)) obtained at Kaiwara, near Wellington, has the occipital plumes continued fully two inches beyond the head.
Remarks. The history of this species has been worked out in an exhaustive manner by Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub, to whose labours I am in a great measure indebted for the very complete synonymy at the head of this article. I am unable, however, to follow these authors in considering Mr. Ardea greyi (Cat. Brit. Mus. Grallæ, p. 80) the same species in the condition of an albino. Mr. Gould once entertained that opinion, but was induced to alter it; and in his ‘Handbook’ (ii. p. 309) he quotes Macgillivray’s observations to the following effect:—“From the circumstance of my having always found this and the dark-coloured species in company, I considered them as the same bird in different states of plumage, their size and proportions being so similar, and was surprised that individuals exhibiting a change from blue to white, or vice versâ, never occurred. At length, while on Dugong Island, I was convinced they were specifically distinct by seeing that the half-grown young from the nest had assumed the distinctive colour of the parents. This was first pointed out to me by Dr. Muirhead, R.N., whose attention I had previously drawn to the subject. The habits of both species are similar; and they procure their food in the same manner at low water on the coral-reefs surrounding the low islands they frequent. The nest and eggs are precisely similar; but the young of this bird is white from the nest.” Although this white form is “abundantly dispersed over the northern and eastern coasts of Australia wherever low islands and reefs of coral running parallel to these coasts occur,” it has never yet been met with in New Zealand, which is a further reason for our refusing to consider it an albino of the common species.
The Blue Heron is not confined to New Zealand, but is found along the whole of the Australian coasts and throughout the Polynesian archipelago; its range extends also to India and Japan, the differences in examples from those countries being too trifling to warrant a specific separation.
In our country the Blue Heron frequents the rocks under the sea-cliffs, and the shores of the sheltered bays and estuaries, where it may be observed moving actively about in search of its food, which consists of small crabs and shell mollusks; or perched on some prominent point of rock, where its constant vigilance renders it difficult of approach except under cover. When disturbed it rises slowly and rather awkwardly, and makes a detour seaward, returning to a neighbouring station on the rocks, or, if alarmed, wings its way slowly across the bay or to some more remote part of the
It is found all round the coasts of the North Island, but appears to be more plentiful on the eastern side.
It does not, as a rule, leave the coast, but a pair was seen on the Taupo Lake in October 1875, and I observed one on the wing at Lake Rotoiti in October 1884. It is tolerably common along the shores of the Bay of Plenty. My son found these birds particularly plentiful during a visit to Raglan in the summer of 1883–84. He writes:—“On one occasion I saw as many as seven flying in company. They kept well together, and about four feet above the water, performing their flight by a regular slow flapping of the wings, never swerving to one side or the other, and presenting a very curious appearance with their heads drawn in upon their shoulders.”
They appear to become attached to particular localities; and I remember a pair of them frequenting a rocky point in the Porirua harbour for several years. Another pair took up their station on the rocks near the Hutt Road in Wellington harbour. These birds, which were always a source of interest to me when travelling on this road, have attracted the notice of others, and are thus pleasantly referred to by Mr. Edward Wakefield, in a “Science Gossip” article, in the ‘Wellington Evening Press’:—
“Railway passengers, as a rule, do not take much notice of objects which they pass. They read papers or books, or stare at one another, or most commonly gaze into space in a melancholy way, evidently thinking of nothing but how soon the journey will be over. Yet it is often worth while to look out of window and observe natural features or peculiarities, if only for a moment or two, as the train creeps past them. We wonder how many travellers by the Hutt train have seen what I have seen, namely, a pair of Herons which frequent the rocks on the harbour beach about midway between Ngahauranga and Petone. These beautiful and uncommon birds have been there for months past and they seem to have taken up their abode there permanently… . . It is usually regarded as an extremely shy and wary bird, having its wits wide awake against danger on all sides, and rising heavily and flapping a circuit out to seaward long before man can approach it. But circumstances seem to alter its habits. I have read somewhere an account by a traveller and a naturalist who said he had seen Blue Herons on an island off the Australian coast so numerous and so tame and fearless that he could, and did, knock them over with a stick. Many birds, of course, which are not in the least shy when first found in lonely places, become so as soon as they know what a cruel destructive animal man is. I can remember when Shags and Sandpipers in New Zealand were so unsophisticated that they would allow themselves to be caught by the hand, and even Redbills would let us come so close that we could kill them with stones. Thus there is nothing in the story of the Blue Herons’ tameness on a desert island at all incompatible with their present reputation for wariness. The boldness of the pair I have seen near Petone is more remarkable, because not only do trains pass close to them many times a day, but the Hutt road is only distant from their haunt a few chains, and fishermen, children, and other intruders are always about. It seems to me a most extraordinary thing that these shy birds should remain there day after day, week after week, month after month, disturbed as they often must be by various visitors to the beach, without apparently betraying the least uneasiness… . . But to me the poor, harmless, beautiful comical creatures are very charming on their own account, popping about among the rocks, pecking here, stalking there, prying into a crevice a little further on, attitudinising gracefully on a rock close by—surely, surely, they are interesting enough in themselves, well worth observing, and—oh, ye pothunters—well worth preserving also!”
Mr. Layard writes from Levuka:—“I have just obtained (2nd November) a pair of young ones
Hume says (‘Stray Feathers,’ vol. i. p. 254):—“Professor Schlegel and Mr. Gray are certainly wrong in uniting And again ( As regards the white variety, Davison says:—“This species, if it really is a species, and not merely an albinoid variety of white when young, as alleged, and our bird is slate-coloured, may not that fact indicate that the two are distinct? Or are the white and slate-coloured birds only dimorphic varieties? Has any one seen the Asiatic race slate-coloured when in the nest, or observed the slate-coloured and white birds breeding together in India?”asha, Sykes, with jugularis, Forster; they are probably right in considering concolor, Blyth, as identical with this latter; but asha of Sykes is gularis, and not jugularis. The fact is there are two nearly allied species; the one occurs along the eastern and northeastern coast of Africa up to Suez down the Arabian Coast, and has now been observed by me at Muscat, along the Mekran Coast, and at Kurrachee, and again on the Bombay Coast at Teetul, near Bulsar; and Dr. Jerdon’s description shows clearly that this is the bird which he and Sykes found down the western coast of India. This is gularis; on the other hand, the second species is found in New Zealand, Australia, throughout the Indian Archipelago, and, I have reason to believe, though I have no specimens with me to compare, throughout Burma, up to Ramree Island, in the Nicobars and Andamans, and possibly on the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal. This latter is jugularis, Forster, pannosa, Gould, concolor, Blyth, and probably sacra, Omelin, the name by which it should, according to Mr. Gray, stand. Both species are typically, when adult, deep slaty blue, becoming more or less black in old birds; both seem to have an allotropic white form, which is not necessarily the young, these having been taken from the nest of the same dark colour as the typical adult, and both have a light slaty grey stage, which appears to me to indicate immaturity, in which a good deal of the centre of the abdomen, vent, and lower tail-coverts are white… . . A very great deal remains to be ascertained in regard to the changes of plumage of both these species, and it is possible that jugularis or sacra may be found to include two species, but gularis and jugularis are clearly distinct, and can be separated at once … . . Gularis has the whole chin, throat, and sides of the head nearly to the gape, and quite to the base of the ear-coverts, white; jugularis or sacra has only a narrow white stripe down the centre of the throat.”op. cit. vol. ii. p. 304):—“This species is no doubt very variable alike in size and in plumage, even supposing that the white race, of which I shall speak hereafter, he separated as a distinct bird; but it is quite clear, with this very large series that we now possess of the ashy bird, that all those inhabiting the islands of the Bay of Bengal and its eastern coast belong to one and the same species…… Colonel Tytler notes:—‘A distinct specias, which I call provisionally Demiegretta candida, but which may prove identical with D. greyi, and which precisely resembles D. concolor, Blyth, has erroneously been assumed to be the young of this latter. I have had them from the nest, and can certify that the plumage is at all times white, just as that of concolor is always ashy …” And Macgillivray remarks of the bird in Australia:—“I was convinced that they were specifically distinct by seeing that the half-grown young from the nests had assumed the distinctive colour of the parents.”H. sacra, is not uncommon about the Andamans and Nicobars. It usually associates with H. sacra; but is so shy and wary that it is almost impossible to get a shot. In size, gait, habits, &c. it is identical with H. sacra, differing only in colour.”
In ‘The Ibis’ for 1879 (p. 221) there appears a letter from the same naturalist (dated Noumea, New Caledonia, 5th December), in which, after referring to Mr. A. sacra, “the young birds are wholly white, and the female whiter than the male,” he says:—“Now this is quite in direct opposition to my experience of the bird in Fiji, and accords with my statement of the Ceylonese species (cf. ‘Ibis,’ 1876, p. 176). This opens this very curious question once more, Are they distinct races or species, or are the young in some places white, and in others blue? I hope my brethren of ‘The Ibis’ will, as their opportunities permit them, keep this subject in view. We have the species here; but I do not yet know of any breeding-place.”
Canon Tristram, writing on a collection of birds from the New Hebrides, collected by the Rev. Ardea sacra from Samoa. I observe that they sustain the remarks made by Mr. A. albolineata (P. Z. S. 1859, p. 166). The difference seems to be too slight and uncertain on which to found a species; but if not two species, there are certainly two races in these Pacific Islands, a larger and a smaller, and the two do not appear to be found in the same locality anywhere. Native name ‘Inpaing.’ Mr. Inglis observes that it wades in the sea rather than in streams.”
In the breeding-season I have heard these birds mewing like kittens as they hovered overhead, and were evidently concerned about their nests. On one occasion, when exploring the Rurimu rocks, in the Bay of Plenty, a Heron thus employed was fiercely beset by a colony of Terns (Sterna frontalis), who were themselves under some excitement about their nesting-ground and appeared to regard with suspicion this uncanny mewing in their midst. The Heron was speedily discomfited and put to flight.
Macgillivray states that it “inhabits the islands of the north-east coast of Australia and Torres Strait, and is abundantly distributed from the Capricorn group in lat. 23° 30′ S., as far north as Darnley Island in lat. 9° 35′ S. It procures its food at low water on the coral-reef surrounding the low wooded islands it loves to frequent. Although generally a wary bird, even when little disturbed by man, yet on one occasion on Heron Island I knocked down several with a stick. The nest is usually placed on a tree; but on those islands where there are none, such as Raine’s Islet and elsewhere, it breeds among the recesses of the rocks; where the trees are tall, as at Oomaga or Keat’s Island, the nests are placed near the summit; on Dugong Island they were placed on the root of a tree, on a low stump, or half-way up a low bushy tree. They are shallow in form, eighteen inches in diameter, and constructed of small sticks, and lined with twigs; the eggs are two in number, and of a pale bluish white.” Gilbert, who found this species nesting at Port Essington, says:—“On one small rock I found at least fifty of these nests, some of which were so close as nearly to touch each other. The eggs were sometimes two, and at others three, in number.”
Captain Mair writes:—“On Whale Island I saw some thirty of these birds, and I found a number of their nests in a cave. Those that were fully fledged were a beautiful light blue colour, with bright yellow legs. It was very funny to watch them flying into the high trees, perching among the Shags, and looking very gawky; then, presently, the Shags, with loud guttural noises, would sally forth, chasing them far and wide.”
The “Cranes’ cave,” as it is called, is open to the sea at the entrance, but it extends inwards some 30 feet, and has an elevated or arched roof, and the nests of the Herons are placed on the projecting ledges of rock.
Mr.
There is a single egg of this species in the Canterbury Museum; it is of a regular ovoido-elliptical form, measuring 1·9 inch in length by 1·3 in breadth, and of a delicate greenish white. Another received from Hawke’s Bay is of a narrow oval form, measuring 1·9 inch by 1·35 inch, very finely granulate on the surface, and without any gloss. The colour in the dried shell is a delicate pale green, but it was no doubt brighter when fresh. The one in my son’s collection obtained on the Island of Kapiti, as mentioned above, is slightly smaller and of a pale blue colour.
White-fronted Heron, Phillip, Voy. Bot. Bay, i. p. 163, pl. 27 (1789).
Ardea novæ hollandiæ, Lath. Gen. Ind. ii. p. 701 (1790, ex Phillip).
Ardea leucops, Wagl. Syst. Av. Ardea, sp. 17 (1827).
Herodias novæ hollandiæ, Gray, Cat. Grallæ Brit. Mus. p. 80 (1844).
Demiegretta novæ hollandiæ, Gray, Hand-1. of B. iii. p. 28 (1871).
Ad. suprà dilutè schistaceo-cinereus, pileo cristato saturatiore: interscapulio scapularibusque pallidioribus, cinereis, quasi strigatis: tectricibus alarum dilutè cinereis: remigibus schistaceo-nigricantibus, secundariis clarè cinereo lavatis: rectricibus schistaceo-cinereis, versus apicem brunnescentibus; fronte et supercilio lato, facie laterali et gutture toto albis: regione paroticâ et collo laterali cinereis: subtùs pallidè cinereus, collo undique saturatiore, jugulo medio et imo pallidè rufescente: subalaribus pallidè cinereis, albicantibus: regione oculari pallidè virescenti-flavâ: rostro nigro, versus basin mandibulæ albicante: pedibus flavicantibus, tarsis imis digitisque virescentibus: iride Iætè flavâ.
Adult. Forehead, apace round the eyes, and throat white; crown of the head dark cinereous or bluish grey, the occipital feathers rather elongated, and lighter; sides of the head, neck, and all the upper parts bright cinereous, with a warm purplish tinge; the back ornamented with a series of long lanceolate plumes of a lighter colour, some of which extend beyond the scapulars; down the fore neck a stripe of buff, changing below to yellowish brown; the long plumes overlapping the breast very soft in texture, and of a roseate purple tint; underparts generally pale cinereous brown, slightly tinged with purple; quills and tail-feathers dark slate-grey. Irides bright yellow; edges of eyelids, bare part of lores, and membrane surrounding the angle of the mouth pale greenish yellow; bill black, the lower mandible whitish towards the base; legs yellow, tinged more or less with dusky green on the toes and lower part of tarai; claws pale brown. Length 25·5 inches; extent of wings 42; wing, from flexure, 12; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 3, along the edge of lower mandible 4; bare tibia 2; tarsus 3·5; middle toe and claw 2·6; hind toe and claw 1·75.
Young. Differs from the adult in having more white about the head and neck, and a darker tinge of brown on the underparts; the dorsal plumes, moreover, are scanty, and the delicate purplish tint on the breast is altogether wanting.
The White-fronted Heron is very sparingly dispersed over the New-Zealand coasts, being extremely rare at the far north; but, according to Gould, it is very abundant over every part of Tasmania, the Colonies of New South Wales, South Australia, and Swan River. “Low sandy beaches washed by the open ocean, arms of the sea, and the sides of rivers and lagoons, both in the interior of the country and near the coast, are equally tenanted by it; consequently it is one of the commonest species of the genus in all the countries above mentioned, and may frequently be seen walking knee-deep in the water of the salt marshes in search of food, which consists of crabs, fish, and marine insects. Its flight is heavy and flapping, like that of the other Herons; but it runs more quickly over the ground, and is continually moving about when searching for food, and never stands motionless in the water
In the Hairini bay, at Tauranga, I saw a pair of these birds on the flats just above the bridge. They stalked about with a loftier mien than Mr. Edward Wakefield, under the head of “Science Gossip,” writes:—“There is another bird, the White-fronted Heron ( Mr. Ardea sacra, and were readily distinguishable, even at some distance, by the lighter grey of their plumageArdea novæ hollandiæ), which is much rarer in New Zealand than the Blue Heron, but which is, nevertheless, not only not unknown here, but fairly well known. It is only found by accident, as it were, here and there. It is not properly a New-Zealand bird at all. It is a very common Australian bird, and is a mere passing visitor in this country. Still, it is a New-Zealand bird, in a sense, because it breeds here sometimes. But it is only very sparsely distributed on our coasts. A friend of mine at Collingwood, a digger, who knew a good deal about natural history, told me that he had observed these birds in the southern estuaries of Blind Bay for years, and gave me a description of their habits, which left me no doubt in my mind of the truth of his statements. I am quite prepared to admit, however, that the White-fronted Heron is a very uncommon bird, and that is why I bring it into notice here. It is very like the Blue Heron, except that it has a white forehead, space round the eyes and throat, and the colour of its plumage all over is ever so much lighter than that of the Blue Heron. To sum it up, I should say that Ardea novæ hollandiæ is like a washed-out specimen of Ardea sacra.”Ardea sacra or A. novæ hollandiæ; his head and neck are much darker than in those birds, being almost black, and, except a white line over the bill, there seems to be no more white about him; the wings and back are a light slate-grey; legs and feet yellow. I should think he must be quite 4 feet long. Do you know such a bird? I shall make every effort to secure him. In the mean time I study his habits with a good binocular race-glass.”
The Blue Heron seems to prefer the rock-bound coast, springing from one jutting stone to another as it searches for its prey. The White-fronted Heron, on the other hand, is generally to be seen on the hard sandy beaches and mud-flats within the river-mouths and estuaries. You will see him stalking about alone on the beach, as if for the mere pleasure of exercising his limbs; then he flies off to a small rock standing out of the water and takes up a position for fishing. He balances his body horizontally, holds back his head and watches; then with the rapidity of thought he strikes forward, plunging his head into the water and bringing out a struggling victim. I have watched one thus engaged for a considerable time through a powerful binocular, and I have seen it catch minnows fully five inches in length, and in the intervals turn its attention to smaller fry, by snatching at flies or other insects passing within its reach. I have observed the same thing on watching some captive ones in the Acclimatization Gardens at Sydney; for they were perpetually chasing flies and other insects that came within their enclosure.
A pair of these birds which I obtained in the Porirua Harbour, near Wellington, in the month of April, had their stomachs filled with shrimps.
It is strange that although the Blue Heron breeds freely on the small islands lying off the Bay of Plenty, this species is never found nesting there. This may, however, be due to the relative scarcity of the bird.
“Some nests,” writes Mr. Gould (Handb. B. Austr. ii. p. 299), “I observed in the month of October 1838, on the banks of the Derwent, were placed on the tops of the smaller gum-trees, and most of them contained newly hatched birds. Mr. Kermode informed me that it annually breeds in the neighbourhood of his estate, near the centre of Tasmania. The nest is of a moderate size, and is composed of sticks and leaves. The eggs are four in number, of a pale bluish green, one inch and seven eighths long by one inch and a quarter broad.”
Spotted Heron, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. ii. p. 305 (1801).
Ardea maculata, Lath. Ind. Orn. Suppl. ii. p. lxiv (1801, nec Bodd., nec Vieill.).
Ardea pusilla, Vieill. N. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. xiv. p. 432 (1817).
Ardetta punctata, Gray, Cat. Grallæ Brit. Mus. p. 83 (1844).
Ardetta pusilla, Gould, Birds of Austr. vi. pl. 68 (1848).
Ardeola pusilla, Bonap. C. R. xl. p. 722 (1855).
Ardeola novæ zealandiæ, Purdie, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. iii. p. 99 (1870).
Ardetta maculata, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 235 (1873).
Ad. ♂ pileo cæruleo-nigro: supercilio distincto, facie et collo lateralibus sordidè ferrugineis, regione paroticâ, stramineâ: dorso toto nigro, plumis quibusdam brunneo, ferrugineo aut stramineo extùs lavatis: tectricibus alarum ochrascentibus, minoribus dorsalibus et exterioribus ferrugineis nigro medialiter notatis: alâ cærulescenti-nigrâ, tectricibus majoribus, alâ spuriâ et remigibus ferrugineo limbatis aut apicaliter maculatis: caudâ cærulescenti-nigrâ: gutture toto albo, utrinque ferrugineo, plumis medialiter saturatiùs brunneis et stramineo conspicuè lavatis: corpore reliquo subtùs albicante, hypochondriis plumis medialiter nigris, quasi striatis, ferrugineo aut stramineo marginatis: subalaribus ochrascentibus, medialiter brunneis, margine alari undique albo: regione oculari flavicanti-viridi: rostro saturatè brunneo, lateraliter et versus basin flavicanti-viridi: pedibus lætè viridibus, tarso superiore digitisque brunneo tinctis: iride aureâ.
Juv. ♂ mari similis sed sordidior: tectricibus medianis alarum stramineis medialiter brunneis: gutture minus distinctè notato.
Adult. Forehead, crown of the head, and nape bluish black; throat and front of the neck tawny buff, each feather shaded in the centre with brown; from the chin and down the fore neck an irregular streak of reddish brown; on the sides of the neck the buff passes gradually into a rich chestnut; and this colour is continued on the sides of the head, forming a broad streak over the eyes, and another, less distinct, to the angles of the mouth, mixed with tawny yellow on the ear-coverts; underparts pale buff, each feather centred more or less with black; on each side of the chest the black predominates, forming broad acuminate stripes; the whole of the back and the feathers composing the mantle bronzy black, tinged more or less with chestnut, the scapulars margined with tawny buff; quills and tail-feathers bluish black, slaty on their under surface, the inner primaries, as well as their coverts and most of the secondaries, tipped with chestnut-brown; the primary coverts and a patch of feathers near the flexure pale chestnut, edged with fulvous, the former centred more or less with black; the small wing-coverts and the whole of the secondary coverts blackish brown, broadly edged with yellowish buff, and presenting a handsome appearance. Irides golden yellow; eyelids and bare space in front of the eyes yellowish green; bill dark brown along the ridge and at the tip, yellowish green on the sides and towards the base of both mandibles; legs and feet bright green, stained at the tarsal joint and along the toes with dark brown. Length 15 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·25; tail 2; bill, along the ridge 2·2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·75; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 2·1; middle toe and claw 2·5; hind toe and claw 1·5.
Young. Differs from the adult in having the plumage of the back darker, and the wing-coverts of a rich tawny buff, shading into chestnut on the secondary coverts and towards the flexure.
Obs. The Otago Museum contains two specimens—one from Jackson’s Bay, the other from Lake Wakatipu. They are adult birds, but not “sexed,” and both are in the same plumage, all the wing-coverts having a broad wedge-shaped mark of brownish black down the centre. One has the neck-plumes a little brighter than the other, but they are alike in size and in every other respect.
Writing of the Dwarf Bitterns in India, Blyth says:—“The male acquires his final livery at the first moult, the female not before the third or fourth moult; in the meanwhile she presents an intermediate garb, which is ultimately exchanged for the same livery as that of the male.”Remarks. Mr. Gould, in his account of this species in Australia, states that “the sexes differ considerably from each other, the female being mottled and of a smaller size than the male;” and he gives the following description of the former:—“Head and back chestnut; wing-coverts very deep tawny, passing into chestnut on the tips of the coverts and secondaries; primaries grey, tipped with brown; tail black; sides of the neck pale chestnut; front of the throat and the under surface white, with a stripe of tawny down the middle, and a small streak of brown in the centre of each feather, the brown hue predominating and forming a conspicuous mark down the throat”l. c.) with “rufous-brown eyes and buff wing-coverts” was evidently in an immature state.
Note. Since the publication of my first edition, two more specimens have been received at the Canterbury Museum, and these proved on dissection to be male and female. If the “sexing” in these cases in to be relied on, it would seem that, in our New-Zealand bird, the sexes are alike, the plain tawny wing-coverts being only a sign of immaturity.
I am indebted to the Rev. This Little Bittern is undoubtedly the true representative in our hemisphere of the Ardea minuta of Europe, to which it bears a very close resemblance both in appearance and in habits. It is a very rare species in Australia, where, according to Gould, only a few individuals have as yet been procured, and all of these from one locality. It is equally rare in New Zealand, and appears to be scarcely less local in its distribution. The first recorded specimens (two in number) were obtained by Mr. Shaw at Kanieri, on the west coast, in March 1868, and forwarded to the Canterbury Museum, where they are still preserved. Subsequently a third specimen was obtained in one of the swampy creeks that feed the Okarita lagoon—and another at the head of the Whakatipu Lake, above Queenstown, in the Province of Otago. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Clapcott and Dr. Garland respectively for the specimens of the adult and young from which the above descriptions are taken; both of these were obtained in the vicinity of the Hokitika township, in the autumn of 1871
Mr. Docherty, who collected some of the examples enumerated above, has furnished the following interesting notes on the subject:—“They are to be found on the salt-water lagoons on the seashore, always hugging the timbered side of the same. I have seen them in two positions, viz.:—standing on the bank of the lagoon, with their heads bent forward, studiously watching the water; at other times I have seen them standing straight up, almost perpendicular; I should say this is the proper
Dr. Ramsay writes of this bird in Australia:—“This beautiful little species is still plentiful in the neighbourhood of Cleveland Bay, and also in the Herbert river district; from both these places have I received specimens. The species was once tolerably numerous near Sydney; and there are still specimens in the Dobroyde collection which were shot at Botany Bay and near Newtown. I observe no difference in plumage or size in the Northern Queensland specimens and those shot near Sydney.”
Mr. Potts, in his account of the specimens in the Canterbury Museum, states that “they were taken alive without any very great difficulty, after which they were turned loose amongst the fowls in a poultry-yard. They were found dead shortly afterwards—it is alleged, from exposure to the keen frosty night air, being deprived of the accustomed protection afforded by the thickly-growing sedgy vegetation of their swampy habitat. They had been observed standing motionless on a bare stem or stalk, from which they overlooked the water… . . It is stated that the Little Bittern is so quiet in his habits that it will remain still when approached, and almost suffer itself to be taken by the hand.”
I had an opportunity of observing one of these birds in a state of captivity at Hokitika, in May 1871. It had been taken only a few days before, and was already comparatively tame. Its usual posture was one of repose, with the head drawn in and resting on the shoulders; but when alarmed or excited it assumed a very different attitude, standing almost bolt upright, with the body resting, as it were, on the tarsal joints, these being brought close together, the neck stretched upwards to its full extent and perfectly rigid, the beak elevated, and the eyes directed outwards and downwards in such a way as to command a full view in front without having to move the head. On being turned out in the verandah it ran quickly and spread its wings, but did not make any attempt to fly, and after a short interval endeavoured to re-enter its cage. It evinced great alarm on the appearance of a cat, stretching up its neck and emitting a peculiar snapping cry. At other times when molested it uttered a cry not unlike that of the Kingfisher, although not so loud. Mr. McNee, to whom the bird belonged, informed me that he could not get it to eat any thing till he produced a dish of water containing some “mudfish,” which it instantly seized and devoured. This singular fish (named by Dr. Günther Neochanna apoda) is very common in the Hokitika district, being found in all the creeks and surface-ponds in the woods which here cover the whole face of the country. The remarkable part of their history is that on the pools becoming dry these mudfish burrow into the moist soil or clay, often to the depth of two feet, remaining there for an indefinite time, or till the return of rainy weather has rendered their pools habitable again. Archdeacon Harper informed me that he himself dug up two of these mudfish in comparatively hard clay in his garden, at a depth of more than three feet from the surface, where they were occupying artificially formed chambers. Another curious fact, which I give on the testimony of Mr. McNee, is that several of these mudfish after being exposed in his verandah for a whole night, and apparently lifeless, recovered their vitality on being restored to a basin of water; and when shown to me on the following day they certainly exhibited a great amount of activity. I think it highly probable that the mudfish constitutes the chief food of the Little Bittern; for as many of the surface pools are never dry, there would be no difficulty in finding a supply all the year round. I may mention also that Mr. Clapcott’s bird, while alive in his possession, was fed on worms, and that it would only take them when placed in a saucer or other vessel containing water.
Caledonian Night-Heron, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 55 (1785).
Ardea caledonica, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 626 (1788).
Ardea novæ hollandiæ, Vieill. N. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. xiv. p. 436 (1817).
Nycticorax caledonicus, Steph. Gen. Zool. xi. p. 613 (1819).
New-Holland Night-Heron, Lath. Gen. Hist. ix. p. 62 (1824).
Ardea sparrmannii, Wagl. Syst. Av. Ardea, sp. 32 (1827).
Nyctiardea caledonica, Gray, Hand-1. of B. iii. p. 33 (1871).
Ad. suprà dilutè cinnamomeus, dorso postico et uropygio paullò pallidioribus: pileo cristato et nuchâ nigris: plumis tribus occipitalibus pendentibus albis: strigâ superciliari, regione oculari et genis anticis albis: facie reliquâ et collo laterali delicatè cinnamomeis: alis et caudâ cinnamomeis omninò dorso concoloribus: subtùs albus, gutture antico et laterali delicatè cinnamomeis: regione oculari virescenti-flavâ: rostro nigro, versus apicem corneo, gonyde corneâ aut flavicante: pedibus sordidè flavis: iride aurantiacâ.
Adult. Crown of the head and the nape glossy black; three occipital plumes, consisting of extremely fine feathers, rolled in the form of a pointed queue, six inches long, pure white, with a narrow shaft-line of brown; sides and hind part of the neck, and the entire upper surface rich cinnamon-brown, this colour being deepest on the shoulders, quills, and tail-feathers; throat, streak over the eyes, sides of face, fore neck, and all the under surface pure white; on the sides of the neck and on the lower part of the body the cinnamon and white are gradually blended. Irides orange; the bare space surrounding them greenish yellow; bill black, horn-coloured or yellowish at the tip and along the lower edge of the under mandible; tarsi and toes dull yellow; claws dark brown. Total length 21 inches; wing, from flexure, 11; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 2·75, along the edge of lower mandible 3·5; bare tibia 1; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 3·25; hind toe and claw 2·25.
Young. Mr. Gould states that the young bird of the first year has the whole of the upper surface striated with buff and blackish brown, narrow and lanceolate on the head and neck, broad and conspicuous on the back and wings; primaries and tail-feathers dark chestnut-red, deepening into black near the extremity, and tipped with buffy white; all the under surface buffy white, with a stripe of brown down the centre of each feather; irides yellow.
Obs. In some specimens the occipital plumes are tinged with buff and have black tips; in others, again, they are entirely absent; these differences being apparently due to age and season.
Referring to these cases, Sir George Grey has lately informed me that, when Governor of the Colony, in 1852, he imported some of these birds from Australia and liberated them at Wellington; from which it might fairly be inferred that the stray birds captured here, although at intervals of many years, were only the introduced stock or their descendants. However, I find the following passage, evidently relating to the above species, in an interesting paper by the Rev. In the same paper Mr. Colenso gives the following account of another bird, seen by him in 1845, which has never since been recorded in New Zealand:—“A little below Ngaruawahia (on the Waikato river) we met a man in a canoo with a live and elegant specimen of the genus This species can only be included in our list as an occasional straggler from Australia, where it is said to be universally dispersed, although less abundant on the western coast than elsewhere. A specimen, now in my collection in the Colonial Museum, was shot in the Wellington Province thirty-one years ago; and several instances have since been reported of its occurrence in the South IslandFulica. I hailed the man and purchased the bird, which he had recently snared, for a little tobacco. It was a most graceful creature, and, as far as I am aware, an entirely new and undescribed species. Its general colour was dark, almost black; head grey and without a frontal shield; fore neck and breast ferruginous red; wings barred with white; bill produced and sharp; feet and legs glossy olive; toes beautifully and largely festooned at the edges; eye light coloured and very animated. It was very fierce and never ceased attempting to bite at everything within its reach. I kept it until we landed, intending to preserve it, but as it was late, and neither material at hand nor time to spare, and the animal, too, looking so lovely that I could not make up my mind to put it to death, I let it go. It swam, dived, and disappeared… . Not a doubt, in my opinion, can exist as to its being naturally allied in habit and affinity to the Fulicæ; I have therefore named it Fulica novæ zealandiæ. In size it was somewhat less than our European species, F. atra.”
Layard, writing on the birds of New Caledonia (Ibis, 1882, p. 531), says of this species:—“This Night-Heron is found sparingly wherever we have been; but it is a curious fact that, though perhaps a dozen specimens have come into our hands to be skinned, not one has possessed the long white occipital plumes which have garnished the heads of all those we saw in Australia. It may be that they are only assumed during the breeding-season, and that they breed only in the north of this island.”
I quote the following interesting account of this Night-Heron from Gould’s ‘Handbook to the Birds of Australia’ (vol. ii. pp. 311, 312):—“In the southern latitudes it is only a summer visitant, arriving in New South Wales and South Australia in August and September, and retiring again in February. As its name implies, it is nocturnal in its habits; and from its frequenting swamps, the sedgy banks of rivers, and other secluded situations, it is seldom seen. On the approach of morning it retires to the forests and perches among the branches of large trees, where, shrouded from the heat of the sun, it sleeps the whole day, and when once discovered is easily shot; for, if forced to quit its perch, it merely flies a short distance and again alights. Its flight is slow and flapping; and during its passage through the air the head is drawn back between the shoulders, and the legs are stretched out backwards, after the manner of the true Herons. When perched on the trees, or resting on the ground, it exhibits none of the grace and elegance of those birds, its short neck resting on the shoulders. When impelled to search for a supply of food, it naturally becomes more animated, and its actions lively and prying; the varied nature of its food in fact demands some degree of activity—fishes, water-lizards, crabs, frogs, leeches, and insects being all partaken of with equal avidity.
“It breeds in the months of November and December, and generally in companies, like the true Herons, the favourite localities being the neighbourhood of swampy districts, where an abundant supply of food is to be procured; the branches of large trees, points of shelving rocks, and caverns are equally chosen as a site for the nest, which is rather large and flat, and generally composed of crooked sticks loosely interwoven. The eggs, which are usually three in number, are of a pale green colour, and average two inches and five eighths in length by one inch and a half in breadth.”
Ardea poiciloptila, Wagl. Syst. Av. Ardea, sp. 28, note (1827).
Botaurus melanotus, Gray, in Dieff. Trav., App. p. 196 (1843).
Botaurus poiciloptilus, Gray, Gen. of B. iii. p. 557 (1847).
Botaurus australis, Gould, B. of Austr. vi. pl. 64 (1848).
Botaurus pæciloptila, Bonap. C. R. xl. p. 723 (1855).
Botaurus poicilopterus, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 236.
Ardea pæciloptera, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 348.
Ardea poiceloptera, Hutton, Cat. Birds of N. Z. p. 28 (1871).
xml:lang="la"Ad. suprà nigricanti-brunneus, interscapulii plumis paucis et scapularibus exterioribus irregulariter fulvescente transvermiculatis: uropygio imo et supracaudalibus clariùs fulvescentibus latiùs brunneo transnotatis: tectricibus alarum brunnescentibus ubique fulvescente transversim vermiculatis, minimis omninò nigricanti-brunneis: remigibus et rectricibus nigricanti-brunneis, sparsim fulvescente irregulariter notatis, illis intùs vix fasciatis: pileo summo et collo laterali saturatè brunneis, indistinctè fulvo transversim terminatis: supercilio lato cum regione paroticâ, genis gulâque fulvescentibus: lineâ, latâ ab oculo postico ad collum laterale ductâ brunneâ: corpore reliquo subtùs ochrascenti-fulvo, plumis brunneo irregulariter notatis vel transfasciatis, interdum quasi latè longitudinaliter strigatis, gutture et pectore superiore pallidè brunneo marmoratis: subcaudalibus fulvis: subalaribus fulvis ubique brunneo irregulariter notatis: rostro saturatè brunneo: regione oculari et pedibus pulchrè dilutè viridibus: iride flavâ.
Adult. Head and nape dark brown; superciliary streak and region of the ears tawny, the former freckled with brown; back of neck and lower part of back dark purplish brown varied with buff; mantle, scapulars, and secondaries dark brown with purplish reflexions, freckled, and mottled on the edges with tawny yellow; upper surface of wings pale buff, the longer coverts with broad arrow-head marks along their whole extent, and the shorter ones freckled and mottled with different shades of brown; primaries purplish brown, with dark shafts, marbled on their inner webs with buff; secondaries darker brown, marbled on both vanes, but more conspicuously on the inner; tail-feathers dark brown, margined and freckled with buff, especially on the outer ones; throat, front and sides of the neck, and all the under surface tawny buff, variegated with dark brown; on the throat the brown markings are very indistinct, being limited to a narrow freckled line down the middle; on the fore neck each feather has a broad mark of yellowish brown down the centre, with vandyked edges in some and lateral continuations in others; on the long neck-plumes which overhang the breast, and on the overlapping femorals, these markings assume the character of narrow zigzag lines and arrow-heads. The broad feathers covering the upper part of the breast are blackish brown in the centre with tawny-white sides; but these are usually concealed by the overhanging plumes of the fore neck; on the sides of the body there are irregular longitudinal streaks of dark brown; abdomen, inner sides of the tibia, and under tail-coverts yellowish buff without any markings; outer sides of the tibia tawny variegated with brown; lining of wings and axillary plumes pale buff, barred and mottled with purplish brown. Irides yellow; bill dark brown, whitish on the sides and towards the base of lower mandible; eyelids, naked loral membrane, legs, and feet beautiful pale green; the claws dark brown, with horn-coloured tips. Total length 30 inches; extent of wings 48; wing, from flexure, 14·5; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 2·75, along the edge of lower mandible 4; bare tibia 1; tarsus 4; middle toe and claw 5·25; hind toe and claw 3·75.
Female. I think Mr. Gould is in error in his statement (Handbook to the Birds of Australia, ii. p. 314) that “the sexes are alike in plumage, but the female is smaller than the male.” So far as my observation goes, the female is invariably larger than the male, and is further distinguishable by its much duller plumage.
Varieties. A partial albino was shot at Moutoa, near Foxton, in the autumn of 1884, and I had an opportunity of examining it whilst in the hands of the taxidermist. The head and fore neck were pure white, the long neck-plumes overhanging the breast, as also the shoulders and the fore part of breast, largely but irregularly marked with white; the rest of the plumage as in ordinary examples.
A specimen which I obtained from Christchurch and presented to the Colonial Museum is of unusually large size, and has the whole of the fore neck and ruff tawny yellow, shaded with pale brown on the sides of the latter, all the markings being much obliterated, the plumage having a “washed out” appearance; the whole of the underparts dingy yellowish white, the axillary plumes and the femorals irregularly barred with brown; cheeks and sides of the head pale tawny brown, the plumage of the upper surface as in ordinary examples.
Obs. Individuals differ not only in size but in the details of their colouring—so much so, indeed, that the natives believe in the existence of two species, the smaller and darker of which they distinguish as “Matuku-karourou;” but having now before me a series of thirteen specimens exhibiting a considerable amount of individual variation, I am unable to recognize any such distinction.
Remarks. This bird has the faculty of expanding the plumage of the neck laterally; and the hind part of the neck, which is exposed by this action, is covered with a long fluffy or downy growth. When the body is quiescent the long side-feathers overlie this downy plumage and effectually conceal it. The claw of the middle toe is strongly pectinate on its inner margin, and in old birds the edges are often much worn and broken.
The Common Bittern is very generally distributed over the country, in places suited to its habits of life, such as raupo swamps, sedgy lagoons, and those “blind creeks,” covered over with a growth of reeds and tangle, which are so numerous in all the low districts. In some localities it is comparatively abundant—for example, along the whole extent of swampy flats lying between Waikanae and Rangitikei, on the west coast of the Wellington provincial district, where I have obtained half a dozen in the course of a single afternoon. It is likewise met with in all parts of the Australian continent, although very few specimens appear to have been sent to Europe; and Captain Sturt reports that he found it very plentiful in the marshes of the interior. It is said to occur also in the Chatham Islands; and there is reason to believe that its range extends to Polynesia.
It is a true Bittern in all its habits, being, in fact, the southern representative of the Botaurus stellaris of Europe. It appears to love a solitary life, being always met with singly; it remains concealed during the heat of the day, and at eventide startles the ear with its four loud booming notes, slowly repeated, and resembling the distant roar of an angry bull. It subsists on mice, lizards, eels, and freshwater fish, of various kinds; from the gullet of one that I had shot I extracted two headless eels, each measuring 16 inches in length, from which some idea may be formed of the capacity of a Bittern’s stomach!
It is interesting to steal up, under cover, and watch this Bittern alternately feeding and reposing in its sedgy haunts. When in a quiescent posture the body is nearly erect, the head thrown back and resting on the shoulders, with the beak pointed upwards, and the contracted neck forming a broad curve with the closed ruff depending, the attitude altogether being rather grotesque. The instant, however, any sound causes it alarm the whole character of the bird is changed: the neck is stretched to its full length, and every movement betokens caution and vigilance; unless immediately reassured, it spreads its broad wings and raises itself into the air in a rather awkward manner, with the legs dangling down, but gradually raised to a level with the tail; the flight then assumes a steady course, often in
Layard writes from New Caledonia (Ibis, 1882, p. 531):—“We had heard of a wonderful bird that inhabited the swamps, even in the neighbourhood of Noumea, which frightened belated travellers and ‘made night hideous’ with its unearthly cries, and were therefore not astonished when our friend M. Saves presented us with a fine specimen of the Australian Bittern, shot at Ansevata. We subsequently obtained a few other examples; and we suspect that it is not very rare in suitable localities. From its retiring habits, however, it is seldom procured, unless purposely hunted, there being here no Snipe to tempt the shooters into swamps.”
Dr. Ramsay writes of this bird in Australia:—“It is far more plentiful in the Illawarra and southern districts of New South Wales than in any other part of the country I have visited. I have seen specimens from the lakes and marshes in the southern parts of Victoria, near Ballarat, and have also noticed it on the Herbert river, in the Rockingham Bay district, where it is considered a rare bird, although that part of the country is admirably adapted for its habits, abounding in extensive swamps and lagoons. They are still found to be not rare within a few miles of Sydney; but the Illawarra district is the great stronghold of this species.”
I have a note from Mr.
The Bittern breeds in swamps, forming its rude nest of raupo and other aquatic vegetation loosely placed together, and sometimes completely surrounded by water. The eggs are usually four in number, although Mr. French, who is an excellent observer, informs me that he once found a nest of five near the Kaiapoi river; they are generally of an even or regular ovoido-elliptical form, measuring 2·1 inches in length by 1·5 in breadth, and of a uniform pale brownish-olive colour.
A nest of this species in the Canterbury Museum is small, flat-topped, and rounded, with a diameter of about 9 inches and a depth of 3 inches. It is composed entirely of dry rushes and flags, and contains three eggs of a uniform delicate creamy stone-colour. There is a specimen of the egg, however, in the Museum, of a delicate dull green, and three others of a greenish-cream colour. The green tinge is no doubt more pronounced in the shell when fresh.
Platalea melanorhynchos, Reich. Av. Syst. Nat. pl. lxxxiv. Grall. (ex A. B. Reich. 1834).
Platalea regia, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. part v. p. 106 (1837).
Platalea latirostrum, Ellman, Zoologist, 1861, p. 7469.
Platalea regia, Buller, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. ix. p. 337 (1877).
Ad. omninò albus: occipite et nuchâ cristatis, plumis pendentibus ornatis: fronte, facie anteriore et gulæ plumis anticè nudis: maculâ supraoculari et alterâ frontali aurantiacis: pectore flavo lavato: iride rubrâ: rostro et pedibus nigris.
Juv. similis adulto, pectore excepto, sed minimè cristatus.
Adult. The whole of the plumage pure white, with a wash of yellow on the breast. Irides red; on the bare crown and over each eye a crescentic mark of orange; bill, bare membrane on the face, legs, and feet black. Total length 37 inches; extent of wings 50·5; wing, from flexure, 15·5; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 8, along the edge of lower mandible 7·5, width at base 1·3, widest part 2·2, narrowest part ·7; bare tibia 4; tarsus 5·5; longest toe and claw 4·25.
Obs. Some adult examples have no tinge of yellow on the breast. In the nuptial season both sexes are adorned with a full occipital crest of gracefully drooping plumes five inches in length. The young are entirely crestless.
Mr. Ellman, in 1861, reported that a Spoonbill was known to the Maoris residing at Castle Point under the above native name, signifying the “White Heron with a flat bill,” and he proposed, but without sufficient authority, to give it a distinctive title as Platalea latirostrum.
The Royal Spoonbill is tolerably common on the eastern and northern coasts of Australia, and (according to Gould), although a very rare visitant, it has also been killed within the colony of New South Wales. The first authentic record of the occurrence of this fine bird in New Zealand was furnished by myself at a meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society on the 29th July, 1876, when I exhibited a fresh-skinned specimen and made some remarks upon it (l, c.).
This bird, which I afterwards presented to the Colonial Museum, was obtained at Manawatu, and kindly forwarded to me by Mr. Charles Hulke, of Foxton, accompanied by the following interesting notes:—“This Spoonbill was shot in April last, near the mouth of the Manawatu river, by Mr. Blake. It was sitting on the sand in company with three Paradise Ducks (Casarca variegata)… . . This bird had been seen for some five or six months about the lagoons in the vicinity of Mr. Robinson’s homestead. By his sons it had been taken for a White Shag. Only one had been seen by them, but I have been informed by a person who is in the habit of crossing the country between Foxton and Rangitikei, that he is confident he has seen another specimen near the Rangitikei river. No other specimen was, however, seen in company with that sent herewith.”
New-Holland Shag, Lath. Gen. Hist. B. x. p. 431 (1824).
Phalacrocorax novæ hollandiæ, Steph. Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 93 (1826).
Phalacrocorax carboides, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 156.
Graucalus carboides, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 201 (1843).
Gracalus carboides, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 20 (1844).
Graculus carboides, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 251.
Graculus carbo, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 375.
Graculus novæ hollandiæ, Gray, Hand-1. of B. iii. p. 127 (1871).
Ad. sordidè indigotico-niger, nuchâ cristatâ, pileo summo et colli lateribus fasciis filamentosis parvis ornstis: scapularibus cum tectricibus alarum et secundariis interioribus clarè bronzino-brunneis, viridi-nigro marginatis: primariis nigricanti-brunneis: caudâ nigrâ, suprà vix cinerascente lavatâ: plagâ latâ ab oculo postico et subter gulam conjunctâ albidâ: corpore reliquo subtùs indigotico-nigro, viridi nitente, plagâ hypochondriacâ maximâ albâ: rostro albido, culmine et apice brunnescentibus: plagâ ophthalmicâ gulâque nudis lætè flavis; pedibus nigris: iride thalassino-viridi.
Adult male. Upper part of the head, neck all round, back, rump, and all the under surface of the body shining greenish black; shoulders, scapulars, and wing-coverts bronzy or coppery brown, broadly margined with shining greenish black; a broad patch crossing the throat and connecting the eyes buffy white, sometimes tinged with yellow; on each thigh a large rounded spot of white, more or less conspicuous in different examples; quills and tail-feathers black. Irides sea-green; skin round the eyes and on the gular pouch rich yellow, and studded with short scattered feathers; bill whitish horn-colour, shading into brown on the culmen and towards the tips; legs and feet jet-black. Total length 34·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 13·5; tail 7; bill, along the ridge 2·75, along the edge of lower mandible 3·5; tarsus 2; longest toe and claw 3·75.
Obs. In summer the male is adorned with numerous white linear feathers, scattered over the throat and neck, and extending about half an inch beyond the permanent feathers; but these white plumes never assume the dense character exhibited in the summer plumage of P. carbo, in which these parts, as well as the crown, appear almost entirely white. The thigh-spot is present in summer and winter alike, but owing to the presence of long white filaments it is more conspicuous in the breeding-season. I have seen males without the thigh-spot, from which I conclude that it is not acquired till after the first moult. The occipital feathers are somewhat produced, forming a very slight crest.
In the middle of autumn I observed a party of five at the mouth of the Waikanae river, and in another locality seven, not one of them exhibiting the white thigh-spot, from which it may be inferred that the sexes separate themselves at this season.
Female. Has the plumage generally duller and without the white thigh-spot; crown of the head and neck all round blackish brown, minutely stippled or speckled with pale brown, particularly on the fore neck; breast fulvous white mixed with brown, having an indeterminate appearance; rest of the underparts and under surface of wings greenish black slightly glossed; quills and tail-feathers black with greyish shafts. Irides dull grey. Total length 32 inches; extent of wings 48.
Obs. In some examples (apparently very old birds) the white spreads over the abdomen.
Young. Upper parts brown with a greenish gloss, deepening into greenish black on the lower part of back and rump; mantle and wing-coverts dingy coppery brown with darker margins, the longer coverts tipped with creamy white; throat pale buff; sides of the head, front and sides of the neck dark brown mottled with pale buff; centre of the breast and the abdomen yellowish white; the sides of the body largely mottled with brówn, varied more or less with greenish black; quills and tail-feathers black.
Nestling. The nestling attains to a considerable size before the downy covering makes its appearance. This is of a uniform sooty brown, and as the bird advances becomes thick and woolly.
Albino. Among birds of this class it is a rare thing to find any conspicuous departure from the ordinary plumage. The following is the description of a fine albino obtained at Sumner, near Christchurch:—General upper surface dark cream-colour; the crown, hind neck, lower part of back, and flanks stained and shaded with brown; the scapulars and wing-coverts broadly margined with yellowish brown; sides of the head, throat, fore neck, and all the underparts pure white; the wing-feathers are yellowish white, more or less clouded and freckled with brown; the old tail-feathers are yellowish white, the new ones ashy; and interspersed with the plumage of the upper parts there are numerous new feathers of a brownish ash-colour with darker edges, thus indicating a transition to a darker state of plumage. The bare facial membrane is flesh-coloured, with an obsolete yellow spot in front of the eye; bill black; legs and feet dark brown.
Note. In my “Further Notes on the Ornithology of New Zealand,” read before the Wellington Philosophical Society on the 12th of November, 1870, and published in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute’ (vol. iii. pp. 36–56), I stated my reasons for adopting the generic title of Phalacrocorax (Brisson) in preference to Graculus; and a further consideration of the question has only tended to confirm me in that decision. I have thought it right to make this statement, inasmuch as I find the latter name adhered to both in Dr. Finsch’s latest revision of the nomenclature in the ‘Journal für Ornithologie’ (July 1872) and in Professor Hutton’s ‘Catalogue.’ Not only is Phalacrocorax the older title, and therefore entitled to recognition; but, as I have already pointed out (l. c.), there seems to be no finality about the other name. In Mr. Graucalus, in his “Birds of New Zealand” (Voy. Ereb. and Terr. p. 20) it was changed to Gracalus; and in his later list (Ibis, 1862) it became Graculus, a term originally applied specifically by Linnæus to the Green Cormorant of Europe, Pelecanus graculus (Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 217).
Captain Mair states that this species is rarely seen in the Bay of Plenty. But he distinguishes from this what he terms the “Large Brown River Shag,” the Mapo or Matapo of the Maoris. He describes this bird as “brown all over with a yellow tinge on the throat,” and says that it frequents lakes and the upper courses of rivers and is never met with on the sea-coast. A colony of them, numbering about a dozen individuals (exclusively of this kind), breed every year in a kahikatea forest near the shores of Lake Rotorua.I Stated in my former edition of this work that, after comparing a large number of specimens, I felt no hesitation in keeping this form distinct from the well-known Phalacrocorax carbo of Europe, although the two species were closely related and had doubtless sprung from a common ancestor. In thus separating it, I was supported by the late Mr. Gould, who had enjoyed frequent opportunities of investigating the subject in Australia and Tasmania, where this bird is very generally dispersed. The same view was taken by the late Mr.
The Black Shag is very common on our coasts and within the mouths of our tidal rivers. Along the ocean-beach it is generally dispersed singly or in pairs, but on the sand-banks it often congregates
Like all the other members of the group, the Black Shag is an accomplished diver, and obtains all its food in this manner. Twenty-five seconds appears to be the average duration of each dive, although the bird is capable of remaining under water for a much longer time. It is interesting to observe it facing a strong rolling surf and diving under the breakers to avoid their force. When swimming in smooth water, it sometimes amuses itself by slapping its broad wings upon the surface, producing a sound that may be heard to the distance of half a mile. It rises from the water with apparent difficulty, and till it is fairly in the air it continues to strike the surface violently with the tips of its wings; this will doubtless account for the ragged appearance often presented by the ends of the primaries. It subsists on fish of various kinds; and I have observed one capture a good-sized flounder, and after killing it by nipping with its bill, and battering on the water, swallow it whole, the throat of this bird being capable of great expansion.
There is an interesting mounted group in the Canterbury Museum, illustrating the gular capacity of this Shag. The principal figure is that of a bird holding in its bill a brown trout which had actually been taken from its throat when shot in the Avon river; the fish measured 14½ inches in length, with a girth of 7¾, and weighed 1¼ lb.
A Canterbury sportsman records another instance of the kind as follows:—“Some idea of the size of the fish a Shag can provide accommodation for will be gained when it is mentioned that a few days since one of a trio of Rangiora sportsmen out shooting at the Ashley river killed a bird of the species, which, on being picked up, dropped from its gullet an eel 21 in. long, and within an ounce or two of a pound in weight” The following appeared in one of the local newspapers:—“Shags are stated to be more than usually destructive to young fish in the Wairarapa district this year, and it would be well if the local bodies offered a reward per head for each of these birds before they decimate the creeks of the valley. On Friday last, Mr.
The stomach of another which I myself opened contained an eel 27 inches in length and measur ing 5 inches in circumference in its thickest part.
On the occasion of a visit which I paid to Sir George Grey in his lovely island home at Kawau, he led me to a small promontory from which you look down upon a shell-beach of exquisite beauty, fringed to its very edge with pohutukawa trees covered with a mass of crimson flower. From this beach, for some fifty yards or more, the water is so shallow that the pebbly bottom is clearly visible, and Sir George told me that from this point of observation he has often watched this Shag in its fishing-operations coursing like a greyhound under the surface, and using its wings and tail as propellers. He also told me an interesting story of one he obtained from the nest and succeeded in
It is interesting to observe the readiness with which it dives under water for protection. On one occasion I was watching one of these birds floating lazily on the surface in Porirua harbour. Something in its appearance seemed to irritate a Red-billed Gull which, after coursing about overhead, made a swoop down upon the Shag. The latter bird, by an adroit movement, immediately disappeared under water and came up again some yards off “ “The cause was an eel. The river Shag had a swamp of its own; the ocean Shag lived on the water. The two Shags contended about the respective merits of their feeding-grounds. The river Shag lived on eels, the sea Shag on snapper. The river Shag said to the other, ‘Come along with me on shore and see what a fine feeding-ground I have.’ The sea Shag agreed, and they went together. The former, who was standing on a ‘negro-head’ in the swamp, called to his visitor ‘Now, dive!’ Down he went, and up he came again with an eel in his beak. ‘Now, then, swallow it!” Down went the slippery eel into the crop of its captor. ‘Now, then, throw it up again!’ cried the river Shag, and up came the slippery eel from the depths of his captor’s throat. ‘See,’ exclaimed the river Shag, ‘that is the beauty of my food; you can do what you like with it.’ ‘Well, let us go to the sea,’ said the ocean Shag, ‘and I will show you what we can do.’ Accordingly they went. ‘Now,’ said the ocean Shag, ‘let me see you dive.’ ‘Not so,’ replied the river Shag, ‘for I have come to see what food you can produce.’ So down the former went; up he came with a snapper in his bill. ‘Good!’ cried the river Shag; ‘now swallow it.’ Down it went, disappearing entirely in the stomach of the bird. ‘Now, then, throw it up again!’ He tried, but tried in vain. The sharp spines on the snapper’s back stuck fast in the Shag’s throat. The river Shag jeered at him, saying, ‘Death lurks in the food you gather;’ and so it was, for the ocean Shag struggled till it died. This was the cause of the battle; for the sea-birds had now discerned how superior was the food on shore, and were determined to make an invasion, so they collected all their forces for that purpose. When the land-birds heard that their ocean brethren were contemplating a descent upon their feeding-grounds, they, too, began to collect their forces to oppose the intruders. The Huia was the bird who called the tribes together with his cry, The Battle of the Birds.“—The following is a translation of the Maori fable, as related to me by a Ngatiawa chief. It is a fair specimen of this class of Maori fables, and is interesting as showing how many of the names of the birds are derived from their cries:—
huia-huia! (assemble, assemble!). The one who kept the fighting-party on the alert during the night was the Pipi-warauroa, his watchword being koia-koia-whitiora-whitiora-whiti-whitiora. This was a warning-cry to keep the party wakeful. The Tui did all the talking, urging them to be brave and big-hearted. The Owl was selected to offer the challenge, and he did the pukana (staring defiantly), and that is how his eyes are so large. The one who threw the last challenge-spear was the Tiwaiwaka. Having thrown the stick, he came dancing backwards, exposing his rear, first on one side, then on the other (just as you see the bird gesticulating, with its tail erect and spread, now-a-days). When the forces from the sea approached it was seen that the Gannet was put forward to answer the challenge. And as the Gannet followed up the defiant Tiwaiwaka, the Oyster-catcher called out keria-keria-keria rawatia (follow him up to the end). And so he did follow him up, and made a thrust forward with his bill, and thought he had speared his enemy, when, lo! his spear went through to the other side, for it was all tail! The Pigeon then commenced to coo; the Kaka cried arara-arara; the Sea-Gull sounded his alarm of haro-haro. Then the two forces came into general conflict, and the tribes from the sea were defeated and driven back. That is why they still remain there, whilst the land-birds enjoy their forests and swamps.”
It breeds in companies, and frequently in association with another species of Shag (P. brevirostris), resorting for this purpose to the deep swamps in the vicinity of the sea-coast, and placing its rude nest on the “negro-heads” or swamp-tussocks, just above the surface of the water: this structure is often three feet in diameter, and is composed of raupo flags, dry leaves, and twigs roughly placed together, and rendered compact by the weight of the sitting bird. A nest in the Canterbury Museum is a massive bed of flax-leaves, toetoe, and dry grasses pressed together into a thick flat layer, measuring about 20 inches by 15 inches, with a thickness of 3 to 4 inches, and with a slight depression on the top. The eggs, which are usually three in number, are of a perfectly elliptical form, measuring 2·5 inches in length by 1·6 in breadth, and are greenish white, with a thin covering of chalky matter.
Pied Shag, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 605 (1785).
Pelecanus varius, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 576 (1788).
Carbo hypoleucus, Brandt, Bull. Acad. Imp. Pétersb. i. p. 55 (1837).
Phalacrocorax leucogaster, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 156.
Graucalus varius, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 201 (1843).
Gracalus varius, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 19 (1844).
Pelecanus pica, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 104 (1844).
Phalacrocorax hypoleucus, Gould, B. of Austr. vii. pl. 68 (1848).
Carbo fucosus, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp., Birds, p. 268 (1848).
Hypoleucus varius, Reich. Syst. Av. p. vii (1852).
Carbo leucogaster, Cass. U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 373 (1858).
Graculus varius, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 251.
Graculus leucogaster, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 128 (1871).
Ad. pileo colloque toto, dorso postico cum uropygio et supracaudalibus sordidè indigotico-nigris: interscapulio, scapularibus et tectricibus alarum saturatè cinerascentibus, plumis omnibus angustè viridi-nigro marginatis: remigibus brunneis, extùs cinerascentibus, secundariis interioribus cinerascentibus externé viridi-nigro marginatis: caudâ nigrâ: loris nudis lætè aurantiacis: facie laterali totâ et corpore subtùs albis, pectoris lateribus et hypochondriis imis tibiisque indigotico-nigris: subalaribus brunneis viridi lavatis: rostro saturatè corneo, versus apicem et ad basin mandibulæ pallidiore: pedibus nigris: iríde pallidè thalassino-viridi: regione ophthalmicânudâ lætè indigoticâ: maculâ anteoculari aurantiacâ: gula flavâ, nudâ.
Juv. similis adulto, sed corpore subtùs et collo laterali brunnescenti-nigro variis.
Adult. Top of the head, back of the neck, lower part of back, rump, flanks, and thighs shining greenish black; shoulders, mantle, scapulars, and upper wing-coverts deep bronzy grey, each feather bordered with velvety black; quills and tail-feathers black, with polished shafts; under surface of wings and axillary plumes black, slightly glossed with green; sides of face, throat, front and sides of neck, and all the under surface pure white. Irides pale sea-green; in the bare space in front of the eyes a bright yellow spot; eyelids and naked skin below indigo-blue; gular membrane yellow; bill dark horn-colour or brownish yellow, paler at the tips and towards the base of lower mandible; legs and feet black. Total length 33·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 12·25; tail 6; bill, along the ridge 3, along the edge of lower mandible 4; tarsus 2·5; longest toe and claw 4·25.
Young. Differs from the adult in having the plumage duller, the feathers composing the mantle and the scapulars being narrowly margined with brown; also in having the fore neck and underparts of the body irregularly spotted with blackish brown, this appearance being caused by the apical portion of some of the feathers being of that colour. In some instances the brown assumes the character of clouded markings over the entire under surface.
Nestling. Covered on the upper surface with thick sooty-brown down, and on the lower sides of the face, throat,
Fledgling. The first plumage to appear is on the wings and that composing the mantle, these feathers being very acuminate in form, with a filamentous fringe, of a slaty-brown colour, very slightly glossed and narrowly margined with an edging of velvety brown; also the tail-feathers and their upper coverts, which are black, the latter being glossed with green; next the feathers of the underparts appear, coming up for the most part pure white, but with an admixture of brown as described above.
Obs. The sexes are precisely alike in plumage, but differ slightly in size.
The adult colours are acquired in the nest, but undergo a subsequent change. The nestling has the upper parts covered with blackish-brown down, which deepens into black on the hind neck, whilst the down covering the fore neck and all the underparts is pure white. But on the fledgling the colours are not so well marked, the dark plumage of the upper surface being suffused with grey, and the white of the underparts being lightly streaked and freckled all over with greyish brown. In addition to this the feathers have a frayed-out appearance.
This species frequents the lakes and freshwater rivers, and is seldom met with on the sea-coast except during the breeding-season. In other respects its habits do not appear to differ in any material point from those of the preceding bird. Its usual station is a fallen tree or a stump projecting from the water; and it may frequently be seen spreading its wings to the sun, and sometimes remaining in that position for a considerable time.
It is far more plentiful on the shores of the North Island and particularly so in the provincial district of Auckland, becoming scarce in Hawke’s Bay, and very rare indeed south of Cook’s Strait.
On the wing, its snow-white underparts gleaming in the sunshine, or artistically posed on some projecting stump near the river-bank, it is always a conspicuous object.
They are very destructive to the introduced carp in the lakes and lagoons in the neighbourhood of Auckland. Their crops are often found completely crammed with them, and in one instance a carp measuring 10 inches in length was taken from a Pied Shag’s throat. From time to time the Acclimatization Society prosecutes an active crusade, but the Shags appear to be as plentiful as ever in all suitable localities.
Sir J. von Haast writes:—“They are capital fishers; and one day I was witness how well they understood how to procure their food. It was near the spot where one of the northern spurs of Mount Murchison slopes down to the Buller, which here forms small falls and rapids. A Cormorant was standing on an isolated rock, round which the foaming waters dashed down; and I was not a little surprised to see him jump down into the white foam. In the first instance I thought he would not get out again, but would be dashed to death by the whirling waters; but soon he reappeared, swimming rapidly towards the edge, and then flying on to his old observatory to continue his sport. It is probable that small fishes are taken down by the falls, and, being stunned by the force of the water, are easily caught by the courageous bird. This is a new proof that nature has given to every animal the requisite physical strength to contend with the elements in which it has to look for its subsistence.”
This species nests in trees in the vicinity of water and always in communities. Far up the courses of the freshwater rivers, on a single tree overhanging the stream, five or six pairs may be found associated, their nests formed of twigs and other dry materials pressed into a compact structure and fixed firmly among the branches. Many such places are known to me, and one in particular, some fifty miles up the Wairoa river, north of Auckland, was occupied, within my own knowledge, for ten or twelve years in succession, in spite of repeated molestation by the natives. In other suitable
The Rurima rocks, which are situated about five miles from Whale Island and four from the mainland, consist of three small semi-conical hills, which have so far resisted the erosive or wasting forces of the ocean, two of them being connected together by a low-lying area of rock and sand-drift forming a sort of atoll. The detached one is known as Motoki, and this is one of the few last refuges of the expiring tuatara lizard, the wonderful Sphenodon punctatum. It is a long flat rock with a cone in the centre covered with beautiful pohutukawa trees (Metrosideros tomentosa). Around the base of this cone there is a dense growth of stunted angiangi ( Coprosma lucida) looking very fresh and green. Among the rocks and in the burrows under the shade of this dense vegetation the
We found the Shags in great force, and it was most interesting to watch the operations of both old and young birds. There were perhaps 80 or 100 nests, many of which were vacant owing to the lateness of our visit, the breeding having commenced in October. The nests are large, round structures, composed, as already mentioned, of dry sticks and twigs and other loose materials, bound together by means of a peculiar kind of kelp, for which the Shags may be observed diving in the sea, sometimes in four fathoms of water. They have a somewhat compact appearance and are usually placed in a thick fork among the branches or between two limbs of a tree lying close together. In each of those still tenanted there were two fully-fledged young birds; and these youthful Shags kept up a constant “squirling” noise, accompanied by a perpetual swaying of the head from side to side, in an impatient sort of way. The old bird comes up from the sea with her gullet full of small fish, and takes up her station on a branch adjoining to or overlooking the nest. The young birds, after craning their necks almost to dislocation, quit their nest and mount up alongside the parent, when the peculiar feeding-operation commences. The mother bends down her head in a loving way, opens wide her mandibles, and the young Shag, with an impatient guttural note, thrusts his head right down the parental throat and draws forth from the pouch, after much fumbling about, the first instalment of his dinner. No sooner has he swallowed this than he begins to coax for more, caressing the mother’s throat and neck with his bill in a very amusing fashion. The old bird waits till she has recovered the discomfort of the last feed, then opens her mouth again, and the action is repeated, first by one young Shag, then by the other. When the pouch is emptied, the mother spreads her ample wings and goes off for a fresh supply of auas, whilst her offspring shuffle themselves back again into their nest to await her return. But this feeding-process and the squirling cries which herald it are going on at the same time all over the camp, and as a consequence there is a perfect din of voices. In the midst of these may be heard deep guttural cries; but these are probably the occasional scoldings of the old birds to repress the inconsiderate eagerness of their young ones, for during the operation of feeding there is sometimes a good deal of apparent squabbling among the young fraternity for the first attention, accompanied by a vigorous fluttering and flapping of the wings. In one of the nests, where the young birds were not sufficiently advanced to leave it, I observed that the occupants during the intervals when their parents were absent kept up an incessant flapping of their wings and swaying of
This breeding-colony consisted exclusively of As far back as 1841 the Rev. Mr. Colenso wrote:—“On a tall, branching pohutukawa tree P. varius(Metrosideros tomentosa), which grew on the rocky cliff at the northern end of the beach at Owae (a small village in Wangaruru Bay), I observed several Cormorants had built their nests. These birds had inhabited this tree for many years; yearly increasing the number of their nests, which they build of dry Algæ, sticks, and small plants. Their social habits and large nests forcibly reminded me of an English rookery. Two species inhabit these shores; one, with entirely black plumage, which the natives call Kawau—the other with white fore neck, breast, and belly, and olive-black neck, back, and wings, called by them Karuhiruhi; this last is the most common.”(P. punctatus) consorting with the flock, but none of any other species.
At a place called Whakarewha, near Matata on the East Coast, there is a colony of the Pied Shag where many hundreds of them breed together. The nests are crowded together on the branches of a clump of pohutukawa trees growing on the cliff; and at the commencement of the breeding-season, when the Shags assemble to refit their nests, the old birds may often be seen fighting fiercely for the possession of a dry stick or piece of seaweed, required for building-purposes, or endeavouring to dispossess each other of nests already made. Owing probably to the crowding, the young birds are not unfrequently knocked out of the nests, and numbers of dead ones are found lying on the beach at the base of the cliff. The Harrier (Circus gouldi), attracted by these dead bodies, hovers about this breeding-place and makes an occasional attempt to carry off a young Shag from the nest by boldly attacking it; whereupon numbers of the old birds sally forth with loud guttural cries and chase the intruder to a considerable distance.
Captain Mair visited a similar shaggery on Whale Island, on the 10th November, and sent me the following report:—“I found the young in every stage, from partly developed ones in the egg to young birds just ready for flight.”
The eggs, which are elliptical in form, and greenish white, are generally two in number; but there are sometimes three, and Mr. Reischek informs me that he has occasionally found as many as four in one nest.
Phalacrocorax imperialis, King, Proc. Z. S. 1831, p. 30.
Phalacrocorax cirrhatus, Scl. & Salv. Ibis, 1868, p. 189.
Graculus carunculatus, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 375.
Phalacrocorax carunculatus, Scl. & Salv. Ibis, 1870, p. 500.
Phalacrocorax carunculatus, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st edit. p. 332 (1873).
Graculus carunculatus, Sharpe, App. Voy. Ereb. and Terr. p. 34 (1875).
Phalacrocorax imperialis, Scl. & Salv. Proc. Z. S. 1878, p. 652.
Phalacrocorax cirrhatus, Hutton, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xi. p. 336 (1879).
Ad. pileo cristato cum collo postico, dorso postico, uropygio et supracaudalibus nitidè purpurascentibus: interscapulio, scapularibus alarumque tectricibus sordidè olivaceo-viridibus, illo purpurascente lavato, tectricibus alarum minimis interioribus albis, fasciam albam conspicuam formantibus: remigibus brunneis, secundariis olivaceo lavatis: caudâ sordidè nigrâ, rectricibus duabus centralibus medialiter cano lavatis, scapis ad basin albis: facie et collo lateralibus purpurascenti-nigris pileo concoloribus: corpore reliquo subtùs purè albo: hypochondriis imis purpurascenti-nigris: subalaribus brunneis: rostro saturatè brunneo, ad apicem albido: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride pallidè brunneâ: plagâ nudâ anteoculari papillosâ aurantiaco-rubrâ.
Adult. Head, including the crest, cheeks, hind part and sides of neck, back, rump, thighs, and upper tail-coverts dark purplish or steel-blue with a beautiful gloss; shoulders and scapulars dull shining olive-green, the feathers of the former with burnished edges; upper wing-coverts dull olive-green, washed more or less with purplish or steel-blue, the middle ones largely tipped with white, forming a conspicuous alar bar; on the back a square patch of white (which is not always present, being probably characteristic of the breeding-season); throat, fore neck, and all the under surface of the body pure white; wing-feathers blackish brown; the secondaries washed with olive; under surface of wings dusky black; tail-feathers dull black, the two middle ones inclining to grey, and all having the shafts white at the base. Irides light brown; papillæ in front of the eyes and bare skin at the base of lower mandible orange-red; bill dark brown, whitish at the tips; legs and feet pale brown. Total length 26 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·75; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 2·25, along the edge of lower mandible 3; tarsus 2·25; longest toe and claw 4·25.
Young. There is a specimen in the Otago Museum obtained from the Chatham Islands (marked ♂) which is apparently in an immature state; dorsal patch broken and mixed with brown; alar bar much narrower than in the adult bird and likewise intermixed with brown feathers, the white ones appearing to be new plumage; general gloss on the upper parts less pronounced; lower back and rump glossed with steel-blue, instead of green as in the adult; there is likewise a blue gloss intermixed with the green on the head and hind neck. There are some old and dingy brown feathers on the mantle, from which it may be inferred that the plumage described above exhibits a change from a still more youthful state.
Obs. The above description and the accompanying figure are taken from a fine male bird obtained by Mr. Henry Travers at the Chatham Islands in August 1871. The colours of the soft parts were carefully noted by him while the specimen was fresh.
Under the head of Phalacrocorax imperialis, King, Dr. Sclater writes (‘Voyage of Challenger,’ Zool. vol. ii. Birds, p. 121):—“This Cormorant, which has been usually united to Phalacrocorax carunculatus
Phalacrocorax imperialis, and formulates the following synopsis of the group:—
I am sorry to differ from so expert an ornithologist, but I cannot follow Dr. Sclater in this identification. He makes the absence of a crest and the presence of the dorsal patch of white the distinguishing characters of Phalacrocorax imperialis, but on turning to Captain King’s original description (l, c.) I find that his bird is a crested one. His description is as follows:—
Phal. capite cristato, collo posteriori, corporeque suprà intensè purpureis: alis scapularibusque viridi-atris: remigibus rectricibusque duodecim fusco-atris: corpore subtùs, fasciâ alarum, maculâque dorsi medii sericeo-albis: rostro nigro: pedibus flavescentibus.
From this it is evident that the ‘Challenger’ specimen figured and described by Sclater is not the bird to which King gave the name of imperialis, unless we suppose that it sometimes acquires a crest; but Dr. Sclater himself calls it, by way of distinction, the uncrested form. Nor does the formula b fit P. carunculatus, which, as I shall show when treating of that species, is never crested, whilst it does exhibit, in the breeding-plumage, the patch of white on the back. It is perfectly clear also that the crested Chatham-Island form, of which I have given a figure, is distinct from the uncrested P. carunculatus. It cannot be P. cirrhatus of Gmelin, because his bird is larger than P. carunculatus, whilst this is decidedly smaller.
After a careful investigation of the subject, and a comparison of all the specimens within my reach, I have decided to treat the crested bird from the Chatham Islands as the true Phalacrocorax imperialis, and the uncrested New-Zealand form as Gmelin’s P. carunculatus. It would perhaps be safer to give to this form a new distinctive title; but I am unwilling to add another name to the already somewhat tangled synonymy of this species and its allies. I am aware that it is “a long cry” from the Straits of Magellan to the Chatham Islands; but experience teaches us that it is impossible to lay down any strict geographical rules of distribution for birds of this class. As a case in point, I may mention an occurrence reported to me by Sir (Phalacrocorax brevirostris) flew on board our ship”!
Even in the countries which these birds inhabit their distribution is often very eccentric and unaccountable. Take, for example, P. punctatus, a species which is extremely common on the coast of the South Island, but is rarely met with north of Cook’s Strait. Mr. Adams, late taxidermist to the Auckland Museum, informed me that he found a colony of these birds on the coast near Waiheke and shot six of them. To my great surprise I saw one in the Taupo Lake in March 1877; in July 1883 I saw a flight of six in the Hauraki Gulf; and in January 1886 I found a solitary pair breeding in the midst of hundreds of the Pied Shag on some pohutukawa trees on the Rurima rocks, in the Bay of Plenty. Referring to the same species, Mr.
Carunculated Shag, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 603 (1785).
Pelecanus carunculatus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 576 (1788, ex Lath.).
Carbo purpurascens, Brandt, Bull. Sci. Acad. Imp. Pétersb. iii. p. 56 (1831).
Leucocarbo carunculatus, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 176 (1857).
Leucocarbo purpurascens, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 177 (1857).
Ad. similis P. imperiali, sed conspicuè major: fronte plus minusve carunculatâ: cristâ absente: dorso postico fasciâ albâ ornato: carunculis rubris: regione ophthalmicâ nudâ cyanescenti-purpureâ: pedibus flavescenti-brunneis.
Adult male. Similar to P. imperialis, but considerably larger and wanting the crest; it is furthermore distinguishable by the two large square spots of white which cross the back under the wings, by the larger extent of the white alar bar, and by a patch of white on the outer scapulars. The rows of papillæ along the forehead are red, and the naked space around the eyes bluish purple; feet yellowish brown. Total length 32 inches; wing, from flexure, 12·5; tail 5·75; bill, following the curvature 3, along edge of lower mandible 3·75; tarsus 3; longest toe and claw 5.
Female. The sexes are exactly alike in plumage, the fine metallic tints being as bright in the female as in the male. The former is, however, somewhat smaller in size:—Extreme length 27·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 11·75; tail 5·5; bill, along the ridge 2·75, along the edge of lower mandible 3·5; tarsus 2·25; longest toe and claw 4·5.
Young. General upper surface dull greenish black, with a slight gloss in certain lights, the feathers on the shoulders margined with a darker shade; the whole of the wing-coverts and the outer scapulars greyish brown with whitish margins; tail-feathers greyish black, with whitish shafts and margins.
Fledgling. The larger wing-coverts and the rectrices are the first to make their appearance, the former having the acuminate shape peculiar to young birds, with filamentous tips. In the downy state of P. varius, as already stated, the distribution of colours is the same as in the adult, the whole of the fore neck and under-parts being white; and when this is succeeded by the covering of feathers some spotted brown markings, more or less distinct, present themselves but disappear altogether with the first moult. In this species, on the contrary, the downy condition is dark, and is immediately succeeded by the pure white plumage. A specimen in Mr. Silver’s collection has the head and the whole of the neck still clothed in sooty-brown down, sprinkled with a few white filaments; the breast and all the under surface white, with vestiges of brown down still adhering to the feathers; the triangular rictal spot much darker but still visible; legs and feet reddish brown.
Nestling. Covered with blackish brown down, very thick and even. No papillæ on the forehead; lores and bare space surrounding the eyes and encircling the bill black. Upper mandible dark brown; lower mandible pure white, changing to brown at the tip; irides and feet blackish brown, with whitish claws. Down the middle line of the abdomen there is a narrow bare space, flesh-white, paddle-shaped, and about two inches long.
Obs. A specimen in the Otago Museum, from Shag river, has a very broad white patch on the wings, measuring 6 inches long by 2 in width. The colours of the soft parts as restored are:—Line of papillæ fringing the forehead red; bare facial membrane blue; gular sac red. This bird has a broad white patch
There is a specimen in the British Museum (brought by the Antarctic Expedition from New Zealand) marked “young”; and the presence of numerous scattered brown feathers on the abdomen and sides of the body attest the fact. In this bird the white of the fore neck, instead of running up in a narrow strip to the chin, spreads outwards immediately under the cheeks, and covers the sides of the neck. There is no white alar bar, nor is there any appearance of the white dorsal patch.
Note. A Shag in the Otago Museum from Macquarie Island (marked ♂), collected by Dr. Scott in December 1880, differs from ordinary examples of P. carunculatus in these respects:—It is a smaller bird; the gloss on the head, hind neck, back, and rump is metallic blue instead of green; on the wings it changes to dull green; there is an entire absence of the white dorsal patch; the alar bar or strip is much less conspicuous, being scarcely more than half an inch wide in any part, and only about 3·5 in longitudinal extent; instead of the narrow frontal line of papillæ there are two warty patches, more deserving the designation of caruncles (each measuring an inch in extent with a maximum breadth of ·4 of an inch), which meet at the base of the bill and cover the anterior part of the forehead. This bird has likewise a small or scant vertical crest, composed of narrow linear feathers of the same colour as the surrounding plumage, and an inch and a half long. The caruncles appear to have been originally orange, and the bare membrane on the face bluish. It appears to come very near to P. verrucosus, but is separated by the white transalar bar.
To the same species doubtless belongs a Shag recently received at the Otago Museum, of which Prof. Parker has kindly sent me the following note:—“A Phalacrocorax, shot at Otago heads, which does not correspond with any of the species in your ‘Manual.’ The following are its chief characters:—Above blue-black; below, oblong patch (4 inches by 2 inches) on upper side of wing, and squarish patch (2½ inches by 2 inches) in middle of back between bases of wings, white; no white feathers over eye; large orange wattle on each side of base of lower mandible, the two separated by a narrow white streak; small orange patch on each side at base of upper mandible; blue ring round eyes; legs orange.”
Dr. Sclater writes (In his ‘Report on the Birds of the Challenger Expedition’ (Zool. ii. p. 121), Dr. Sclater says:—“Professor Hutton has lately written an article on Phalacrocorax carunculatus of New Zealand (commonly so called), in which, after a review of the literature of this subject, he points out the differences between the birds of New Zealand and the Falklands, and proposes to call the former cirrhatus (Gm.), and the latter carunculatus (Gm.). To follow this course would, in my opinion, only add further to the confusion, the names cirrhatus and carunculatus having been long considered synonymous. Professor Hutton is likewise unaware that the next following species of Kerguelen Island (P. verrucosus) is distinctPhalacrocorax Verrucosus, Cab. Journ. f. Orn. 1875, p. 450.—Referring to a specimen brought by Dr. Kidder from Kerguelen Island, Coues says (Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1875, no. ii. p. 7):—“I have no hesitation in identifying this species as above (i. e. P. carunculatus), although the single adult specimen collected does not show the white transalar fascia spoken of by authors. Schlegel, however, quotes it from the present locality. The caruncles, which are conspicuous features of the adult breeding-bird, constitute two prominent yellow masses symmetrically disposed on the naked forehead at each side of the base of the upper mandible. The head and neck are lustrous, deep steel-blue, with purplish and violet reflections, contrasting notably with the rich dark-green back, the colour of which is uniform, the feathers having no differently coloured edges. The entire underparts, from the bill, on a line along each side of the neck, are pure white.” He adds:—“During the breeding-season the bird carries an erectile crest of about a dozen small plumes upon the top of the head.”l. c. p. 122):—“The series of this Shag is quite sufficient to warrant us in adhering to the species as distinct. The principal characters are clearly pointed out by Dr. Cabanis in his original description; and a good figure is given of the adult male under the reference given above. Not one of the six specimens, of which two, and apparently a third, are adult, shows any traces of the white line along the upper wing-coverts, or of the white spot in the middle of the back which distinguish Phalacrocorax imperialis,”Phalacrocorax carunculatus.”
But the question still remains, What is the true Phalacrocorax carunculatus?
Latham’s original description (l. e.) is as follows:—“Sides of the head bare of feathers; between the bill and eye much carunculated and red; the rest of the space round the eye ash-colour; the
He distinguishes this bird as the Carunculated Shag, and says that it inhabits New Zealand (as well as South America), being “found in Queen Charlotte Sound but not in plenty.”
The reference in this description to white on the forehead is a little puzzling, but may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that in the breeding-plumage these birds sometimes exhibit some white linear feathers above the lores; and Prof. Parker’s bird, described on page 156, has carunculated patches “separated by a narrow white streak,” which may be a seasonal character.
There can, however, be no reasonable doubt that the bird here described is the same as that now inhabiting Queen Charlotte Sound, and although the specific name may not seem the most appropriate there can be no possible excuse for disturbing it. Although, as a rule, the so-called caruncles are mere papillæ, it will be seen from the descriptions given on the preceding page that examples sometimes occur (if they are indeed referable to this species) in which the caruncles and wattles are quite a conspicuous feature. Even Latham, in describing the species, mentions that “over the eye is a tubercle larger than the rest.”
There is no mention in the original description of the conspicuous white patch on the back; but I attach no importance to that, because (as Dr. Sclater has already suggested) this may be a character peculiar to the breeding-season. “On two skins from Chiloe in the collection of Salvin and Godman, one has the white dorsal patch broader and more distinct than in the ‘Challenger’ specimen, in the other it is altogether absent.”
But Latham described at the same time another species, under the name of the Tufted Shag (afterwards Pelecanus cirrhatus of Gmelin), a specimen of which, then in the Hunterian Museum, is said also to have come from Queen Charlotte Sound.
I think, however, with Dr. Finsch, that there is a mistake in the locality, and that the true habitat of Gmelin’s Phalacrocorax cirrhatus was Magellan Straits.
Dr. Sclater deprecates separating this name from carunculatus because they have so long been regarded as synonymous; but it must be clear from what I have said that Latham’s two descriptions of a crested and uncrested bird could not have related to one and the same species. His description of the Tufted Shag is as follows:—“Length 2 feet 10 inches. Bill 2½ inches long. Colour dusky yellow; round the eye bare; the head and sides above the eye, the hind part of the neck, and all the upper parts of the body, wings and tail black; the feathers on the top of the head very long, forming a pointed upright tuft or crest, somewhat tending forwards; on the wing-coverts is an oblong patch of white; and the underparts, from chin to vent, are also white; the tail is 4½ inches in length, rounded in shape and composed of fourteen feathers; the legs pale yellow-brown.”
Dr. Finsch says that “Phalacrocorax carunculatus may be easily distinguished from P. cirrhatus, Gmelin, from Magellan Straits, in having the sides of the head and neck dark, and by having a feathered stripe along the naked gular and chin-regions, which parts are totally naked in cirrhatus.”
Professor Hutton has given (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xi. pp. 332–337) an excellent history of the nomenclature of Phalacrocorax cirrhatus and P. carunculatus. He sums up the results of his investigation as follows:—“Dr. Kidder gives the length of a Kerguelen’s Land bird at 23½ inches; the specimen in the Otago Museum is rather larger. Dr. Buller gives the length of birds from New Zealand as 32 inches, and of birds from the Chatham Islands at 27 inches. The Chatham-Island birds are evidently smaller than those from New Zealand, but neither Latham, Gmelin, Braudt, nor Bonaparte had seen birds from the Chatham Islands. Brandt or Bonaparte appear to be the first to
carunculatus. The evidence is, however, I think, in favour of the New-Zealand bird being cirrhatus; but as the Magellan Straits bird truly merits the name of carunculatus, while the New-Zealand bird does not, I think it would be better to change Dr. Finsch’s nomenclature.”
On one point, however, there is still some difficulty; for Professor Hutton says (l. c. p. 335):—“Gmelin was the first to name the birds, and he gave the name carunculatus to the smaller carunculated bird without a crest, and cirrhatus to the larger and crested bird. Gmelin says that both birds came from New Zealand only; but he took his birds from Latham, and Latham says that cirrhatus occurs in New Zealand only, while carunculatus is rare in New Zealand, and common in South America. The smaller size, the caruncles, and the locality, would all point to carunculatus as the South-American bird; but, on the other hand, the New-Zealand bird appears never to get a crest … . . The statement that the Chatham-Island birds are crested, while the New-Zealand birds are not, must be taken with caution. I have certainly never seen a crested bird from New Zealand myself, but they are very rare, and I have not seen many; and P. cirrhatus appears to have been founded on a crested bird from New Zealand; consequently the question as to the crest must be considered as unsettled. However, it appears that the Chatham-Island birds are decidedly smaller than those from New Zealand.”
In a paper which I communicated to the Wellington Philosophical Society in November 1876 Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. ix. p. 339.Phalacrocorax carunculatus, and a series of specimens (male, female, and young) which I had received from Queen Charlotte Sound, all of which were without a crest, and I added the following remarks:—
“Mr. Henry Travers (who collected the birds now exhibited) assures me that these characters are constant. He met with P. carunculatus Phalacrocorax imperialis of the present edition.
“On comparing the heads it would be seen that the bill is much larger and stronger in one than in the other; and although the colours of the soft parts are no safe criterion in dried specimens, it would appear that the naked spaces which in P. carunculatus are orange-red, are of a bluish colour in the other bird, with the exception of the patch of papillæ extending from the base of the upper mandible towards the crown.
“The general style of colouring is the same in the two birds, although the tints altogether are duller in the uncrested form. There is the same conspicuous alar bar of white, formed by the middle wing-coverts; but in addition to this the uncrested bird has a patch of the same on the outer scapulars. All the specimens of the latter which I have examined have two closely approximating spots of white, nearly of the size of a crown-piece, about the centre of the back.”
In a letter which I received from Mr. Travers after coming to England (dated 3rd May), he says:—“I have just procured from Queen Charlotte Sound a number of these Shags in fine condition, and a few in immature plumage (in all, about twenty specimens). None of the old birds show any sign of a crest.”
It is evident from the date of the letter that these last-mentioned specimens were collected in winter; so that the evidence as to the absence of a crest is not so conclusive as in the former case, for it might be fairly argued that it would be assumed only in the nuptial season.
On the other hand, Mr. Liardet, of Wellington, who has shot these birds at Queen Charlotte Sound at all seasons of the year for the purpose of converting their beautiful skins into ladies’ muffs, assures me that he has never seen a crested one. The three specimens which I purchased from him (all of them apparently in bright summer plumage) were certainly without the slightest indication of a crest or occipital tuft of any kind.
Of the Kerguelen-Island bird Dr. Kidder gives the following account (Bulletin of the U.S. National Museum, 1875):—“Only a single adult skin of this Cormorant was preserved and brought home, a female in nuptial plumage. There is no better reason, I am afraid, for this omission than the fact that the birds were exceedingly plentiful, and the preparation of the skins a very tedious job, so that it was put off from day to day for rarer specimens, until, in the haste of an unexpectedly hurried departure, it was omitted altogether. From memory I can only say that the young birds were of much more sober plumage than the females, destitute of the crest and brilliant blue eyelid, and generally rather smaller. All had white breasts and bellies; but there were many minor variations in plumage, which I suppose went to indicate differences in age… . . They do not differ materially in habits from other species of Cormorant, diving and swimming well, feeding entirely on fish, and often congregating for hours upon a projecting rock or headland, where, in pairing-time, they enact various absurd performances, billing and curvetting about one another in a very ridiculous manner. The note is a harsh croak, which never varies, so far as I have observed. They seem to be on particularly good terms with the Chionis, and are often joined by Gulls when sunning themselves. They build upon shelves, for the most part in the precipitous faces of cliffs overlooking the water, the base of the nest being raised sometimes as much as 2 feet, and composed of mingled mud and excrement. Upon this pedestal is constructed a rather artistic nest of long blades of grass. Apparently they continue to use the old nests year after year, adding a new layer each season, and thus building the nest up. The first eggs were found November 5th, there being sometimes two and sometimes three in a nest. They were procured at first by the kind assistance of Mr. Stanley, and a length of rope which tied us together, one end being knotted round the waist of each. One would then remain above and hold on, while the other clambered a little way down the face of the cliff and secured the eggs. After a time, however, I discovered a lot of nests, near a ‘rookery’ of Rock-hopper Penguins, accessible from below, where (on December 4th) the young birds were first observed. Eggs green, with white chalky incrustation. The young are most ridiculous-looking objects, being pot-bellied, naked, and perfectly black, and seem to be less advanced in development at the time of hatching than most birds, the bones of the tarsus and foot being not yet ossified. Small fish were generally lying by the nests. The old birds were very solicitous about their young, hissing and stretching out their necks, and refusing to leave their nests until pushed off. Yet, when I took one of the young away from the nest, and placed it close by on the rock, the mother seemed neither to recognize its constant chirping nor to be aware that one of her brood was missing. Certainly she paid no attention to it.”
I am indebted to Mr.
“Phalacrocorax cirrhatusPhalacrocorax carunculatus of the present edition.P. chalconotus.—A large colony of these two species in company have built on a terrace at the foot of a small cliff on Otago Peninsula. The nests and eggs of the two species can only be distinguished by observing the birds sitting on the nests. The latter are constructed of tussock-grass, but the outside of the nest soon becomes plastered over with the excrement of the old and young birds. This hardens into a substance resembling stucco, which protects the nests against the destructive influence of the weather, and gives them the appearance of having been constructed of clay. By the accumulated layers of successive seasons, the nests are raised in some cases
“I noticed three variations in the colour of the birds which I have spoken of as P. cirrhatus:—
Black, with following parts white: throat, breast, abdomen, conspicuous alar bar, and large double spot on the back. Nearly all the birds were of this type.
Like a in every respect, except that the alar bar was not nearly so conspicuous, and that there was no visible spot on the back. There were only two or three of these.
Black, with only the abdomen and beneath the wings white. I saw only one, I think, of this description. When sitting, it exactly resembled P. chalconotus (from a little distance), as the white parts were then covered. It sat on a nest and extended its neck, with mouth open, when approached by other birds, but I did not see it receive any food. I suppose it to be a young bird. It could fly as well as the adult birds.
“All three of the birds described were without visible crest. Their feet appeared, from a distance of a few yards, to be reddish or brownish.
“I did not succeed in conveying home any young birds except about half a dozen very small ones. Some of these had a little down on them and the rest were perfectly bare, their skin resembling in appearance black kid gloves. They were just hatched. I have put them into spirits instead of skinning them. Some of them I carefully identified as belonging to P. cirrhatusPhalacrocorax carunculatus of this edition.one and not of the others, so I suppose that one is certainly P. cirrhatus. There were plenty of larger young birds, but they flopped about in the dirt and made themselves in a frightful mess. As the road was very rough and we had a heavy load to carry I did not take them. A resident near the spot has promised to send me some if there is another batch of eggs and young ones this season.”
In November 1885 Captain Fairchild visited a nesting-place of this species on the White Rocks near the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound. The birds were breeding in a colony by themselves, all the surrounding rocks being occupied by the Black Shag (P. novæ hollandiæ). They were nesting on the bare rocks, whereas the latter species had formed large nests of leaves and seaweed, but had not yet commenced to lay. Many of the young birds on the White Rocks were of full size, but still covered with down. Captain Fairchild brought a number of them, of different ages, to Wellington, and I was thus afforded an opportunity of describing the nestling. The more advanced birds were continually fighting or squabbling, with loud cries of craao-craao-craao. The cry of the younger ones was kek-kek-kek.
Dr. Sclater writes (Voy. Chall., Zool. vol. ii. Birds, p. 121:—“All Dr. Cunningham’s examples (Mus. Cantab.), which we called Phalacrocorax carunculatus in our reports on his collection (Ibis, 1870, p. 500, et aliter), appear to be referable to Phalacrocorax albiventris, of which the range is thus extended to the Magellan Straits.”
Ad. similis P. carunculato, sed conspicuè minor: haud carunculatus: dorso postico minimè plagâ albâ notato.
Adult. Crown of the head, shoulders, feathers composing the mantle, wing-coverts, and scapulars bronzy brown, with a green gloas in certain lights; hind part and sides of neck, lower portion of back, rump, and thighs blue-black with a fine metallic gloss; the median wing-coverts white, forming a broad alar bar extending nearly the whole length of the cubitus; a line from the chin, widening into a broad stripe down the fore neck, and the whole of the underparts pure white; quills and tail-feathers and the under surface of wings blackish brown; bill yellowish brown; legs and feet orange-yellow. Extreme length 28 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·5; tail 6; bill, along the ridge 2·5, along the edge of lower mandible 3; tarsus 2; longest toe and claw 4·25.
Young. Differs from the adult in having the whole of the upper parts blackish brown, glossed with green only on the mantle, lower part of back, and rump, the blue metallic gloss being entirely wanting; the crown of the head, back and sides of the neck, interscapular region, and upper surface of wings paler brown; the median wing-coverts and the scapulars fading to brownish white at the tips, but without any appearance of an alar bar; remiges and tail-feathers dark brown, the latter largely margined on both webs with brownish white; the streak of white down the fore neck interrupted in its middle portion by the dark colour which spreads across in a cloudy pale brown wash. Bill dark yellow, brownish on the ridge; legs and feet dull orange.
Obs. It is clear that the states of plumage are as described, because my adult bird betrays vestiges of the adolescent garb in the wings and tail, the moult not having been quite completed.
This Shag is readily distinguishable from P. carunculatus by its much smaller size, by its smooth face, and by the absence of the white dorsal marks. It has less of the green metallic gloss on the head and neck, the green on the mantle is duller, and the back, rump, and thighs are decidedly bluer than in the last-named species. In P. carunculatus the pointed stripe of white feathers between the crura of the lower mandible widens rapidly on the throat and fore neck, occupying a larger surface than the dark plumage before reaching the breast; in the present species it presents only a broad stripe down the centre of the fore neck, which spreads out abruptly just above the breast. The white alar bar, although narrow, is far more conspicuous than in P. carunculatus, being fully six inches in length.
The only two specimens in my possession—the adult and young described above—were received by me from the Auckland Islands in 1885, having been collected by Mr. Burton, of the Colonial Museum, who found hundreds of these Shags frequenting the rocks, and collected twenty or more specimens, many of which I examined. One of these (marked ♀), apparently a younger bird, had the colours much duller than in my example.
In the British Museum there are two examples (in moulting condition) obtained by Baron A. von Hügel at the Bluff, in the provincial district of Southland.
Having to select a distinguishing name for this species, I have much pleasure in dedicating it to my friend the Rev.
Graucalits auritus, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 201 (1843).
Gracalus chalconotus, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds, p. 20, pl. xxi. (1845).
Graculus glaucus, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. ii. p. 171 (1857).
Ad. pileo cristato colloque toto, dorso poatico et uropygio purpurascenti-nigris, vix viridi lavatis: interscapulio, scapularibus et tectricibus alarum brunneis, plumis sordidè viridi marginatis, tectricibus minimis purpura-scente lavatis: remigibus brunneis, secundariis olivaceo-viridi lavatis: caudâ nigrâ, scapis ad basin albis: subtùs sordidè nitidè viridis, jugulo vix purpurascente: rostro cinerascenti-brunneo, culmine saturatiore: pedibus sordidè flavis: iride thalassino-viridi.
Adult. Head, including the crest, and the whole of the neck, back, rump, and upper tail-coverts shining purplish black, glossed with green in certain lights; mantle and upper surface of wings purplish brown, each feather margined with dull shining green; the whole of the under surface shining purplish black, but not so highly glossed as the upper parts; quills dark brown, the secondaries tinged with olive; tail-feathers black, the shafts white towards the base. Irides green; bill greyish brown, darker on the ridge; legs and feet dull yellow. Total length 28 inches; wing, from flexure, 12; tail 5·5; bill, along the ridge 2·6, length from gape to extremity of lower mandible 3·5; tarsus 2·25; longest toe and claw 3·25.
Nestling. Covered with extremely thick, long, woolly down of a dull sooty-brown colour; bill dark brown, yellowish on the under mandible; lores, cheeks, and sides of the chin perfectly bare and dark coloured (black in the dried specimen); on the membrane at the base of the lower mandible, on each side, a triangular spot of orange extending from the angle of the mouth to the strip of down which passes up between the crura of the lower jaw; over the oil-gland a tuft of rather stiff, filamentous feathers of the same colour as the down.
This species is comparatively rare in New Zealand, and it has not yet been met with elsewhere.
My description of the adult is taken from Mr. Gray’s type specimen in the British Museum, which was obtained by Mr.
There are several examples in the Otago Museum, and my own collection contains both adult and young.
I believe I am right in referring to this species a pair of Shags which I observed at the mouth of Port Chalmers in February 1865. I saw one of them dive, and, after a considerable interval, come to the surface with a small sea-lobster, which the bird battered to death on the surface of the water before devouring it.
On the ocean-beach near Waikanae, in the North Island, I saw in the autumn of 1882 a pair of Shags which I have no hesitation in referring to this species, as they allowed me to approach near enough to observe their burnished plumage.
Mr. Phalacrocorax chalconotus and P. carunculatus breeding together in the same shaggery on the Otago coast. He visited the place in August and found the young hatched out.
“Atlas, Pl. 31. fig. 1 (juin 1845). L’individu figuré est originaire de la Nouvelle Zelande (Otago). Il est d’un bronzé un peu cuivrè sur le milieu de la région dorsale supéieure, d’un vert bouteille plus saisissable sur la partie inféieure de cette même région.”Phalacrocorax glaucus, Homb. & Jacq. Voy. Pôle Sud, Zool. iii. p. 127 (1853)
Ad. omninò brunneus, suprà saturatior: remigibus et rectricibus nigris: rostro grisescenti-brunneo: pedibus flavis.
Adult male. General plumage deep vinous brown, darker on the upper surface; the shoulders and the mantle glossed with green, and each feather having a scarcely perceptible darker margin; the lower part of back, rump, and thighs glossy dark olive; quills and tail-feathers blackish brown, the shafts of the latter white in their basal portion. Lores feathered. Bare space encircling the eyes orange; bill greyish brown; legs and feet dull orange-yellow. Total length 31 inches; wing, from flexure, 12–25; tail 7; bill, along the ridge 2·25, along the edge of lower mandible 3; tarsus 2; longest toe and claw 4.
Young. Has no gloss on the upper surface; the feathers composing the mantle are pale yellowish brown; the back, rump, and thighs dull blackish brown; and the plumage of the under surface much suffused with chocolate-brown.
Obs. The immature condition of the bird described above is shown by the acuminate tips of the scapulars; while some of the pale brown feathers have been replaced by the glossy dark brown of the adult, indicating a transitional state of plumage. A specimen in the Otago Museum (which is marked ♀) is darker in plumage than the larger of my two examples and it has brown legs; there are also the faintest indications of white filaments on the fore neck. This was obtained near Dunedin, in February 1877.
Of this rare species I have two fine specimens (adult and young) in my collection, both of which were obtained on the Otago coast by the well-known local taxidermist Mr.
Dr. Finsch states (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 203) that a specimen in the Leyden Museum labelled Graculus glaucus, and (probably erroneously) ‘Terre Magellanique,’ is referable to Phalacrocorax chalconotus, Gray. He consequently disallows this species, regarding it as the immature state of the last-named form. Even the original describer had doubts on this point:— “Graucalus chalconotus. Si cette assimilation eat exacte, cette dernieèe dènomination devra constituer un synonyme.glauous or not, it is to all appearance a good species. I admit that it is not unlike the young of Phalacrocorax chalconotus, but it differs in the following respects: it is somewhat smaller in size, there is far less gloss on the plumage, which is altogether browner in colour, the lores are naked instead of being thinly feathered, and the superciliary line of minute caruncles is entirely absent. A specimen which I examined in the Natural-History Museum at the Jardin des Plantes is in exactly similar plumage to that described above, but with blackish-brown feet.
As already mentioned, there is an example in the Otago Museum exhibiting signs of white filaments on the fore neck, thus affording a presumption that the bird was in nuptial plumage.
Spotted Shag, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii; pt. 2, p. 602 (1785).
Pelecanus punctatus, Sparrm. Mus. Carls. t. 10 (1786).
Pelecanus nævius, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 575 (1788).
Phalacrocorax nævius, Cuv. Règn. An. i. p. 525 (1817).
Hydrocorax dilophus, Vieill. N. Dict, d’Hist. Nat. viii. p. 85 (1817).
Phalacrocorax punctatus, Steph. Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 88 (1825).
Graucalus punctatus, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 201 (1843).
Gracalus punctatus, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds, p. 20 (1844).
Sticticarbo punctatus, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 574 (1856).
Graculus punctatus, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 252.
Ad. fronte et nuchâ valdè cristatis: pileo et collo toto postico sordidè cinerascentibus, viridi-nigricante lavatis, hô lateraliter plumulis albis ornato: fasciâ latâ albâ, ab oculo per collum laterale decurrente et ad pectus laterale productâ: facie laterali reliquâ et jugulo toto viridi-nigricantibus vix cinerascentibus, hôc plumulis parvis albis ornato: interscapulio, scapularibus et tectricibus alarum pulchrè cinerascentibus, plumis omnibus apicaliter nigro minutè punctatis, tectricibua minimis nigro marginatis: remigibus saturatè brunneis, primariis extùs ad basin cinerascente lavatis, secunclariis omninò pulchrè cinerascentibus: dorso postico, urypygio et supracaudalibus viridi-nigricantibus: dorso imo lateraliter plumulis albis ornato: caudâ. nigrâ, suprà obscurè cinerascente lavatâ: subtùs pulchrè grisescenti-cinereus: abdomine imo et subcaudalibus viridi-nigricantibus: aubalaribus brunneis, nigricante lavatis: rostro brunnescenti-flavo: pedibus aurantiacis: iride viridi.
Juv. pallidior, dorsi plumis minùs distinctè apicatis: dorso postico et uropygio cinerascentibus: pileo et collo postico toto cinerascentibus: facie et collo lateralibus et corpore subtùs toto albidis, pectoris lateribus et hypo-chondriis imis cinerascentibus.
Adult. Crown of the head, with vertical and occipital creats, glossy greyish black; sides of the head, throat, and anterior portion of fore neck sooty black; a white stripe, commencing at the nostrils, passes over the eyes and increases beyond, being about an inch wide under the occipital crest, then gradually diminishes and passes down the sides of the neck to the roots of the wings; lower part of the neck in front, the breast, sides of the body, and upper part of abdomen uniform delicate leaden grey; lower part of hind neck, shoulders, mantle, and upper surface of wings brownish ash, all the feathers, excepting the quills and long scapulars, with a terminal spot of velvety black: these spots are most conspicuous on the interscapulars, and impart to the plumage a very lively effect; the small coverts along the edges of the wings and at the humera flexure are merely shaded with purplish brown at the tips; primary quills dark brown, burnished with silvery grey on their outer webs; inner surface of wings dark ashy brown; tail-feathers black, the shafts bluish white towards the base. The vertical and occipital crests consist of soft, narrow, silky feathers, the longest occipital measuring two inches, and the longest vertical about half that length. The sides of the head and the neck in front and behind are further ornamented with projecting plume-like white feathers of a silky texture, and varying in length to about an inch; the thighs also are ornamented in a similar manner, but to a less extent, the effect being produced by minute white feathers at the extremities of fine hair-like stalks, the web alone appearing above the surface of the surrounding plumage. Irides green; bare skin in front of the eyes dark blue; bill brownish yellow, horn-coloured at the tips; legs and feet bright orange-yellow. Total length 27·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 10; tail 3·75; bill, along the ridge 2·4, along the edge of lower mandible 3; tarsus 2·25; longest toe and claw 3·75.
Obs. The size of this species is very variable; and a female specimen in the Auckland Museum gives the following measurements:—Total length 34 inches; wing, from flexure, 12; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 3·2, along the edge of lower mandible 4·5; tarsus 2·25; longest toe and claw 3·5.
Young. Crown of the head, back of the neck, mantle, and upper surface of wings dull brownish ash, silvery on the head and neck, tinged with light brown on the mantle and wing-coverts; back, rump, and thighs dull ashy brown glossed with green; the spotted character is absent, but the feathers composing the mantle and the smaller scapulars are obscurely marked at the tips with ashy brown; throat, fore neck, and all the underparts, including the abdomen and under tail-coverts, ashy white tinged with buff; under surface of wings dull brownish ash; tail-feathers greyish brown, with whitish shafts. It has no crest, nor has it any of the ornamental white plumelets. Bill dark yellow, brownish on the culmen; loral membrane orange; legs and feet orange-brown.
Nestling. In the very young nestling the skin is entirely bare, nothing being visible but the roots of the downy plumelets. When more advanced the body is covered with thick down, dark ash-grey on the upper surface and white on the underparts; the forehead, fore part of crown, and a portion of the face and throat perfectly bare. In the next stage the quills and tail-feathers are the first to appear.
Progress towards maturity. In my collection there are two specimens in transition plumage. They have neither occipital nor vertical crests; the crown of the head and back of the neck are sooty grey glossed with green; an indistinct streak of white passes from the eyes down the sides of the neck to the roots of the wings; the upper part of the fore neck is dark leaden grey mottled with black, indicating a change of plumage; upper surface as in the adult, but more tinged with brown, and having the spots less distinct; back, rump, and lower part of abdomen greenish black; a few scattered filamentous white plumes on the thighs; fore neck and all the under surface dark leaden grey. In one of these specimens the throat and fore neck are more largely mottled with black, the grey of the underparts is much lighter, and the thighs are deeply stained with brown; on the wings, where the plumage shows a transitional condition, the black-tipped coverts are taking the place of the light-brown feathers with white edges, these latter being characteristic of the young.
Obs. The plumage of the adult is exactly the same in both sexes. The vertical and occipital crests are present all through the year, but as the breeding-season approaches they become larger and more conspicuous, while the hind neck and the flanks are profusely ornamented with loose white plumes three quarters of an inch in length.
This beautiful representative of the Crested Shags is abundant on the coast of the South Island, but is seldom met with on the northern side of Cook’s Strait. I observed a party of three at the mouth of the Waikanae river in January 1864; two young birds were killed in Wellington harbour in the winter of 1865; and other instances have already been mentioned on page 154.
It associates in large flocks, and frequents the open sea in the vicinity of the coast, as well as the mouths of estuaries and sounds, subsisting on fish and crustaceans, which it obtains by diving. It is apparently a very inquisitive bird; for I have often observed a flock of them make up to a steamer going at full speed, and fly round her, sometimes returning a second time to reconnoitre.
Unlike that of the other Shags, its flight consists of quickly repeated flappings of the wings, without any sailing movement; and when out of the water the black plumage of the underparts is very conspicuous. It never rises to any great height above the water, which is probably due to the comparative shortness of its wings.
It breeds on the high shelving rocks on the coast or within the sheltered arms of the sea, the nests being arranged in successive tiers of considerable extent, and as closely grouped together as the form of the rocks in the locality chosen as a breeding-station will admit of.
The eggs (generally two in number) are elliptical in form, measuring 2·25 inches in length by 1·4 in breadth. When taken from the nest they are covered with a yellowish-white chalky matter, but on being cleaned they present a uniform surface of soft bluish green.
Graculus africanus, Hutton, Ibis, 1872, p. 249 (nee Gm.).
Phalacrocorax featherstoni, Buller, Ibis, 1873, p. 90.
Ad. pileo et collo undique indigotico-nigris, fronte et occipite conspicuè cristatis, collo postico filamentis albis paullò dilatatis ornato: dorso summo cum scapularibus et tectricibus alarum olivascenti-brunneis, plumis nigro conspicuè apicaliter maculatis, tectricibus minimis sordidè indigotico-nigris: dorso postico, uropygio et supracaudalibus indigotico-nigris: remigibus nigricanti-brunneis, secundariis extùs canescentibus: caudâ nigrâ: subtùs pulchrè canescens, abdomine imo cum subcaudalibus subalaribusque indigotico-nigris: rostro saturatè brunneo: pedibus aurantiacis: iride canâ viridi reticulatâ.
Adult. Head, upper portion of neck, and the whole of the nape, with the vertical and occipital crests, shining indigo-black; sides and hind part of neck ornamented with scattered filamentous white feathers, having the tips produced and somewhat spatulate; the shoulders, mantle, and upper surface of wings olivaceous brown glossed with green, each feather marked with a conspicuous terminal spot of black; back, rump, and upper tail-coverts, as well as the small wing-coverts, dull indigo-black; quills blackish brown, the secondaries greyish on their outer webs; tail black; lower part of fore neck, breast, and middle portion of abdomen beautiful grey; sides of the body, flanks, under surface of wings, lower abdomen, and under tail-coverts indigo-black. Irides grey, streaked with green; bill dark brown; legs and feet orange-yellow. Length 22 inches; wing, from flexure, 9; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 2·2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·6; tarsus 1·6; longest toe and claw 3·25.
This beautiful addition to the ornithology of our country was one of the novelties brought from the Chatham Islands by Mr. Henry Travers on his return from the exploratory visit mentioned on a former page. Professor Hutton had referred it (l. c.) to Graculus africanus (Gmelin), but the original specimen having been courteously forwarded to me by Sir
I had already associated the name of Mr. Henry Travers with one of the new species discovered by him; and, in assigning a distinctive title to this bird, I desired to pay a slight tribute to one who, having originally assisted in founding a colony at the Antipodes, had devoted more than thirty years of his life to its political affairs, and at that time filled the important office of its Agent General in Great Britain—the late Dr. Featherston.
Several further examples have been received at the Colonial Museum, and Mr. Walter Hood informs me that it is a comparatively common bird on the rocks lying off the Chatham Islands, and that he found it breeding there in the months of October and November. On Pitt Island these birds were so tame that he knocked over two of them with a small stone.
As will be at once apparent from the figures, this species bears a general resemblance to P. punctatus: like that bird it has a vertical as well as an occipital crest, and the distribution of the colours is somewhat similar, although the plumage altogether is much darker. It is readily distinguished, however, by its black head and neck, and by the absence of the white stripes which are so conspicuous in the other species.
Phalacrocorax nycthemerus, Cab. tests Gray, Hand-l. iii. p. 128 (1871).
Phalacrocorax magellanicus, Hutton, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xi. p. 338 (nec Gmel., 1879).
Phalacrocorax nycthemerus, Hutton, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, vol. iv. p. 357 (1880).
Phalacrocorax nycthemerus, Buller, Manual Birds of New Zealand, p. 96 (1882).
Ad. similis P. imperiali, sed major et splendidior: gutture purâ albo: nuchâ et collo reliquo undique nitidâ purpurascentibus: rostro nigricanti-brunneo ad basin flavicante: pedibus saturatâ brunneis.
Adult. Crown, sides of the head, and vertical crest shining blackish green, changing to brilliant steel-blue on the nape and neck all round; back, rump, upper tail-coverts, and thighs dark steel-blue, highly glossed; the whole of the mantle and upper surface of wings glossy blackish green, fading into the steel-blue on the shoulders and back; the wing-coverts with narrow velvety margins, and the middle ones crossed by a narrow alar bar of white, about 2 inches in length by half an inch in width; an angular patch of white covers the chin and throat, and the whole of the underparts are pure white, the termination of the dark metallic blue on the fore neck being distinctly defined across the crop; primaries blackish brown with darker shafts; secondaries darker, glossed with green; tail rather dull black, the shafts of the feathers polished, and becoming whitish towards the base. The crest is vertical, and is composed of soft linear feathers about an inch and a half in length. On the face, immediately below the crest, and scattered over the sides of the head, are some fine white filaments, indicating that the bird is in breeding-plumage. Bill blackish brown, yellowish towards the gape; feet dark brown. Total length (approximate measurement) 27 inches; wing, from flexure, 11; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 2·1, along the edge of lower mandible 3; tarsus 2; longest toe and claw 3·75.
Young female. Differs from the adult in having the plumage blackish brown instead of metallic green, but nevertheless glossed with green on the head, neck, back, and wings; the feathers of the vertex are lengthened, but there is no appearance of a crest; there is no white alar bar, and the wing-coverts are dull brown with paler margins; tail-feathers yellowish brown with paler edges.
Note. I am in doubt about the determination of the sex, for the so-marked ad. ♀ is a really gorgeous bird. Both specimens are from Campbell Island, June 1878.
Of this magnificent species there are two specimens, from which my descriptions were taken, in the Otago Museum. Professor Hutton, who was the first to record it as a New-Zealand bird, says (l, c.) in reference to these specimens:— “I find that they differ from P. magellanicus in not having the white spot under the ear, and in the bare skin in front of the eyes being blue with crimson dots, instead of red. From P. purpurascens, Brandt, and from P. sarmientonus, King, the Campbell Island bird differs in having a narrow white alar band, and in the feet being flesh-colour, instead of brownish yellow. I find it comes nearest to P. nycthemerus, if not identical with that species.”
There is no example of this bird in the British Museum, or indeed, so far as I am aware, in any collection in this country, with which to compare my description of the Otago Museum specimens; but I think Professor Hutton’s identification may be safely followed.
Phalacrocorax brevirostris, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 26.
Graclus brevirostris, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 20 (1844).
Carbo flavagula, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 270 (1848).
Halieus brevirostris, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p 577 (1856).
Microcarbo brevirostris, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii, p. 178 (1857).
Carbo brevirostris, Cass. U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 375 (1858).
Phalacrocorax finschi, Sharpe, App. Voy. Ereb. and Terr. p. 35 (1875).
Ad. suprà nitenti-niger, interscapulli plumis medialiter sordidè cinerascentibus: scapularibus et tectricibus alarum cincrascentibus conspicuè velutino-nigro marginatis: remigibus et rectricibus nigris, canescente paullò lavatis: frontis nuchæque plumis elongatis, loris cum supercilio distincto, facie laterali guttureque toto albis: subtùs nitenti-niger: rostro flavicante, culmine et apice brunnescentibus: pedibus nigris: iride saturatè brunneè.
Juv. omninè nitenti-niger: pileo et collo postico brunneo lavatis: gutture et facie laterali paullò cinerascentibus: tectricibus alarum minimis brunneo marginatis.
Adult. General plumage glosay black, slightly tinged with green on the upper surface; a line of white extends from the nostrils over the eyes, and, spreading into a patch beyond, covers the cheeks, throat, and a large portion of the fore neck, often varying, however, in extent in different examples; wing-coverts and scapulars shining greyish black, bordered with satiny black; quills and tail-feathers black, with polished shafts. Irides deep chocolate-brown; naked skin in front of the eyes and bordering the pouch greenish yellow; bill bright yellow, changing to black on the ridge and towards the hook; legs and feet black. Total length 24 inches; extent of wings 34; wing, from flexure, 9·5; tail 7·5; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible 2·4; tarsus 1·25; longest toe and claw 3.
Obs. Some specimens exhibit a few short filamentous white feathers on the posterior sides of the head.
I have an adult bird exhibiting a seasonal change of plumage from a rusty or brownish black to the glossy black, and without any indication of white on the throat or fore neck. This specimen would seem to favour the view held by some collectors that there is a small Black Shag in New Zealand distinct from P. brevirostris. For the present, however, we must treat it as a melanoid variety of the common species. In some examples of this bird there is a tendency in the underparts to change to white, and as a rule the extent of white on the throat and fore neck is uncertain and variable. On this account Dr. Finsch seems inclined to unite the species with P. melanoleucus (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. v. p. 211). But I have never seen a specimen exhibiting the “frill” or lateral and occipital crcata which are characteristic of the last-named species. Birds in full nuptial plumage have the feathers of the vertex lengthened, so as to form a slight crest.
Young. Entire plumage glossy black, inclining sometimes to greyish white towards the base of lower mandible; sides of the head, fore neck, and breast tinged with brown; mantle and upper wing-coverts greyish black, with velvety borders and brownish tips. The bill has the upper mandible dark brown, with yellow edges and tip, the lower mandible bright yellow, with wavy brown marks in the centre; legs and feet jet-black. Bare membrane around the eyes and at base of lower mandible flesh-colour.
Nestling. Covered with thick down of a jet-black colour; forehead and fore part of crown and a broad space round the eyes and across the chin perfectly bare and of a pale blue, changing to purplish flesh-colour towards the base of lower mandible. The feathers come first on the back and flanks, the quills and tail-feathers also making an early appearance. The newly-hatched chick is almost wholly bare; and in its next state it is sparsely covered with short, smoky-grey down, looking as if it had been singed in the fire, the head and neck being still bare and resembling the leather of a black kid glove. Down the abdomen there is a line of white which widens out near the vent.
Fledgling. The fully-fledged nestling is all black, but, in some specimens, immediately below the gular sac, which is greenish yellow, there are a few narrow white feathers interspersed among the black.
Varieties. Although the plumage described above is undoubtedly that of the adult, this species appears to exhibit a dimorphic phase. In almost every flock (say of a dozen) a bird will be observed having the throat, fore neck, and entire under surface pure white. Between this extreme form and the normal white-throated bird every intermediate condition of plumage may from time to time be met with, although the vast majority of these birds have merely white throats. My series presents the following gradation:—
No. 1. Entirely black (young bird).
No. 2. White-throated as described above (both sexes alike).
No. 3. The white extends down the fore neck and terminates sharply on the crop.
No. 4. The white extends further and is mixed irregularly with the black on the breast, the former preponderating.
No. 5. Has the abdomen also largely marked with white.
No. 6. Has the entire under surface white with a few widely scattered black feathers.
No. 7. Has the well-defined black and white plumage, as described above.
I think it is the safest course to account for this variation on the theory of dimorphism, because the two forms interbreed; whilst, as fixing the normal plumage, I may mention that on visiting one of their nesting-colonies I found the breeding-birds (of both sexes) in the ordinary white-throated plumage, without a single exception.
A specimen in the British Museum, with a very white throat, has the plumage of the underparts largely tipped with pale brown.
Mr. Sharpe’s P. finschi is undoubtedly only an albinoid form of P. brevirostris. I have examined his type in the British Museum, which was in the collection of New-Zealand birds brought home by the Antarctic Expedition. It is in the pied plumage described above, with the following differences:—The frontal feathers, which are somewhat lengthened, are pure white; on each wing there is a large subtriangular patch of white, covering the median coverts; the white is pretty even on both wings, but on one of them it extends to the outer web of one of the longer coverts, and there is likewise a white feather among the scapulars, thus betraying the albinism. But what places the matter beyond all doubt is the existence of another example in the British Museum, more recently received from Wellington, in which the white markings are considerably extended. In this example the white alar patch is again present, although appreciably larger in one wing than the other; the scapulars on both sides are almost entirely white, so also is the middle portion of the back, whilst there are numerous white feathers scattered through the black plumage covering the shoulders; on the crown the black is reduced to a small irregular patch, whilst on the nape there is a disconnected stripe of black, the rest of the neck being pure white. It is apparent, at a glance, that this is a case of albinism; and by labelling this also P. finschi, Mr. Sharpe practically admits that his supposed new species will not stand.
Another example of the pied form in the British-Museum collection has the feathers covering the shoulders and the median upper wing-coverts narrowly margined with brownish white, outside the velvet border, imparting a lively effect to the plumage of the upper surface.
Note. At Whakatane, in the month of January, 1886, I saw a flock of seven, five of which were in the ordinary white-throated state. Of the remaining two, one was entirely black, the other had white underparts and a conspicuous spot of white on each wing. This at once raised a doubt in my mind (now confirmed) as to the specific value of the bird referred to by myself in the following note:— “Mr. P. brevirostris, being of inferior size and marked with white on the wings. He was unable to obtain a very close inspection, but it seems not unlikely that this is the bird described by Mr. Sharpe under the name of P. finschi.” (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. ix. p. 336.)
The White-throated Shag, which appears to be confined to New Zealand and the Chatham Islands, frequents the freshwater rivers and lagoons in all parts of the country. Like some of its congeners it is social or gregarious, obtains its subsistence by diving, and roosts at night on the branches of trees overhanging the water. Its food consists chiefly of eels and small fish; but I have also found the stomach filled with freshwater shrimps.
It has a habit of swimming, for a yard or two at a time, with its head just under the surface as if foraging for food under water.
It is met with more or less on all parts of the coast, but there are some localities which it specially affects. One of these is the Porirua harbour near Wellington. Latterly the progress of the Wellington and Manawatu railway-works has interfered with the quietude of the place, but for nearly thirty years past I have been accustomed to see them when riding or driving along that road. They congregate at the little rocky points, in parties of three or four, and sometimes from 15 to 20— some sitting bolt upright, others with their “banners unfurled,” and others preening their feathers in the sunshine. The white throat is very conspicuous as the bird turns its head from side to side, and the occasional presence of a white-vested individual among those wearing the black livery always has a picturesque effect.
It is very strong on the wing, and often ascends to a considerable height in the air, and then sails in wide circles. On these occasions, owing to its narrowness of body and length of neck and tail, it has very much the appearance, when seen from below, of a flying cross.
It is active in all its movements and often exhibits an unusual amount of intelligence amounting almost to ratiocination. For example: I remember once standing on the bank of the Waikato river, near the Aniwaniwa rapids—at the point where the stream is so narrow that in ancient times a war-party bridged it with a fallen tree—when I observed one of these little Shags rise from the water and take its silent course up the stream, skimming low along the surface. It passed a little jutting rock, suggestive of a Shag station, and after proceeding some yards further seemed to change its mind, dropped suddenly into the water, deliberately swam back, and mounted the stone, where it remained some time sunning its outstretched wings.
I have remarked that it has a special fondness for waterfalls and loves to disport itself in the vapoury spray. On the 23rd of October I paid a visit (by no means the first) to the Huka Falls, near Taupo, one of the finest sights of its kind in all the Southern Hemisphere. Here the whole volume of the Waikato river (after a course of fifty miles from its source in the Ruapehu mountains), confined within stone walls scarcely thirty feet apart and forming as it were an immense sluice-box, comes plunging down the steep channel with terrific velocity till it shoots over a precipice of forty feet in a magnificent cascade, discharging about 240 million gallons of water every hour into a basin of seething foam. Nothing can be more beautiful or picturesque than the view which is obtained of this unique waterfall from below, on the Wairakei side of the river. The fine spray caused by the madly plunging volume rises in a vapoury mist high above the basin, and the slanting rays of the sun upon this produces ever-changing rainbows of exquisite beauty. Descending the bank, I entered the little rocky cavern known as Ethel’s cave So named in honour of Mrs. Howard Vincent, who was the first lady to explore it.Lomaria, Adiantum, and other hanging ferns of great beauty, whilst the entrance is protected and
Dicksonia squarrosa) growing up from the very edge of the water, their fronds almost interlaced by their close contact and their stems laden with the withered growth of a former season, hanging around them like a well-wrapped Maori toga. Seated in this cool and enchanting spot, and listening to the delicious song of the
On another occasion I was standing, with a party of tourists, admiring the beauties of the Wairere waterfall near the Taheke. In this unique fall the whole volume of water plunges over two ledges in succession, increasing its velocity at the lower one, and forming in the stream below a swirl of considerable force. And the effect is greatly heightened by the peculiar situation of the waterfall, both sides being closed in by dense overhanging woods, the undergrowth being so luxuriant that the pendent ferns dip their waving fronds in foaming water. While standing at the very edge of the lower bank, holding on to a convenient branch and gazing on the beautiful scene, a White-throated Shag swept past us, within a yard or two, and, passing the fall, disappeared in the woods beyond. I mention this in illustration of the habits of this bird, which seems to be quite as much at home in woodland stream as on the sea-shore.
Dr. Finsch says (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 235):—“Although omitted in Dr. Buller’s work there can be no doubt that Mr. Peale collected a Shag in the Bay of Islands, which, like Graucalus chalconotus, Gray, has not yet been observed since. This species, G. purpuragula, Peale, seems to be very near if not identical with G. stictocephalus, Bp.=sulcirostris, Brandt.”
I still omit Phalacrocorax purpuragula from our list, because I feel persuaded that Peale’s specimen was only P. brevirostris in the black garb of immaturity. The Australian P. stictocephalus, with which Dr. Finsch is inclined to unite it, has a very close resemblance to the young of our bird, being not much larger, and only distinguishable by its blackish-brown bill, a brighter lustre in its dark plumage, and the presence on each side of the head of numerous narrow linear specks of white.
Large numbers are sometimes congregated in their roosting-place; and when disturbed or alarmed they rise into the air simultaneously and course about in a confused manner, resembling at a distance a flight of Rooks.
On one occasion I visited their roosting-place in the evening in order to watch their behaviour on assembling. On the banks of the Rangitikei river I found a number of them crowding together on the branches of a small kahikatea tree overhanging the water, and about twenty more performing gyrations high in the air, apparently surveying the ground before descending to roost for the night. Those already on the branches were very shy, and on our approach slipped away on the wing noiselessly and with the swiftness of an arrow. They do not breed in these roosting-places, but retire further up the streams, where they are less likely to be molested.
One of my brothers visited a breeding-place in the centre of a large “negro-head” swamp in the South Island, but the odour was so intolerable that he could not be induced to go there again. He found some hundreds of these Shags breeding together in a colony, the nests being placed close together on the clumps of “negro-head” standing out of the water.
Like the Black Sea-Shag, they retire to the “negro-head” swamps and to the lakes of the interior for the purpose of breeding, establishing themselves in large colonies, and returning to the same shaggery year after year. The low scrub fringing the shores of a lake or lagoon is the site usually selected; and the nests are constructed of broken twigs, dry flags, and rushes loosely placed together to the thickness of several inches, with sometimes an upper layer of soft dry grass.
In the Lake district there are shaggeries of considerable magnitude which are much valued
I visited one of these colonies at Matapiro (in the Hawke’s Bay district) on Jan. 29, and found nests in every stage of breeding. We saw naked young birds just extruded from the egg, looking like little leathery sacs of a flesh-brown colour, their sensitive young bodies full of tremor even in the strong sunlight; in other nests were young birds a stage more advanced, the whole surface of the body, with the exception of the head, blackened like the skin of a negro; in some nests two such little “niggers” were lying side by side with two unhatched eggs; in others, again, the black skin was covered with a dense, short growth of sooty-black down, the whole of the head and cheeks being entirely bare and flesh-white, darkening on the nape and then passing into black, with a gradual development of down on the neck, the bill and feet being black. In the most advanced state, the young birds had a thick-set growth of short down right up to the crown of the head, where it presented a well-defined outer margin, the whole covering being sooty black, with a sprinkling of white down along the margins of the wings, upon which the quill-feathers were just appearing; the naked skin of the crown, sides of the face, cheeks, and chin perfectly smooth and of a clean flesh-white, excepting only a narrow line of dark brown passing from the base of the upper mandible through the eyes, and becoming still narrower behind; bill and feet perfectly black.
In association with the nests of this species were two belonging to the Black Shag, and presenting a far more substantial appearance. One of these was empty; the other contained two young birds, of large size and covered with thick black down, the bare skin on the sides of the face, cheeks, and chin being bright lemon-yellow. These birds craned up their lanky necks as we approached them with a snare at the end of a long rod, took the situation in at a glance, clambered over the sides of the nest, and tumbled hurriedly into the stream below, thus beginning a new epoch in their lives!
In the Canterbury Museum there are two nests of the White-throated Shag, differing entirely in their construction. One of them is very compact, rounded in form, with a diameter of more than a foot, and a thickness of five inches, presenting only a slight depression for the eggs, and composed of weeds, grasses, and dry flags, on a foundation of broken twigs. The other is formed entirely of broken twigs, with the leaves attached, closely interlaced together, with a deep cavity for the eggs, the whole being securely placed in the fork of a small tree; it is, in fact, a compact structure, of a round symmetrical form, and very firmly put together. Each of these nests contains three eggs, all of which have the surface much soiled.
The eggs of this species exhibit much variety in shape and size. I have now before me a large series of specimens from my son’s collection, varying from the typical ovoid to a narrow elliptical form. The former measures 2 inches in length by 1·15 in breadth, and is of a clear pale green, with only a thin yellowish film over a portion of its surface; the latter measures 1·7 inch in length by 1·2 in breadth, and is of a paler green, thickly incrusted in places with chalky matter and stained over a great part of its surface to a dark yellow colour. Between these extremes there are numerous individual variations. An example received from Mr. Walter Shrimpton is both small and elliptical in form, measuring 1·8 inch in length by 1·1 in breadth; it is greenish white, with a faint gloss, the coating of chalky matter on the surface being thin and even.
Phalacrocorax melanoleucus, Vieill. N. Dict. viii. p. 88 (1817).
Phalacrocorax flavirhynchus, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 157.
Graucalus flavirostris, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 201 (1843).
Afterwards named Gracalus melanoleucus Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds, p. 20 (1844)Phalacrocorax finschi by Mr. Sharpe, who thus distinguished it:—“P., similis P. melanoleuco sed tectricibus alarum medianis exterioribus albis, speculum vel fasciam alarem formantibus: axillaribus tantum nigris, nec corporis lateribus ut in P. melanoleuco nigris, distinguendus.” But Mr. Sharpe’s type is undoubtedly an albinoid variety of P. brevirostris (see page 168).
Graculus melanoleucus, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 251.
Halieus melanoleucus, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 577 (1856).
Microcarlo melanoleucus, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 177 (1857).
Ad. pileo colloque postico et corpore suprà nigris, scapularibus et tectricibus alarum viridi nitentibus, velutinonigro marginatis: pileo et collo lateralibus cum corpore subtùs toto albis: corporis lateribus, subalaribus et axillaribus nigris: rostro flavicauti-brunneo, culmine saturatiore: pedibus nigris: iride saturatè brunneâ: regione ophthalmicâ flavâ.
Adult. Crown of the head, hind part of neck, and general upper surface, as well as the sides of the body, flanks, axillary plumes, and inner lining of wings glossy black; whig-coverts and scapulars greenish black, with ebony-black edges; face, throat, fore part and sides of neck, and all the under surface pure white; wing-feathers and tail black. Irides dark brown; space round the eyes yellow; bill yellowish brown, deepening to black on the ridge; tarsi and feet black. The feathers of the forehead are narrow and elongated, forming a slight vertical crest; the white plumage of the face and the feathers of the hind head are likewise produced, forming tolerably distinct lateral and occipital crests. Length 24·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 9·5; tail 6·25; bill, along the ridge 1·25, along the edge of lower mandible 2·1; tarsus 1·25; longest toe and claw 2·6.
Young. Differs only in having the feathers of the upper surface margined more or less with pale brown, and the plumage of the underparts of a less pure white, obscurely mottled with brown.
The Frilled Shag, although dispersed over every part of Australia, is a comparatively rare species in New Zealand, if indeed it does occur at all; for I am inclined to think that the supposed examples of Phalacrocorax melanoleucus, recorded from time to time, are nothing but P. brevirostris in the occasional pied plumage already described.
There is, however, a locally-killed specimen in the Auckland Museum which seems inseparable from the Australian bird. It has a distinct frontal crest and a well-developed frill, the white feathers of the upper fore neck being lengthened, almost sufficiently to meet at the back.
This species resorts to the rocky shores of bays and estuaries, as well as to inland rivers and lagoons; and it is said to breed in trees, several pairs being generally associated together.
Exempl. ex N. Z. Similis P. vario, sed paullò major: suprà brunnescens, tectricibus alarum pallidiore brunneo marginatis et terminatis: maculâ aurantiacâ anteoculari absente: pedibus sordidè flavis.
New-Zealand specimen. Head and hind neck dark vinous brown, touched on the margins with lighter brown; this colour deepens to blackish brown, with darker velvety edges, on the mantle, gets lighter in the inter-scapular region, and changes to glossy greenish black on the lower back, rump, and thighs; the throat, fore neck, and all the underparts pure white. The wing-feathers are blackish brown with a greenish gloss, and the whole of the wing-coverts, as well as the outer feathers of the mantle, are rich vinous brown, with paler brown margins and tips, producing a very pretty effect; the inner secondaries are similarly tipped; and some of the outer scapulars have whitish margins; the tail-feathers are blackish brown with paler edges, becoming brownish white on the two middle ones, and with dark shafts changing to greyish white at the base. The lores are sparsely covered with very short vinous-brown feathers, and the membrane behind the eyes is partially studded in a similar way but with still smaller feathers. The bill is dark greyish horn-colour, and the legs and feet appear to have been originally orange, the colour having faded out in the dried skin. Total length 36 inches; wing, from flexure, 12·5; tail 6; bill, along, the ridge 2·75, along the edge of lower mandible 3·75; tarsus 2·25; longest toe and claw 4·5.
Obs. In the specimen described above the tail-feathers are much worn and abraded at the tips, the bird being a fully adult one and in changing plumage. The bill is more attenuated, or with a narrower gonys, than in any of our other species.
The specimen from which the above description is taken forms part of the fine collection of New-Zealand birds in the Otago Museum, and I understand that it was shot by Mr. Bourne on the ocean-beach near Dunedin, in January 1876.
It is marked, in Prof. Hutton’s handwriting, Phalacrocorax varius; but its somewhat superior size, the difference in the plumage of the upper surface, the slightly feathered lores, the absence of the facial spot of orange, and, more than all, the colour of its legs (which are yellow instead of being jet-black) to my mind render such an identification impossible. Indeed, the curator of the Museum informed me that Professor Hutton had himself expressed doubts on the subject.
There is an almost exactly similar specimen (from the Straits of Magellan) in the British Museum which has been referred to Phalacrocorax albiventris. I am not satisfied with this identification, because that species is described as “having a recurved crest and the caruncles on the front largely developed,” besides having a white alar bar, all of which characters are wanting in the British-Museum example.
I feel very uncertain as to whether this bird belongs to a species already described; but as I have been quite unable to identify it, I think I cannot do better, for the present at least, than connect with it the name of Professor
New-Holland Darter, Lath. Gen. Hist. vol. x. p. 453 (1824).
Plotus novæ hollandiæ, Gould, Proc. Z. S. part xv. p. 34 (1847).
Exempl. ex N. Z. Viridescenti-niger: dorso brunnescente lavato: gulâ maculis albis sagittiformibus notatâ: fasciâ latâ albâ a basi mandibularum usque ad latera colli extensâ: scapularibus lanceolatis, medialiter griseo-albis, latè nigro marginatis: gutture imo rufo lavato.
New-Zealand specimen. Crown, nape, hind part of neck, and shoulders blackish brown, mottled with white, each feather being narrowly edged with it; the whole of the back and rump black; quills and tail-feathers black, the inner webs of the former tinged with purplish brown, and the three innermost secondaries with a broad longitudinal stripe of white on their outer vane; bastard quills and the superior primary coverts black, the inner ones slightly tipped with white; the larger secondary coverts are white on their outer webs and beyond the shaft, then, black with a sharply defined edge; the smaller coverts white in their central portion, with a black lanceolate stripe on each web and narrowly margined with white; towards the edge of the wing the feathers are black with a central arrow-head spot of white, becoming entirely greyish white at the carpal flexure; scapulars black with a broad stripe of dull white on their outer webs; the coverts white in their central portion with black shafts, a broad stripe of black on each web with a narrow outer margin of white; throat, fore neck, and all the underparts buffy white; under surface of the wings and tail black. A broad line of black extends from the posterior edge of the eyes down the side of the neck, separating the dark brown of the hind neck from the white plumage of the under surface. The middle tail-feathers, and the innermost scapulars on the outer webs, have a peculiar crimped surface. Bill yellowish horn-colour, brownish towards the base of the upper mandible; the inner cutting-edges of both mandibles armed with minute sharp barbs inclined backwards. Feet dull yellow, shaded with brown; claws yellowish brown. Total length (approximately) 40 inches; wing, from flexure, 14; tail (consisting of eight feathers) 10; culmen 3·15; bill, along the edge of lower mandible 4·25; tarsus 2; longest toe and claw 3·8; hind toe and claw 1·5.
The Canterbury Museum contains a roughly prepared skin of the Australian Darter (Plotus novæ hollandiæ) obtained under circumstances which leave no doubt in my mind of the occurrence of this bird as a straggler in New Zealand.
The late Mr.
It would seem that some digger or working settler, probably attracted by the rarity of the bird, had adopted this rude mode of preserving it. At any rate the skinning-operation appears to have been performed by unskilful hands, an open slit having been made from the hind part of the head right down the back to the root of the tail.
The suggestion will occur that the bird may have come down from Australia in some vessel; but the condition of the tail-feathers, which to the very tips are clean and unbroken, proves, I think, that
I may here mention that the late Sir J. von Haast, during his exploration of the Southern Alps in the summer of 1862, met with a bird in the Ohau Lake, swimming very low in the water, which he was unable at the time to identify, and that the above discovery convinced him it was a Plotus.
The habitat of There is a special mechanism in the neck of the Darter which gives it a peculiar “kink” in the middle. The connection between this specialized character and the natural habits of the bird has been well explained by the late Mr. “The Darters feed entirely, so far as I have been able to observe, under water. Swimming with its wings half expanded, though locomotion is effected entirely by the feet, the bird pursues his prey (small fishes) with a peculiar ‘darting’ or jerky action of the head and neck, which may be compared to that of a man poising a spear or harpoon before throwing it. Arrived within striking-distance, the Darter suddenly transfixes, in fact bayonets, the fish on the tip of its beak with marvellous dexterity, and then immediately comes to the surface, where the fish is shaken off the beak by jerking of the head and neck (repeated till successful), thrown upwards, and swallowed, usually head first. A study of the neck in the recently dead bird leaves little doubt as to the mechanism by which this peculiar impaling of the prey is effected. The 8th cervical vertebra is articulated with the 7th in such a way that the two cannot naturally be got to lie in the same line, but form an angle, open forwards, of about 145°, when the two bones are stretched as far as is possible in that direction. Behind, its articulation with the 9th cervical is such as to permit it to be bent back at an angle a little greater than 90° with that vertebra, beyond which extent, however, no further flexion is possible. The 8th vertebra is thus so articulated with the 7th anteriorly and the 9th posteriorly as to allow it, when the neck is flexed, to be nearly at right angles to the rest of the neck, the two portions of which, though parallel, are then at different horizons, something like the two bars of a parallel ruler. When the neck is bent in this Z-shaped form, any opening-out of the anterior angular bend by the action of the anterior neck-muscles causes the anterior moiety of the neck to suddenly shoot out, thus causing a corresponding protrusion of the head and beak. By the flexion of the 6th on the 7th, and of the 9th on the 10th cervical vertebræ, the curve of the neck is increased—the articulations of the 8th vertebra still forming the double hinge round which motion takes place—and the impaling action correspondingly augmented. This protrusion, though only for a short distance, is so violent as to effectually ‘strike’ the fish which the bird is pursuing.” (Proc. Z. S. 1882, pp. 210–212.)Plotus novæ hollandiæ, according to Gould (Handb. B. Austr. ii. p. 496), is confined to the colonies of South Australia and New South Wales, where it is thinly but generally dispersed in all situations suitable to its habits, such as the upper parts of armlets of the sea, the rivers of the interior, extensive water-holes, and deep lagoons. This writer adds:—“Shy and seclusive in disposition, it usually takes up its abode in localities little frequented by man; seeks its prey in the water, dives with the greatest ease to the bottom of the deepest pools, and is as active in this element as can well be imagined. It ordinarily swims with a considerable portion of the body above the surface of the water, but upon being disturbed immediately sinks beneath it, leaving the head and neck only to be seen, and these, from their form and the motion communicated to them by the action of swimming, present a close resemblance to those of a snake
The male differs from the female in having the breast and neck black with an arrow-head mark of white on the throat, and a broad stripe of the same from the base of the mandibles on each side of the upper neck; also in having rusty red stains on the underside of the throat.
Sula australis, Gould, P. Z. S. 1840, p. 177 (nec Steph.).
Sula serrator, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 19 (1844).
Dysporus serrator, Finsch, J. f. O. 1867, p. 339.
Sula serrator, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 323 (1873).
Ad. albus: pileo et collo postico clarè ochrascenti-fulvis: remigibus brunnescenti-nigris, scapis flavicantibus, versus apicem brunneis, secundariis intimis albis dorso concoloribus: caudâ albâ, rectricibus quatuor centralibus brunneis, ad basin albis: rostro saturatè cano: regione ophthalmicâ nudâ cyanescenti-canâ: plagâ nudâ ad basin rostri et fasciâ gulari nudâ nigricanti-canis: pedibus saturatè brunneis, tarso et pedibus anticè viridibus: iride pallidè argentescenti-brunneâ.
Adult. General plumage snowy white; the crown of the head and back of the neck deep sienna-yellow; the primaries, secondaries, and four central tail-feathers brownish black, with white shafts darkening towards the tips. Irides pale silvery brown; bill dark pearl-grey; bare space surrounding the eyes bluish grey; bare skin at the base of the beak and down the centre of the throat blackish grey; legs and feet dark brown, with a broad line of bright apple-green down the front of the tarsus and continued on the toes. Total length 35 inches; extent of wings 70; wing, from flexure, 19; tail 10; bill, along the ridge 3·5, along the edge of lower mandible 4; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 3·75.
Young. Upper surface dark slaty grey, each feather with a rounded spot of white near the tip; the plumage of the forehead and vertex darker than the rest of the head, this shade running off into a point on the crown; under surface white, more or less ma ked on the fore neck and breast with sooty grey. The white spots are most distinct on the wing-coverts, scapulars, and feathers of the back and rump. The eyelids are dull grey, and have not that beautiful blue tint which adorns the fully matured bird; nor is the green rib on the tarsi and toes so conspicuous, for, although present, it is rather of a dull yellowish colour.
Younger state. There is a somewhat younger bird in my collection which has the white down still adhering to the vertex, nape, and hind neck. It differs in having the white spots on the upper surface, and particularly on the shoulders, larger and more conspicuous; also more white on the crown, with a few crescentic grey markings on the breast.
Progress towards maturity. A young bird, in the condition of plumage described above, was brought by me to England and presented (with other birds) to the Zoological Society. It was lodged in the Gardens at the end of April, and during several successive visits, extending over the following six months, I was able to mark the changes of plumage as the bird advanced towards maturity.
By the middle of July the spots on the upper surface had considerably diminished, being reduced on the back and wing-coverts to mere shaft-points. This change was not, however, due to the moulting of the feathers, but to the wearing away of the extremities, the shaft-tips being almost denuded. The dark markings on the head and neck had also undergone a change; but this was evidently the result of a new growth, for on the nape and hind neck the white now predominated, and was already assuming a yellow tinge. The spotted character was, however, still conspicuous on the wing-coverts, back, and rump. The tail-feathers were much
By the end of October the head, neck, and underparts had assumed the plumage of the adult. The shoulders, back, and upper surface of wings were blackish brown, irregularly marked or variegated with white, all the new feathers being pure white, this transitional plumage having a very pretty effect. The white tips had disappeared from the scapulars, and were much worn and denuded on the wing-coverts; but the spots were still visible on the back and rump.
Nestling. Covered with thick woolly down of the purest white; forehead and cheeks denuded and of a yellowish colour. The woolly covering stands up and over the crown, giving the bird a peculiar “judicial look” which is very comical; bill black, with greyish tip to both mandibles; legs pale brown, with visible lines of paler brown along the tarsi and toes. The wing-feathers, which are the first to appear above the down, are black with white tips.
Remarks. The form of this bird is specially adapted to its plunging-habits, the body being very elongated and compressed on the sides, the neck long and powerful, and the head wedge-shaped in front, with a flattened crown. The throat is capable of great dilatation; and the bill, which is longer than the head and strongly formed, has a peculiar hinge-like development, the purpose of which is very obvious; on each side of the rounded culmen there is a deep longitudinal furrow, which forks laterally about an inch from the tip; below this the sides of the upper mandible are slightly convex, and towards the base there is a jointed notch, which, being elastic, adds considerably to the expansive power of the bill as a means of seizure. A bare membrane, extending from the base of the upper mandible, occupies the lores, turns sharply round the eyes, and ends in a narrow process about an inch in length and in a line with the gape; a similar membrane covers the throat, and passing down the middle of the gular pouch, terminates acutely. The tongue is rudimentary, being only a quarter of an inch in length, and free at both extremities. The nasal apertures are extremely small. The feet are strong, the toes webbed to their extremities, the claws short and convex, the middle one being flat and pectinate on its inner edge. The tarsi and toes are armed anteriorly with a line of soft acutella, which differ in colour from the surrounding parts. The total weight of the bird as only 3 lb.
Obs. The first moult would seem to take place before the young birds leave the breeding-ground, inasmuch as the spotted plumage is never met with at sea.
The Gannet is comparatively common on our coasts, and, during tempestuous weather, enters the bays and harbours in quest of its food.
It is a powerful flier; and it is very interesting to watch it while in pursuit of its finny prey: poising its body for an instant in mid-air, it plunges headlong into the sea, with a velocity that makes the spray rise several feet, entirely disappearing under the surface for some seconds, and then springing upwards with the buoyancy of a cork; after which it rests on the water for several minutes, and then takes wing again, to renew the feat.
In stormy weather it frequents our bays and harbours, being able to continue there its fishing-operations in spite of the weather. When the proverbial S.E. gale is blowing at Wellington, a few of them are always to be seen on the wing, coursing up and down the harbour, and a few amidst the shipping, sometimes mounting high, and ever and anon plunging under water. From the ocean-beach I have watched them, for hours together, when the sea was calm, foraging in pairs, crossing and recrossing each other’s line of flight with untiring industry and occasionally resting for a few minutes on the placid surface.
On the Whangarei river, several miles from the sea, I saw on one occasion several of these birds flying low over the quiet waters, and occasionally rising high in the air as if to reconnoitre; but their appearance at this distance from the sea is very unusual.
In dull murky weather the snow-white plumage of this bird, rendered more striking by the black
It is a curious circumstance, and perfectly well attested, that shortly before the terrific Tarawera eruption in 1886 the Gannets suddenly disappeared from White Island and from all their other resorts in the Bay of Plenty A newspaper correspondent thus refers to this singular coincidence:—” The ‘Hinemoa’ left Wellington for Tauranga on the night after the now famous eruptions at the Hot Lakes. She carried Dr. Hector, Major Mair, and others (including myself), who were hound for the scene of the disturbance. Nothing more uncommon than a heavy sea is to be recorded on the passage to White Island. Captain Fairchild ran in close to the island, but there was no sign of any recent disturbance, although the captain thought that the lake was throwing off more steam than usual, and that a mound which had latterly appeared in the lake had disappeared. The Gannets, however, which, to use the skipper’s description, were formerly so thick upon certain points ‘that you could not stick another Gannet in,’ left the island altogether some time before the eruption and have not returned, and I venture to recommend their unanimity to the notice of the numerous scientists, who will, no doubt, explain in full the why and the wherefore. Shortly after leaving White Island we encountered a vile sulphurous smell, which came in company with a thick fog off the land. A little more than an hour’s running took us through the fog, which left an impalpable dust upon everything on deck, and formed a peculiar froth upon the sea.”
On one occasion, when riding down the coast between Manawatu and Otaki, I came suddenly upon a Gannet asleep on the smooth sandy beach, and, dismounting from my horse, I succeeded in taking it before it awoke. It was a beautiful specimen, in full feather, and apparently quite healthy; but it was probably worn out by fatigue and hunger, after a stormy day at sea. The description at the head of this article was taken from this particular bird, which is now in the Colonial Museum.
It is a fact, although I was myself for a long time sceptical about it, that the Gannet cannot rise off a plane surface. On the ground it is quite helpless; and it can only mount in the air by getting on to an incline and then starting outwards.
When not fishing it generally flies pretty close to the water in a very direct course and with rapid and regular strokes of its narrow but powerful wings. The black pinions have a pretty effect by contrast with the pure white plumage of the body as the bird is thus seen skimming along the surface of the “dark blue wave.” Occasionally, however, it rises higher and sometimes forms a striking object in the sky. For instance, I find this passing note in my journal:—“The shores of Cook’s Strait, as we approach Queen Charlotte Sound, are bold and mountainous. As we proceed on our voyage, noble vistas open themselves to view, presenting wild and varied scenery and disclosing in the remote background towering peaks all shrouded in vapoury clouds. As we stand gazing at the ever-changing picture an object appears far away in the distance, held against the murky wall of cloud and mountain beyond like a boy’s kite sailing against the scud, and ever and anon glistening with pearly whiteness in the uncertain light. That object is a Gannet. Tired of fishing, he has mounted on his strong pinion and is now poising himself in mid-air and surveying far below him the troubled waters in which he loves to plunge.”
The Maoris manifest great admiration for the Gannet, because of its spirit and dash in catching fish; and this bird naturally takes a prominent place in the ancient story recounting a trial of strength between the birds of the sea and those inhabiting the land. (See page 148.)
I had a young bird brought to me towards the end of February; it was of full size, but in the immature plumage, looking very handsome in its spotted dress. I was staying at the time at the Wellington Club, and the bird was confined in a back yard, from which it made its escape several times in a very clever manner, and was always found skulking among the vegetation on the surrounding hills. It lived almost exclusively on fish, and had so voracious an appetite that I have known it to swallow as many as twenty-seven herrings in the course of a day. It never exhibited a spark of gratitude for this liberal supply of food, but would, on every occasion, attack its keeper’s hands in the fiercest manner, uttering at the same time a peculiar guttural sound as if choking. I succeeded in
Of the Australian Gannet the Earl of Pembroke writes ‘South-Sea Bubbles,’ by the Earl and the Doctor, p. 65.
“The splendid yellow-headed species which is common in the South Pacific is, I think, the finest of all fishing-birds from John o’ Groats to the Chatham Islands…… Soaring high he marks his prey beneath him, and shutting up his wings (like a Wood-Pigeon darting into cover) he plunges downwards with a splash that makes one’s head ache to look at, and after a semicircular dive of five or six yards, he emerges, sneezing and flapping, with his prey safely lodged in his throat. I have seen a good deal of Gannet-life, both domestic and public. On Nepean and Phillip Islands, in the Norfolk-Island group, I used to find the fond mother sitting affectionately by the side of the snowwhite fluff she called her child (paterfamilias having made himself scarce long before we reached the party) till I was within two or three yards of her, when she solemnly disgorged the two fish she had been cooking in her throat for her darling’s supper, and followed her mate’s example. These two fish on Nepean Island were nearly always a species of anchovy with the brown line of flesh, or fish, strongly marked; they were closely pressed together, and had evidently undergone a process of maceration if not of digestion. The New-Zealand Sula, like his Maori fellow-countryman, is of a most war-like nature, and fights fiercely for the sanctity of his nursery. I once saw the most stout-hearted of British skippers fairly driven off a rookery of them with his breeks in rags and tatters and his legs in holes, positively obliged to retreat and arm himself with a big stick before he could make his ground good. Even after the old birds were driven off, we had to walk warily amongst the sharp-billed Powder-puffs, as they never missed a chance of giving us a sharp prod if we came within their reach.”
Colonel Haultain informs me that on the occasion of a visit to White Island, in the Bay of Plenty, on Christmas day, he found thousands of young Gannets there. They were clothed in down, and were packed so closely together, that it was almost impossible to distinguish the occupant of any single nest. The old birds manifested no fear at the presence of man, and, where they were sitting on their eggs, required to be fairly pushed off before they would quit the nest. On being thus disturbed, or when fighting with one another, they utter a gurgling cry, like ko-wack, ko-wack, but habitually they are silent. It may be here mentioned that White Island is the top of a submerged volcanic cone, in the centre of which there is a deep lake of hot water, like a vast cauldron, constantly emitting steam, with occasional outbursts of boiling water rising to the height of several hundred feet. In the vicinity of this lake there are numerous round holes, in which boiling mud is kept in violent agitation; and the surface of the ground round these geysers is covered with great masses of crystallized sulphur, deposited by the heated vapours. Altogether the island is a very remarkable geological curiosity; and, considering its normal heat and the sulphurous state of its atmosphere, it seems a singular spot to be chosen as a nesting-ground.
Off the Kawhia shore, on the opposite or west coast (about halfway between Manukau and Taranaki), there is a bare rock, known to sailors as Gannet Island, where another extensive breeding-place exists. My son Percy visited this place in December 1883, in the Government steamboat ‘Hinemoa,’ but owing to the heavy sea he was unable to land. Passing, however, close alongside, he was able to make some observations, of which he has furnished the following note:—
“The island comprises about six acres of rock, without to all appearance a blade of vegetation upon it, and is situated about thirteen miles abreast of Kawhia. It forms a gentle slope upwards from the sea, with a sheer precipice on the other side. On the slope a space of about three acres in extent was literally one mass of Gannets, there being tens of thousands. Captain Fairchild, who has visited the island on many occasions, says that he found an almost incredible number breeding there, the separate nests being indicated by a few loose feathers placed on the guano-deposits in every available spot. Each nest contained only a single egg, and there were no idle mates, the male and female occupying nests side by side. He states that this bird breeds twice in the season—first in September and again in February. Both sexes incubate, and at one and the same time; for every Gannet on the island was found sitting, and so close together that to walk amongst them was almost impossible. At the second breeding-time, in February, a young bird of the former brood, easily distinguished by its spotted plumage, is invariably found squatting alongside of the incubator. He has often watched the old birds bringing food to the nest. They come in from the sea with their pouched throats quite full of small fish, which they forthwith disgorge and divide between the young ones. The operation is a very droll one, and may be watched at a distance of only a few yards from the nest.”
Captain Fairchild has himself furnished me with the following interesting account of their breeding-habits:—
“The habits of the Gannet are so very strange that it may interest you if I give the results of my own experience with these birds. So far as I am aware, their only breeding-places off the coast of New Zealand are on Gannet Island, lying to the east, on some small islands in the Hauraki Gulf, near Coromandel and near to the Great Barrier, and on White Island in the Bay of Plenty. At all these places the birds congregate in great numbers. They commence laying about the 18th September, and it takes about thirty-three days to hatch out the young. The female lays two eggs; she keeps one and the male bird takes charge of the other, and each one hatches its own and afterwards looks after the wants of the young one. About the 1st February the same thing is repeated. The second hatching takes place about the first week in March. I hardly think that there can possibly be a mistake in this, as I have carefully watched the habits of these birds during the last twenty years, whenever an opportunity offered.”
There are evidently two broods in a season, for Captain Fairchild assures me that in every instance—and he examined hundreds of nests—where the old bird was covering an egg or a chick a well-grown young one, in spotted plumage, was sitting alongside, resting its beak on the parent’s shoulder, and on the least provocation showing fight in defence of the nursery. The old birds obstinately refused to quit their nests even when hustled and kicked with the foot; and when thus molested, fought viciously, striking at the intruder with their powerful bills, and inflicting sharp cuts on the hand if incautiously placed too near. On his return from one of his annual cruises among the islands lying off New Zealand, he sent me a whole basketful of the eggs of this fine Gannet. This was about the first week in February, and as most of the eggs contained a well-advanced embryo, this would indicate a comparatively early date for the second brood. They varied somewhat in size, but an ordinary example measured 3 inches in length by 1·8 in breadth. They were, for the most part, very elliptical in form, and of a pale greenish colour, covered over with a chalky incrustation and much soiled.
The eggs when taken from the nest are soiled and begrimed with dirt from the bird’s feet or from contact with the ground, having then a dark brown colour. On being cleaned by scrubbing with a wet brush, they present a chalky surface, often much scratched by the action of the bird’s feet; and on this being scraped off the shell becomes dull bluish white, which changes to a lovely pale blue tint on the inner surface.
The Man-of-War Bird, Edwards, Gleanings, vi. p. 209, pl. 309 (1760).
Pelecanus aquilus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 216 (1766).
Frigate Pelican, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 587 (1785).
White-headed Frigate Pelican, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 591 (1785).
Palmerston Frigate Pelican, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 593 (1785).
Pelecanus leucocephalus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 572 (1788).
Pelecanus palmerstoni, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 573 (1788).
Fregata aquila, Illiger, Prodr. p. 279 (1811).
Tachypetes aquila, Vieill. N. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. xii. p. 143 (1817).
Tachypetes aquilus, Kittl. Kupf. Vög. p. 15, taf. xx. fig. 1 (1832).
Tachypetes leucocephalus, Kittl. Kupf. Vög. p. 15, taf. xx. fig. 2 (1832).
Atagen aquila, Gray, Gen. of B. iii. p. 669 (1845).
Tachypetes palmerstoni, Cass. U.S. Expl. Exp. p. 359 (1858).
Fregata aquila, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 339 (1873).
Exempl. ex N. Z. Nigricans, plumis versus apicem brunnescentibus et sub certâ luce chalybeo nitentibus: tectricibus alarum brunnescente latè terminatis, medianis albido marginatis: remigibus nigris, secundariis sordidè olivascenti-brunneis et pallidiore brunneo terminatis: rectricibus nigris brunneo marginatis, scapis albis: pileo et collo undique cum pectore anteriore albis, hôc pallidè ferrugineo lavato: pectore laterali cum tibiis, crisso, subcaudalibus et subalaribus brunnescenti-nigris: abdomine toto albo: rostro cinerascente, ungue corneo versus apicem nigro: pedibus carneo-brunneis: iride nigrâ.
New-Zealand specimen (immature). Head, greater portion of neck, and a broad continuation with its apex on the fore part of the breast white, stained with fawn-colour on the fore neck and breast; a broad triangular patch of white covering the whole of the abdomen; the rest of the body-plumage brownish black, with dull steel reflexions, and strongly tinged on the upper surface with umber-brown; the upper wing-coverts are broadly edged with pale brown, and the central ones margined with white, forming a conspicuous band from the bend of the wing to the roots of the inner secondaries, which are dark olivaceous-brown in their whole extent, tipped with paler brown; wing-feathers black, with faint steel-blue reflexions, the scapulars margined with brown; tail-feathers black, with white shafts, also margined with brown. Irides black; bill greyish, changing to horn-colour on the unguis, and black at the tip; feet flesh-brown. Total length 39 inches; extent of wings 82; wing, from flexure, 24; tail 16 (the middle feather 9 inches shorter); bill, along the ridge 5, along the edge of lower mandible 5; middle toe and claw 3·5; hind toe and claw 1.
Remarks. The form of this bird is beautifully adapted to its habits of life. As will be seen from the above description, the wings measure nearly seven feet in extent; moreover they are strongly built, the shaft of the first primary measuring a quarter of an inch in width by one eighth in thickness throughout its lower portion. The first primary is longest, and the rest are rapidly graduated; the long inner secondaries reach to within five inches of the former in the closed wing. The tail is long and deeply forked; the lateral tail-feathers are acuminate in form, with rounded tips; the median ones are broader. The feet are small and
So far as I am aware there is only one recorded instance of the occurrence of this “Vulture of the sea,” as it has been appropriately termed, on the New-Zealand coast. In February 1863 a fine specimen was taken alive at Castle Point, on the east coast of the Wellington Province, and forwarded to Mr. Harpagornis moorei) was the bird to which the tradition relates, and he may be right in this conjecture. On the other hand, it is not improbable that the wonderful powers of flight possessed by the Frigate bird gave rise to this well-known story of the “Hokioi;” and the enormous expanse of its wings would seem almost to warrant the most extravagant belief. On this subject thus graphically writes Audubon, the American ornithologist:—
“The Frigate Pelican is possessed of a power of flight which I conceive superior to that of perhaps any other bird. However swiftly the Cayenne Tern, the smaller Gulls, or the Jager move on wing, it seems a matter of mere sport to it to overtake any of them. The Goshawk, the Peregrine, and the Gyr Falcon, which I conceive to be the swiftest of our Hawks, are obliged to pursue their victim, should it be a Green-winged Teal or Passenger Pigeon, at times for half a mile, at the highest pitch of their speed, before they can secure them. The bird of which I speak comes from on high with the velocity of a meteor, and on nearing the object of its pursuit, which its keen eye has spied while fishing at a distance, darts on either side to cut off all retreat, and with open bill forces it to drop or disgorge the fish which it has just caught. See him now! Yonder, over the waves, leaps the brilliant dolphin, as he pursues the flyingfishes, which he expects to seize the moment they drop into the water. The Frigate bird, who has marked them, closes his wings, dives towards them, and, now ascending, holds one of the tiny things across his bill. Already fifty yards above the sea, he spies a porpoise in full chase, launches towards the spot, and in passing seizes the mullet that has escaped from its dreaded foe. I observed a Frigate Pelican that had forced a Cayenne Tern, yet in sight, to drop a fish, which the broad-winged warrior had seized as it fell. This fish was rather large for the Tern, and might probably be about 8 inches in length. The Frigate Pelican mounted with it across his bill about a hundred yards, and then tossing it up caught it as it fell, but not in the proper manner. He therefore dropped it, but before it had fallen many yards caught it again. Still it was not in a good position, the weight of the head, it seemed, having prevented the bird from seizing it by that part. A second time the fish was thrown upwards, and now, at last, was received in a convenient manner (that is, with its head downwards), and immediately swallowed.”
It would seem that this species frequents all the seas of the warmer parts of the globe, and especially the Tropics, assembling in large flocks during the breeding-season, and dispersing over the wide ocean again as soon as the parental obligations are discharged. Their food consists of young turtles, cuttle-fish, crabs, and fish of all kinds. Being furnished with a capacious and expansive pouch they are able to stow away in a convenient manner all they can seize by way of plunder quite irrespective of their immediate wants.
Audubon found them breeding in large numbers in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Florida Keys; and he has given us the following interesting account, which further illustrates the amazing power of wing already mentioned:—” About the middle of May (a period which to me appeared very late for birds found in so warm a climate as that of the Florida Keys), the Frigate Pelicans assemble in flocks of from fifty to five hundred pairs or more. They are seen flying at a great height over the islands on which they have bred many previous seasons, courting for hours together; after which they return towards the mangroves, alight on them, and at once begin to repair the old nests or construct new ones. They pillage each other’s nests of their materials, and make excursions for more to the nearest keys. They break the dry twigs of trees with ease, passing swiftly on wing, and snapping them off by a single grasp of their powerful bill. It is indeed a beautiful sight to see them when thus occupied, especially when several are so engaged, passing and repassing with the swiftness of thought over the trees whose tops are blasted; their purpose appears as if accomplished by magic. It sometimes happens that the bird accidentally drops a stick while travelling towards its nest, when, if this should happen over the water, it plunges after it and seizes it with its bill before it has reached the waves.”
For a long period the only knowledge we possessed of the Frigate bird was that afforded by those who had voyaged in the tropical seas and studied the bird in its distant haunts; but in the early part of 1871 a pair of live ones, the gift of Captain Dow, were received at the Zoological Society’s Gardens; and home naturalists had thus an opportunity of studying this remarkable form in a living state. But when I first looked on these captives, moping gloomily on their perch, with a mere dish of water beneath them, and their noble wings folded up in languid misery, I could not help pitying from my very heart these captives from the ocean, whose fate seemed almost harder than that of the “lord of the plains” on the opposite side of the Gardens, condemned to pass his life within an iron railing only ten feet square! From observing the Frigate bird under such circumstances it is impossible to form any adequate idea of what it is in a state of nature, where its whole individuality depends on its wonderful speed, its long powers of endurance, and the graceful aerial evolutions it is able to perform. Audubon, who was familiar with it in its native element, gave a spirited drawing of it dashing head-long through the air in pursuit of its quarry. In the ‘Field’ of September 23, 1871, there is an equally characteristic figure of the same bird as it was then to be seen in the Gardens (accompanied by an excellent description)—resting moodily on its feet, with the wings drooping, and the head drawn closely in upon the shoulders.
Lesser Frigate Pelican, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 590 (1785).
Pelecanus minor, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 572 (1788).
Tachypetes minor, Vieill. N. Dict. d’Hist. Nat. xii. p. 144 (1817).
Atagen ariel, Gray, Gen. of B. iii. p. 669, pl. 104 (1845, ex Gould MSS.).
Fregata minor, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 342 (1873).
Exempl. ex N. Z. Nigricans, plus minusve purpureo et viridi nitens: dorsi plumis elongatis lanceolatis et pectore laterali nitidè viridibus aut purpurascentibus: tectricibus alarum cum hypochondriis brunneo tinctis: remigibus caudâque nigris, scapis rectricum exteriorum albis: rostro nigricanti-cano: plagâ gulari lætè-rubrâ, flavo tinctâ: pedibus brunnescenti-rubris: iride nigrâ.
New-Zealand specimen. General plumage black with bluish metallic reflexions, more or less distinct; the long lanceolate feathers of the back and on the sides of the breast brilliant, and changing from purple to green, according to the light; upper wing-coverts and sides of the body tinged with brown; quills and tail-feathers black, the shafts of the outermost tail-feathers white. Irides black; bill blackish grey; a bare membrane, an inch wide, and extending five inches down the throat, bright red tinged more or less with yellow; feet brownish red. Total length 36 inches; wing, from flexure, 23; tail, to middle of fork 7·25, to end of lateral feathers 15; bill, along the ridge 4·25, along the edge of lower mandible 3·6; greatest width of bill at the base 1·1; middle toe and claw 2·75; hind toe and claw 1.
This smaller species of Frigate bird, which roams over the seas washing the shores of the more tropical parts of Australia, has occurred at least once as a straggler on the New-Zealand coast, and is therefore entitled to a place in our list. A fine adult male was taken on the Wakapuaka beach in the early part of 1861; and the skin, which was fortunately preserved, now forms part of the collection of birds in the Nelson Museum.
Mr. Gould states that this species of Frigate bird is very abundant in Torres Strait; and the late Commander Ince, R.N., who, during the voyage of H.M.S. ‘Fly,’ was for some time stationed on Raine’s Islet, superintending the erection of a beacon there, has given the following interesting particulars as the result of his own observations on this unfrequented rock:—” We found this bird breeding in colonies at its S.W. corner, the nest being composed of a few small sticks collected from the shrubs and herbaceous plants, which alone clothe the island, and placed either on the ground or on the plants a few inches above it. The eggs, which are generally one, but occasionally two in number, are of a pure white, not so chalky in appearance as those of the Gannet, and nearly of the same shape at both ends. Upon one occasion I killed the old birds from a nest that contained a young one; on visiting the spot I found the young bird removed to another nest, the proprietors of which were feeding it as if it had been their own; I am sure of this fact, because there was no other nest near it containing two young birds.”
Phaeton rubricauda, Bodd. Tabl. Pl. Enl. p. 57 (1783).
Red-tailed Tropic Bird, Lath. Gen. Syn. vol. iii. pt. 2, p. 618 (1785).
Phaeton phœnicuros, Gmel. Syst. Nat. vol. ii. p. 583 (1788).
Phaeton aethereus, Bloxh. Voy. Blonde, App. p. 251 (1826).
Phœnicuros rubricauda, Bonap. Consp. vol. ii. p. 183 (1857).
Phaeton phœnnicurus, Gould, Handb. B. of Austr. ii. p. 501 (1865).
Phaethon rubricauda, Salvin, Cat. Strickl. Coll. p. 511 (1882).
Exempl. ex N. Z. Omninò sericeo-albus, rosaceo-tinctus: remigibus concoloribus fuscis: regione oculari nigrâ, anticè semilunatâ, posticé longitudinaliter productâ: rectricibus duabus intermediis longissimis intensè rubris, scapis nigris: rostro rubro: pedibus flavis, membranis interdigitalibus nigris.
New-Zealand specimen. General plumage silky or satiny white, with a delicate roseate or salmon tint over the entire surface; a lunate spot of velvety black in front of the eyes, and a broken streak of the same above and beyond them; on the flanks and under tail-coverts some of the feathers largely centred with slaty black, leaving on the sides an even, narrow margin of white, which broadens at the tip. The scapulars have their shafts black in their basal portion; so have the outer secondaries; on the long inner secondaries the black spreads into a broad irregular stripe down the centre of each feather, running off to a fine point about half an inch from the tip. The two middle tail-feathers are white at the base, with a black central streak, but at a distance of two inches from the root the webs suddenly contract, and these feathers are then produced, to a length of thirteen inches beyond the cuneiform tail, as rigid bright red plumes with black shafts, and becoming somewhat paler at the tips; the lateral tail-feathers also have black shafts, changing to white an inch from the tips. Bill bright coral-red, shaded with brown in the nasal groove; legs and feet black, as is also the entire skin of the bird under the feathers. Total length (without the elongated tail-plumes) 21 inches; wing, from flexure, 13; tail 4 (to end of central plumes, 17); bill, along the ridge 2·5, along the edge of lower mandible 3·3; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 2·25.
Young. Silky white, without any of the roseate blush mentioned above; the whole of the upper surface broadly barred with black; the primaries having the black of their shafts expanded into a spatulate form at the tips.
In the list of the Birds of New Zealand compiled by Mr.
It was re-introduced by myself in 1878 Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. x. pp. 219, 220.
I never handle this specimen without being reminded of
“The burning zone, in which the ancients have placed the zodiac, is the favourite resort of this solitary wanderer of the deep… . Far, far away from land, where the Atlantic waves roll beneath the northern tropic, our mariners are often favoured with a view of the bird which I am about to describe. The total absence of all other winged inhabitants of the air, save now and then a Mother Carey’s Chicken, renders the appearance of Phaeton very interesting in this sequestered region of the deep; and every soul on board hastens to get a glance at him, as he wings his lonely way through the liquid void … . In my passage home across the Atlantic, on board the ‘Dee,’ West Indiaman, commanded by Captain Gray, we saw Phaeton sitting on the wave, within gunshot of the ship—a rare occurrence. I fired at him with effect, and as he lay lifeless on the water, I said (without any expectation of recovering the bird), ‘A guinea for him who will fetch the bird to me.’ The vessel was then going smartly through the water. A Danish sailor, who was standing on the forecastle, instantly plunged into the sea with all his clothes on, and swam towards the bird. Our people ran aft, to lower down the jolly-boat, but it was filled with lumber, and had been well secured with lashings for the passage home. Our poor Dane was now far astern; and in our attempt to tack ship, she missed stays, and we were obliged to wear her. In the meantime, we all expected that the Dane had gone down into Davy’s locker. But, at last, we fortunately came up with him; and we found him buffeting the waves, with the dead bird in his mouth. I dissected it, and prepared it, and have kept it ever since, nor do I intend that it shall leave my house, as the sight often brings to my remembrance an occurrence of uncommon interest, now long gone by; for it is twenty years and more since I received the Tropic Bird from the cold and trembling hand of our adventurous Dane.”
The bird is well known to the Ngapuhi tribe at the north, under the name of Amokura, and they set a high value on the long red tail-feathers, which they exchange with the southern tribes for greenstone. Almost every year, after the prevalence of easterly gales, some specimens are washed ashore (generally dead) at the North Cape or in Spirits Bay. The natives of that district go out systematically to hunt for them at these periods. Owing to their rarity these plumes are more prized than those of the Huia or Kotuku, and in one instance a valuable slab of pounamu was given by a Hawke’s Bay chief in exchange for three feathers, one of which is now in the possession of the Manawatu natives. The allusion is to this bird in the love-song of the fairies, commencing—
Mr. Gould, who has figured the species with his usual skill in ‘The Birds of Australia,’ states that it “is very generally dispersed over the temperate and warmer latitudes of the Indian Ocean and the South Seas, where it often hovers round ships, and occasionally alights on their rigging. During the months of August and September it retires to various islands for the purpose of breeding; among other places selected for the performance of this duty are Norfolk Island off the east coast of Australia, and Raine’s Islet in Torres Strait, from both of which localities I possess specimens of the
“The Tropic Bird is very common in the Islands; the beautiful rose-coloured tail-feathers are largely esteemed by the natives, who pull them from the birds as they sit in their nests.”—Bloxham (l. c.).
I have noticed in passing through the tropical seas that, as compared with the South Pacific (the great nursery, so to speak, of the Petrel family), these placid waters are singularly destitute of bird-life; indeed for a whole day together, sometimes, there is no animate sign except the feverish movements of the little flying-fish which are perpetually rising out of the water, fluttering a few yards in a direct line, and then dropping out of sight with a tiny splash, or, during a perfect calm, the appearance of thousands of “Portuguese men-of-war” (the pretty blue Physalis) floating listlessly on the bosom of the deep. It is pleasant at such a time to descry a “Straw-tail” or “Boatswain-bird” (by which names the sailors call the Phaethon) hovering in the sky far above the masthead or flying around the ship. I saw one for a short time in the full heat of the Tropics (lat. 11° S., long. 24° 21′ W.). It hovered over our steamer with a rapid flapping of the wings, as if making an inspection, and then, ascending high in the air, made a swift sweep far over the ocean and we saw it no more.
Mr. Macgillivray, who obtained several on Raine’s Islet in the month of June, gives the following account:—“Upon one occasion three were observed performing sweeping flights over and about the island, and soon afterwards one of them alighted. Keeping my eye upon the spot, I ran up and found a male bird in a hole under the low shelving margin of the island bordering the beach, and succeeded in capturing it after a short scuffle, during which it snapped at me with its beak, and uttered a loud, harsh, and oft-repeated croak. It makes no nest, but deposits its two eggs on the bare floor of the hole, and both sexes assist in the task of incubation. It usually returns from sea about noon, soaring high in the air and wheeling round in circles before alighting. The eggs are blotched and speckled with brownish red on a pale reddish-grey ground, and are two inches three-eighths long by one inch four-eighths-and-a-half broad. The contents of the stomach consisted of beaks of cuttle-fish. The only outward sexual difference that I could detect consists in the more decided roseate blush upon the plumage of the male, especially on the back; but this varies slightly in intensity in different individuals of the same sex, and fades considerably in a preserved skin.”
Dr. Crowfoot writes (Ibis, 1885, p. 268):—“This bird breeds on Norfolk Island, Nepean Island, and Phillip Island, but the last-mentioned island is its principal resort, and here it may be counted by hundreds. It lays its single egg on ledges of rock, in cracks of the cliffs, under overhanging boulders, and in such-like situations. The bird defends its nest with its strong beak, and may be easily caught on the nest. On Norfolk Island the eggs are difficult to get, but on Phillip Island they may be readily obtained. The young Tropic-bird is a curious-looking object, being completely covered with thick snow-white down. The eggs vary in length from 2·65 inches to 2·85, and in breadth from 1·75 inches to 2·16. They have a reddish-brown ground-colour, and are covered all over with fine dark reddish and violet-brown markings. Some have the colouring-matter apparently partially washed off.”
The best account I have seen of the nesting-habits of this bird is that given by the Earl of Pembroke in his little book of adventures in the South Pacific, already cited. I have examined a large series of eggs collected on Lord Howe’s Island, and found them differing in shape from a thick ovoid to a long ovoido-conical form, and varying in colour from pale stone-grey, minutely freckled with darker grey to a splashed brown surface, as rich in colouring as a Merlin’s egg. Two specimens in my son’s collection from that locality are of equal size, measuring 2·8 inches in length by 1·8 in breadth; one of them is greyish white, marbled at the larger end and dotted and freckled all over with brown, whilst the other is splashed, dotted and marked over its entire surface with reddish brown of a uniform shade.
Diomedea exulans, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 214 (1766).
Diomedea albatrus, Pall. Spic. Zool. fasc. v. p. 28 (1769).
Chocolate albatros, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 309 (1785).
L’Albatros du Cap de Bonne Espèrance, Buff. Pl. Enl. x. pl. 237 (1786).
Diomedea spadicea, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 568 (1788, ex Lath.).
Diomedea adusta, Tschudi, J. f. O. 1856, p. 157.
Ad. albua: interscapulio indistinctè brunneo fasciatim vermiculato: tectricibus alarum nigris vix brunnescentibus, majoribus interioribus plus minusve albis, margine carpali albo et brunneo vario: remigibus brunnescentinigris, apicem versus pallidioribus, scapis flavicanti-albidis: scapularibus albis, ad apicem nigris: dorso postico et uropygio, supracaudalibus caudæque albis, hac nigro apicatâ, rectricibus exterioribus basaliter brunneo irregulariter transvermiculatis: subtùs purè albus, pectore indistinctè brunneo vermiculatim fasciato: rostro albido, carnoso vix tincto, ad apicem flavicanti-corneo: pedibus carneo-albicantibus: iride saturatè brunneâ: annulo ophthalmico viridi-purpurascente.
Juv. suprà fuliginoso-brunneus: alis caudâque fuliginoso-nigris, scapis flavicanti-albis, versus apicem nigris: fronte cum facie laterali et gutture purè albis: subtùs fuliginoso-brunneus, abdomine magis cinerascente: subalaribus et axillaribus albis, his versus apicem brunneo vermiculatis: rostro albicanti-corneo: pedibus albicanti-carneis: iride nigricanti-brunneâ.
Adult. General plumage pure white; the feathers of the back and those composing the mantle crossed more or less with narrow wavy lines of brown; the breast and sides of the body obscurely freckled and vermiculated with pale brown; upper surface of wings blackish brown, varied with pale brown and white along the edges, and with an extensive patch of white on the humeral flexure; primaries brownish black, with paler tips and yellowish-white shafts; secondaries brownish black, largely marked with white on their inner webs; scapulars white on their basal portion, black towards the tips; tail-feathers largely marked with black in their apical portion, and the outer ones more or less vermiculated with brown; lining of wings and under tail-coverts pure white. Irides rich dark brown; bare eyelids greenish purple; bill white, with a pinky tinge, yellowish horn-coloured at the tip; legs and feet flesh-white, sometimes with a pinky tinge. Total length 42·5 inches; wing, from carpal flexure, 24; tail 8·5; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 7; length of lower mandible 6; depth of bill at the base 2·5; bare tibia 1·5; tarsus 5; middle toe and claw 6·5; greatest width of expanded foot 6·5.
Obs. The measurements given above are those of an ordinary-sized bird captured off the New-Zealand coast by the seamen of H.M.S. ‘Virago;’ the size, however, is variable, and much larger examples are sometimes taken. For example, I saw in the possession of the first mate of the steamboat ‘Stella’ the head and neck of one of extremely large size, with the whole plumage of the purest white, the bill of which gave the following measurements:—Length from gape to tip 6·5 inches; following curvature of upper mandible 8·5; and along edge of lower mandible 6·5.
Professor Hutton gives for this species an “average breadth across the wings of 10 feet, the smallest being 9 feet and the largest 12 feet”; another writer mentions having measured one which yielded an extreme extent, from tip to tip, of 17 feet. My largest, however, is barely 14 feet across.
It may be observed that, soon after death, the lower part of the bill, the legs, and the feet change to a delicate purplish colour from congestion of the blood in the small vessels, and ultimately become yellow or yellowish brown in the dried specimen.
Young. A narrow band across the forehead and the whole of the face, sides of the head, and throat pure white; crown of the head, nape, neck all round, and the entire body-plumage deep slate-grey, washed more or less with brown and darker on the upper surface, the feathers composing the mantle having pale brown margins; the whole of the upper surface of the wings uniform blackish brown; rump and upper tail-coverts slaty brown with darker margins; primaries and tail-feathers black, the shafts and the inner webs becoming greyish white in their concealed basal portion; lining of wings and long axillary plumes pure white, the latter with delicate vermiculations of sooty brown near the tips. Irides brownish black; bill white horn-colour; legs and feet flesh-white.
Obs. The white patch on the face is very distinct, with well-defined edges; it fills the whole region in front of the eyes, crosses the forehead along the base of the mandible, and passing well over the eyes extends beyond them almost to the ears, where it forms a sharp angle, and then, sweeping back over the cheeks, spreads downwards and expands so as to cover the whole of the throat.
Nestling. Covered with pure white down.
Progress towards maturity. As it takes a considerable time to attain the fully adult plumage, birds are to be met with in every intermediate stage, and are often very beautifully barred and freckled with dark brown, especially on the upper parts and sides of the body. In very old birds the wavy markings described above diminish considerably or entirely disappear.
I have before me a fine series (now in my collection) showing the transitions of plumage through which this bird passes before it attains to the adult livery.
No. 1 is a more advanced stage than the “young” described above. The whole of the plumage is many shades lighter; the white on the face is more extensive, the narrow frontal band expanding to the width of an inch, and the patch extending beyond the throat halfway down the neck, still, however, preserving its characteristic form with a pretty well-defined outline; the crown, hind neck, shoulders, and mantle darker brown, with very pale brown margins; rump and tail-coverts uniform slaty brown; upper surface of wings brownish black, the small coverts tipped with pale brown; primaries and tail-feathers brownish black; lower portion of fore neck, breast, and underparts generally dark chocolate-brown with, broad buffy margins, having a pretty wavy appearance on the sides of the breast, becoming lighter and more mixed on the abdomen, and darkening to blackish brown on the under tail-coverts; the whole of the inner lining of wings and the axillary plumes pure white, the latter with pretty grey vermiculations, more or less distinct, towards the tips. This bird (which is probably a female) is undergoing a change of plumage; the old, brown feathers composing the mantle have worn and abraded tips fading into buffy white; and the new feathers are of a uniform slaty grey, with only a faint indication of margin. On the sides of the body and mixed with the dull brown plumage are likewise some new feathers, which are white, thickly freckled in a wavy manner with grey. Bill uniform yellowish horn-colour, changing to bright yellow on the unguis, which has a bluish patch at the base. Bill 6·5 inches, following curvature 7·5.
No. 2 has still lighter plumage; the outline of the white paten disappears on the throat, merging into the brown plumage of the breast through a delicate shade of buff; and the ground plumage being paler, the wavy light brown markings on the breast are not so conspicuous; the feathers of the shoulders and mantle have broad margins of pale brown, many of them much abraded, and there is a strong wash of brown on the rump and tail-coverts; the plumage of the underparts is likewise much lighter, becoming almost white on the abdomen. Judging by its large size this bird is a male. Bill from gape to tip 7 inches, following curvature of upper mandible 8; wing, from first flexure, 27; tail 8·75; tarsus 4·5.
No. 3 is lighter on the underparts than No. 1, and with the white on the throat not so well defined, although forming a distinct hood over the eyes; hind neck, shoulders, and mantle much paler brown, a few scattered white feathers with rayed markings appearing among the smaller scapulars; upper surface of wings and tail blackish brown; sides of the body and under tail-coverts much vermiculated; lining of wings and axillary plumes pure white. Bill 6·25, following curvature 7·75.
No. 4 has the vertex and crown dark brown; the throat, collar, and hind neck creamy white with pale brown patches on the former; mantle dark brown, each feather paler at the extremity, but with numerous scattered white feathers distinctly vermiculated; upper surface of wings and tail uniform blackish brown; underparts of the body pale brown mixed with darker, and delicately vermiculated; under tail-coverts dark brown, with a single white feather covered with dusky rays. Bill 6·5 inches, following curvature 8.
No. 5 has the crown dark brown, fading away on the nape; back, rump, and upper tail-coverts white, beautifully barred and vermiculated with blackish brown; wings and tail brownish black; throat and entire fore neck pure white; breast and sides covered with freckles and minute vermiculate markings of grey. Bill 5·5 inches, following curvature 6·75.
No. 6 is similar to No. 4, but having more of the scattered white feathers, covered with vermiculation on the shoulders and mantle, presenting a highly variegated appearance; with a darker crown it has the hind neck very pale, and there are no white feathers among the under tail-coverts. Bill 6·25 inches, following curvature 7·75.
No. 7 (which is probably a female) has very nearly attained the adult plumage, as described above. The white of the throat extends to the breast, having only a wash, of brown on the lower fore neck; crown and nape uniform brown; the rest of the body-plumage white; mantle, back, rump, and upper tail-coverts with some plain brown feathers intermixed and closely rayed and vermiculated with brown; the breast is thickly freckled or mottled, and the sides of the body, flanks, and under tail-coverts rayed irregularly with brownish grey; on the lower breast and above the vent these markings fade away, and the abdomen is pure white. Bill 5·75 inches, following curvature 6·75.
No. 8. The brown markings have almost entirely disappeared from the neck, there being only a slight wash of brown on the nape; the crown is still brown, but not so dark as in the last. The white face is tolerably distinct, the white covering the fore neck and extending to the breast, which is crossed with delicate vermiculations and freckles, these becoming fainter towards the abdomen till they fade away altogether; under tail-coverts freckled and vermiculated in their whole extent; lining of wings and axillaries pure white, the innermost of the latter faintly marked and clouded with grey; the whole of the back, mantle, rump, and upper tail-coverts closely vermiculated and freckled with greyish brown, presenting, however, a very different appearance to the wavy zigzag lines which adorn another example to be presently described; upper surface of wings and tail brownish black. Still there is the distinguishing feature of immaturity in the upper surface of the wings and tail being brownish black. Bill yellowish horn-colour.
No. 9. Crown of the head chocolate-brown, fading away on the nape; forehead, face, sides of the head, throat, and neck all round white, but exhibiting a wash of brown on the sides and hind neck; shoulders, mantle, back, rump, and upper tail-coverts white, thickly mottled and vermiculated with greyish brown, the markings being larger and more pronounced on the upper tail-coverts; entire upper surface of wings and tail brownish black, the shafts of the primaries being yellowish white with darkened tips; underparts white, the whole of the breast thickly freckled and speckled, the sides of the body, flanks, and under tail-coverts speckled and vermiculated with greyish brown, these delicate markings fading insensibly away towards the abdomen; inner lining of wings and axillary plumes spotless white, excepting only some of the inferior plumes, which are faintly freckled and clouded with grey. Irides rich dark brown; bare eyelids greenish purple; bill white, with a pinky tinge, yellowish horn-coloured at the tips of both mandibles; legs and feet flesh-white, with a tinge of pink.
No. 10. This fine example, which furnishes the front figure in my Plate of this species, has the general plumage pure white; the vertex, nape, and the whole of the breast obscurely freckled and rayed with dark grey; sides of the body and flanks with delicate vermiculations of the same colour; shoulders, mantle, back, rump, and upper tail-coverts silky white, covered with narrow transverse zigzag bars of greyish brown, producing a very pretty effect; on the scapulary-coverts these markings become darker and more vermiculate in character; the upper surface of wings brownish black, with scattered white markings along the arm, which increase and finally become confluent at the inner flexure of the humerus, forming a broad irregular patch with barred markings and freckles of greyish brown; the primaries are brownish black with yellowish-white shafts; the lining of the wings and the long axillary plumes are pure white, the innermost of the latter clouded and freckled with grey. The tail-feathers are parti-coloured, with pure white shafts; the middle tail-feather has its basal half white with produced marginal limbs; on the three next the white progressively
Notes. Mr. Gould, in his ‘Handbook to the Birds of Australia’ (ii. p. 433) thus disposes of the differences of plumage:—“The Wandering Albatros varies much in colour at different ages: very old birds are entirely white, with the exception of the pinions, which are black; and they are to be met with in every stage, from pure white, white freckled and barred with dark brown, to dark chocolate-brown approaching to black, the latter colouring being always accompanied by a white face, which in some specimens is washed with buff; beneath the true feathers they are abundantly supplied with a fine white down… . The young are at first clothed in a pure white down, which gives place to the dark brown colouring mentioned above.”
A fledgling, however, in the Otago Museum (obtained at Campbell Island) is entirely without the dark plumage. It has not yet completely lost the dense fluffy pure white down which forms the clothing of the nestling. The head, neck, shoulders, rump, tail, and entire under surface are of the purest white, having a fine silky gloss; the interscapular region is traversed longitudinally with club-shaped marks of greyish black, increasing downwards, the larger feathers having their apical portion completely covered; upwards, towards the shoulders, these marks diminish till they become mere arrow-heads; on the mantle there are numerous marginal bars, but there is no vermiculation. The wings are brownish black on their upper surface varied with white, all the coverts having white margins, and the quills are black. Bill yellowish horn-colour, with a bluish tinge on the upper mandible.
Shortly before leaving the colony, I saw, at Waikanae, a fresh specimen which had been cast ashore on the coast during a severe gale. It was of small size, and evidently a young bird. The whole of the plumage was pure white without any markings, excepting only the wings, which were black on their upper surface, largely dappled with white, especially towards the humeral flexure. Legs and feet flesh-grey. The skin of this bird afterwards came into the possession of Mr.
We cannot suppose that the Albatros is first pure white, then dark brown, and, after passing through several intermediate states, pure white again in extreme old age. Nor would it be altogether safe, from the materials at present before us, to construct a new species. I am inclined rather to account for the differences I have mentioned on the supposition of the existence of dimorphic phases of plumage as in some other oceanic birds.
The following is a description of a perfectly mature example of this Albatros, the fresh skin of which was received at the Canterbury Museum from one of the emigrant ships, in 1874, and noticed by me in a communication to the Philosophical Institute Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. viii. p. 189. This feature, which appeared to me at the time quite a new fact in natural history, has since been noticed by Dr. Kidder in the following terms:—“All of the nesting Albatroses that I saw, without exception, showed a slight pinkish discoloration of the neck, as if a blood-stain had been washed out (usually on the left side), and extending downward from the region of the ear.” I find, however, that I was not the first to record this peculiarity of coloration. Captain Hutton, in his ‘Notes on the Petrels of the Southern Ocean,’ mentions “a rose-coloured streak on each side of the neck,” and adds, “I have never seen this on either the young or very old birds; and the only one I ever captured with it was a male. I have also only seen these marks between June and August, and I am therefore disposed to believe that they distinguish the middle-aged male bird previous to the breeding-season; but I am not sure of this.”
In the Otago Museum there is an apparently fully adult bird in which the crown is mottled and the sides of the neck, the entire mantle, and the upper tail-coverts handsomely vermiculated with brownish black on a pure white ground; the upper surface of the wings black, varied more or less with white; quills and tail-feathers brownish black; the entire under surface of the body delicately vermiculated with dark brown; bill yellow horn-colour, with a slate-coloured patch near the expansion at the tip of the lower mandible.
There is another adult specimen in the Colonial Museum, which has a perfectly white head, neck, and underparts, with very silky plumage; no markings whatever on the back, and only an indistinct vermiculation on some of the feathers composing the mantle; rump and tail white, the middle tail-feathers somewhat clouded with grey; upper surface of wings greyish black, marked along the upper edge and largely towards the humeral flexure with white; scapulars white, marked with broken bars of greyish black. Bill uniform pale yellow, the cutting-edge of upper mandible black. Legs and feet flesh-white.
There is likewise a very fine specimen in the Canterbury Museum in which there is an entire absence of freckles or vermiculate markings, the whole of the body-plumage being of the purest white; the upper surface of wings largely varied with white, the humeral flexure béing entirely white.
In another very large one which I had an opportunity of examining the entire plumage was white except on the upper surface of wings, where likewise, along the upper edge and towards the humeral flexure, the white predominated; there was no vermiculation on the upper surface, except at the ends of the scapulars, and the tail-feathers were only mottled with black at the tips. But the principal feature in this bird was in the colour of the bill, which from a whitish horn-colour deepened to rich orange-yellow on the culmen, and darkened to reddish brown towards the base.
Philosophical Magazine, August 1869.What voyager on the high seas has not watched with wonder and admiration the sailing flight of the Albatros! It has been the theme of poets and philosophers from the earliest times; and various ingenious theories have been propounded to account for the amazing power which this bird possesses of sailing in the air for an hour at a time without the slightest movement of its expanded wings. Professor Hutton, whose observations on the birds inhabiting the Southern Ocean (‘Ibis,’ 1865) are full of suggestive information, has contributed an essay
Dr. Bennett, who has written on the same subject, remarks:—“It is pleasing to observe this superb bird sailing in the air in graceful and elegant movements, seemingly excited by some invisible power; for there is scarcely any movement of the wings seen after the first and frequent impulses are given, when, the creature elevates itself in the air, rising and falling as if some concealed power guided its various motions, without any muscular exertion of its own.” Mr. Gould adds the following testimony:—“The powers of flight of the Wandering Albatros are much greater than those of any other
Dr. Bree writes, in his ‘Birds of Europe’:—“The Wandering Albatros, of which but few naturalists have much personal knowledge, inhabits the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Its appearance in European seas is rare and accidental; at least, but few instances of its having been seen there are recorded. Degland notices one specimen having been captured at Dieppe about 1830, the head of which is preserved by Both Diomedea exulans and D. chlororhyncha, although admitted by Dr. Bree on the authority already mentioned, are omitted by Mr. Dresser from his ‘Birds of Europe.’
“I cannot endorse Nuttall’s statement that it is only ‘when the flying-fish fail they have recourse to the inexhaustible supply of molluscous animals with which the milder seas abound;’ nor can the following be a true record of the natural history of the species:—‘They are nowhere more abundant than off the Cape of Good Hope, where they have been seen in April and May, sometimes soaring in the air with the gentle motion of the Kite at a stupendous height, at others nearer the water, watching the motions of the flying-fish, which they seize as they spring out of the water to shun the jaws of the larger fish which pursue them. Vast flocks are also seen around Kamtschatka and the adjacent islands, particularly the Kuriles and Bering’s Island, about the end of June. Their arrival is considered by the natives of these places as a sure presage of the presence of the shoals of fish which they have thus followed into these remotest seas.’ It is very evident that Nuttall’s observations relate to an entirely different bird; for no one ever saw the Wandering Albatros capture its food in the manner described, nor does its range extend into the region he mentions.”
I have myself never tired of watching the flight of the Albatros and of speculating on the exact nature of its guiding and impelling force. It is interesting, too, to observe the conduct of these birds when a number of them, perhaps six or seven, are following in the wake of the steamer. They are coursing around in circles that meet, and with scarcely a movement of their ample pinions, when one of them observes a piece of offal, or other object, thrown overboard and drifting astern. It suddenly arrests itself in its graceful flight, bends its body into an ungainly shape by stretching forward its straddled legs and throwing back its head, and then flops down into the water, followed first by
Perhaps no writer has more graphically described the flight of this noble bird than Froude in his ‘Oceana’ (pp. 65, 66):—
“From the Cape to Australia the distance is 6000 miles, or a quarter of the circumference of the globe. Our speed was thirteen knots an hour, and we were attended by a body-guard of Albatroses, Cape-hens, and Sea-hawks—the same birds, so the sailors said, following the ship without resting all the way. I know not whether this be so, or how the fact has been ascertained. One large Gull is very like another, and the islands in the middle of the passage are their principal breeding-places. Any way, from fifty to a hundred of them were around us at sunrise, around us when the night fell, and with us again in the morning. They are very beautiful in the great ocean solitude. One could have wished that Coleridge had seen an Albatros on the wing before he wrote the ‘Ancient Mariner,’ that the grace of the motion might have received a sufficient description. He wheels in circles round and round, and for ever round, the ship—now far behind, now sweeping past in a long rapid curve, like a perfect skater on an untouched field of ice. There is no effort; watch as closely as you will, you rarely or never see a stroke of the mighty pinion. The flight is generally near the water, often close to it. You lose sight of the bird as he disappears in the hollow between the waves, and catch him again as he rises over the crest; but how he rises and whence comes the propelling force is to the eye inexplicable; he alters merely the angle at which the wings are inclined—usually they are parallel to the water and horizontal; but when he turns to ascend or makes a change in his direction the wings then point at an angle, one to the sky, the other to the water. Given a power of resistance to the air, and the air itself will do the rest, just as a kite flies; but how, without exertion, is the resistance caused? However it be, the Albatros is a grand creature. To the other birds, and even to the ship itself, he shows a stately indifference, as if he had been simply ordered to attend its voyage as an aerial guardian, but disdained to interest himself further” “A singular incident at sea is reported by the captain of the ship ‘Gladstone,’ which arrived in Port Jackson from London on November 20. At 1 P.M. on October 22, in lat. 42° E., long. 90° E., the ship was running down her easting across the Southern Ocean when one of the hands fell overboard from the starboard gangway. Immediately on the alarm being given the ship was smartly rounded to, and the life-boat, manned by the first officer and four hands, lowered in hot haste. The boat reached the unfortunate man after a long pull, and found him supporting himself in the water by clinging desperately to a large Albatros, which, on coming to the surface after his plunge, he had succeeded in making his prize. Holding to the huge bird with all the energy of a drowning man, he had utilized him as a life-buoy until rescued by his comrades. This is probably the first case of the kind on record,”—The Colonist, Jan. 20, 1882.
On my last voyage from the Antipodes, by direct steamer by way of Cape Horn, I made careful observations on the Albatroses that followed us. During the first few days from the New-Zealand coast (middle of March), and in lat. 56° S., some twenty or more of D. exulans were in daily attendance. Nearly the whole of these were in the dark plumage characteristic of the young bird, the fore neck, breast, and upper parts of the body being of various shades of chocolate-brown, and the face, throat, and abdomen pure white. In some the brown on the breast was very pale, and in one or more of them was reduced to a mere cloud of speckled markings. One bird, however, and the only one in the white body-plumage mentioned above, was conspicuous among the group. It had the head,
About 5 P.M. the next day, lat. 56°, long. 83°, an Albatros of another species, probably D. brachyura, appeared in sight. It kept at a long distance from the steamer, made one wide sweep over the sea, and then vanished; and two days later, having rounded Cape Horn and got into a placid ocean, six more of them appeared at one time, sailing close to the water, and then rising high in the air (with a movement like a Sea-Gull’s), then sweeping down again in a wide circle and skimming the surface as before—coursing far away to leeward, keeping company, as it were, with the ship, but never following in our wake after the manner of the South Pacific bird.
Although the Wandering Albatros is very common in the seas round New Zealand, I have never heard of its breeding on any of the outlying rocks, except those in the vicinity of the Chatham Islands. Campbell and the Auckland Islands are enumerated among its known breeding-stations Mr. Lestris, always on the watch for the Albatros quitting its nest, when the rapacious pirate instantly pounces down and devours
Lestris flying overhead.”
Professor Scott found this species breeding on Campbell Island in the month of November; and, strange to say, as late as March 16th, as Sir Sir George Grey informs me that on the Auckland Islands he found hundreds of Albatroses breeding together. The nests, according to his account, were of the shape of a Chilton cheese, and each one contained a single egg. Hence the Maori saying, “Kaingatahi.”Diomedea exulans was not breeding there, but there were lots of D. melanophrys, and the young were quite large.”
The fledgling in the Otago Museum, described above, is stated to be about ten months old; and to account for this long babyhood I cannot do better than quote the following account “Notes on Birds inhabiting the Southern Ocean,” by
There can be no reasonable doubt as to the truth of this account, wonderful as it may appear. The Maoris, who are good natural observers, confirm the story, and state that when the young birds are left they are so immensely fat that they can subsist for months without food of any kind. Professor Hutton expressed a belief that the young birds are nocturnal (although the old ones are strictly diurnal) and “go down to the sea at night, returning to their nests in the morning;” but Mr. Harris rejects this theory, stating that they are incapable of flight, and that the situations occupied by many of them made it impossible to get to the water except by that means.
What is that divinely-implanted faculty which enables this bird, after wanderings that defy calculation and perhaps encircle the globe, to find her way back at the right moment, across the pathless deep, to that little speck of rock in mid-ocean where she had cradled her young the season before? Doubtless the same mysterious unerring instinct that guides the Swallow in its annual pilgrimage—that leads the Pipit, without landmark of any kind, straight to her little nest in the grass amidst miles of waving tussock—that enables the nesting sea-bird, when she comes back from fishing, to pick out her two painted eggs from amongst the thousands that lie upon the barren rock.
An egg of this species in the Canterbury Museum is ovoid or slightly ovoido-elliptical in form, yellowish white, with a roughly granulate shell, wholly devoid of gloss or polish, but without any excrescences. It measures on its axis 4·8 inches in length by 3·3 in width. Its longest circumference is 12·6 inches, and its widest 10 inches. An egg obtained at Campbell Island, at the same time as the nestling described above (in the month of November), is ovoido-elliptical in form, measuring 5 inches in length by 3 in breadth, and is perfectly white, with a slightly granulate surface. There is another egg in the Otago Museum (without any locality assigned to it) which is somewhat larger, measuring 5·5 inches in length by 3·2 in breadth, of a creamy colour and much soiled by external contact, especially at the larger end. An egg in my son’s collection is ovoido-elliptical, being slightly larger at one end, and measures 4·85 inches in length by 3·15 in breadth; it is of a uniform yellowish white with a finely granulate surface, without the slightest gloss.
Diomedea melanophrys, Boie, in Temm. Pl. Col. v. pl. 456 (1828).
Ad. albus: interscapulio et scapularibus cum alâ totâ schistaceo-nigris: dorso postico, uropygio et supracaudalibus albis: caudâ schistaceo-nigrâ, scapis albidis: regione oculari delicatè cinereâ, suprà oculum saturatiore, supercilium formante: rostro sordidè flavo: pedibus flavicanti-albis, cyanescente vix lavatis, plantis etiam cyanescente tinctis: iride pallidè brunneâ.
Adult. General plumage pure white; middle portion of back and upper surface of wings slaty black; in front of the eyes a broad patch of bluish grey, which passes into a darker streak over and behind them; tail dark ash-grey, the shafts of the feathers white. Irides light brown; bill dull yellow; legs and toes yellowish white, the interdigital webs and the joints washed more or less with pale blue. Total length 34 inches; wing, from flexure, 20·5; tail 8; bill, along the curvature 5·25, from gape to extremity of lower mandible 4·75; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 4·75.
Obs. Individuals vary in size, and in one of my specimens the bill measures along the culmen 6 inches, and from gape to tip, in a direct line, 4·75.
Young. Differs from the adult in having the head and neck ash-grey, and the upper surface of wings and inter-scapular region brownish black, the smaller wing-coverts with paler margins, the bill blue-black, and the legs and feet bluish grey.
Progress towards maturity. The grey gradually changes to white; according to Prof. Hutton’s observations “first on the cheeks, then spreading to the top of the head, leaves a collar round the neck, which breaks first in front, and gradually spreads upwards until the whole is white.” He adds that “the bill remains dark blue for some time after the plumage has assumed the colours of the adult.” Although mainly correct this does not exactly accord with my own observations. I have a specimen in which the old colour presents only an irregular wash of ash-grey on the crown and sides of the head, whilst the dark bill is undergoing a rapid change, the culmen, bilge of hook, and outer edge of lower mandible being dull yellow.
Another in my collection has the bill blackish brown, changing to dull yellow on the ridge and again on the hook, also, less distinctly, along the edge of the lower mandible. The crown is white; occiput and hind neck pale slaty grey, forming a sort of half-collar around the neck.
A third specimen has a yellow bill; the vertex is still clouded with grey, forming a sort of nuchal cap; there is the usual dark streak through the eyes, and the hind neck is entirely white. Bill measures 4 inches; following curvature 4·75. (Sex ♀.)
In a fourth, which has fully assumed the adult plumage, the bill is yellowish grey, lighter on the hook, but with a dark band around the base and another extending to the nostrils.
Nestling. Covered with long, thick woolly down, of a pale grey colour; bill brownish black with yellowish horn-coloured tip; legs and feet yellowish white. In form plump, and having a comfortable aldermanic appearance.
This species of Albatros is far more common in our seas than Diomedea exulans, and habitually
Professor Hutton has observed that this bird “dives sometimes, but does not appear to like doing so, generally preferring, when any thing good to eat is under water, to let a Night-hawk fish it up; then giving chase and running along the top of the water, croaking, and with outstretched wings, it compels him to drop it, and then seizes it before it sinks again.” Mr. Gould refers to it in the following terms:—“Of all the species with which I am acquainted this is the most fearless of man, for it often approaches many yards nearer the vessel than any other; I have even observed it so near that the tips of its pinions were not more than two arms’ length from the taffrail. It is very easily captured with a hook and line; and as this operation gives not the least pain to the bird, the point of the hook merely taking hold in the horny and insensible tip of the bill, I frequently amused myself by capturing specimens in this way, and after detaining them sufficiently long to afford me an opportunity for investigating any particular point respecting which I wished to satisfy myself, setting them at liberty again, after having marked many, in order to ascertain whether the individuals which were flying round the ship at nightfall were the same that were similarly engaged at daylight in the morning after a night’s run of 120 miles; and this in many instances proved to be the case. When brought upon deck, from which it cannot take wing, it readily becomes tame, and allows itself to be handled almost immediately; still I believe that no member of this group can be domesticated, in consequence of the difficulty of procuring a supply of natural food.”
Much of what I have said of the Wandering Albatros applies equally to this bird, their habits in their common field of action on the mighty deep being very much the same. It has the same awkward style of dropping into the water, as if its back was broken, but once upon the surface it comfortably tucks in its wings and swims with as much buoyancy as grace, lifting its proud head well above the body, and glancing sharply around with its piercing eyes; then, as if impelled by a sudden thought, it stretches up its lengthy pinions and mounting in the air glides through space with the silence of a spirit, scarcely moving its outspread wings as it sweeps around in never-ending circles, but restlessly turning its head from side to side as it scans the water below.
Mr. Drew sent me the mandibles of a Diving Petrel (Pelecanoides urinatrix) found, together with a mass of feathers, in the stomach of an Albatros of this spepies, which had been cast ashore in a gale of wind at the Wanganui heads. Its ordinary food consists of minute occanic animals, such as medusæ and mollusca, and floating refuse of any kind thrown overboard from ships, whose course these birds descry from an amazing distance, and follow persistently for many days together. Whilst thus employed they appear to fraternize freely enough with the larger species.
Some months ago there was a live one in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, which had become quite tame, knowing its keeper and following him, with a gurgling note or deep croak and much awkward flapping of its wings, on the approach of feeding-time. It spent most of its time resting placidly on a grass mound, and apparently quite indifferent to its banishment from the sea.
On the nesting-habits of this species of Albatros Mr.
“At Monumental Head (Auckland Island) we picked up our hunters laden with Albatroses living and dead, and Albatros eggs in abundance. At Campbell Island I ascended one of the highest
sixty days, and is fed by her consort, who faithfully hunts for food for both. If by chance the nest is left unguarded for a single moment the Sea-Hawk, which is here in thousands, pounces upon the egg and ‘love’s labour’s lost,’ at least so far as the Albatros is concerned. The Albatros is a stupid bird, for it will sit, whether hatching or not, till you tumble it head over heels with your foot. At the same time it will resent such liberty, and, if it succeeds in getting a hold, it will take the piece out of trousers, hose, and skin. They are very strong birds. The best way to catch one is to make a feint at his head with the left hand, which distracts the bird’s attention, and then quickly seize it by the bill with the right; but be sure you get the grip, as they turn very quickly, and would snap your fingers off if they got the proper hold. They build on the flat plateaus of the hills; and so far as we have seen, never lower down than 700 feet from sea-level. At Antipodes Island, on Tuesday, January 31st, the day broke beautifully and the bay was like a mirror, but the glass was still low: as the day advanced we were enveloped for half an hour in one of those dense mists characteristic of this locality, and when it passed the hills were covered with snow. The height of the island is marked on the chart at 600 feet, but this is an error, as the principal hill, Mount Galloway, is 1200 feet above the sea-level. From seaward this hill looks conical or dome-shaped, but on reaching the summit a beautiful clear lake covering an area of thirteen or fourteen acres is found—a lake which a little later in the season than the time of our visit is much frequented by the Albatros, being virtually surrounded by thousands of their nests.
“We moved on northwards (Stewart Island) and came upon a perfect cemetery of dead Penguins lying rotting amidst black sand—thousands upon thousands—evidently cut off by some epidemic.”
Mr.
In the Otago Museum there are two eggs of this Albatros (collected in November), the larger of which measures 4·3 inches in length by 2·2 in breadth; they are creamy white, irregularly marked or blotted with surface-spots of yellowish brown. The smaller of the two specimens presents more distinct blots in its middle portion, and has its larger pole studded with spots presenting a reddish-brown surface.
Diomedea chlororhynchos, Aud. Orn. Biogr. v. p. 326 (1839, nec Gm.).
Diomedea culminata, Gould, Ann. N. Hist. xiii. p. 361 (1844).
Ad. similis D. chlororhynchæ, sed pileo colloque totis pulchrè cinereo lavatis: culmine et gonyde sordidè flavis: pedibus flavicanti-albis.
Juv. similis adulto, sed pileo colloque saturatiùs cinereis: rostro nigro, culmine medialiter flavicante et gonyde obscurè corneâ.
Adult. Plumage similar to that of D. chlororhyncha, but having the whole of the head and neck washed with delicate slaty grey, and the feathers of the back and mantle more or less margined with brown. Bill black, with the ridge of the upper mandible, and the lower edges of the under mandible, to the junction of the crura, dull yellow; legs and feet yellowish white. Total length 31·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 20; tail 7·5; bill, along the ridge 5, from the gape to the extremity of lower mandible 4·75; tarsus 3·25; middle toe and claw 4·75.
Young. Has the head and neck dark grey; the space between the upper mandible and the eyes, as well as a mark above the latter, of a deeper shade; beneath the posterior side of the lower eyelid a light grey mark; the cheeks whitish; bill black, with indications of yellow in the middle portion of its ridge, and with the outer edges of the lower mandible horn-coloured towards the base; legs and feet yellowish white.
Obs. A specimen from Blueskin Bay, in the Otago Museum (sex ♂), is an exceptionally handsome bird, the delicate shading of French grey on the head and neck being really exquisite. There is another specimen in the Otago Museum in which the head and entire neck are dark grey, changing to white on the cheeks, and deepening into sooty brown on the shoulders and mantle; upper surface of wings sooty black; tail sooty grey with white shafts; breast and sides more or less marked and washed with grey; rump and abdomen pure white.
In the Canterbury Museum there is a young bird of this species, which was picked up on the ocean-beach somewhere between the mouths of the Avon and Waimakariri rivers, and another, in adult plumage, more recently presented by Diomedea cauta and D. chlororhyncha. The specific differences of the three species are so apparent that I had no difficulty whatever in distinguishing them while on the wing. In D. chlororhyncha the bill is more compressed laterally, the culmen is round, and the yellow colouring terminates in an obtuse point midway between the nostrils and the base; while in D. culminata the culmen is broad and flat, and has its greyish yellow colouring continued of the same breadth to the base; the feet of the latter are also fully a third larger than those of the former. The habits, mode of life, and the kind of food partaken of by the D. culminata are so precisely similar to those of its congeners that a separate description would be a mere repetition of what has already been said respecting the preceding species.”
Yellow-nosed Albatros, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 309, pl. 94 (1785).
Diomedea chlororhynchos, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 595 (1788, ex Lath.).
Diomedea chlororhyncha, Coues, Pr. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 185.
Ad. similis D. melanophryi, sed rostro nigro, culmine cum ungue et maculâ parvâ ad basin mandibulæ positâ lætè flavis: pedibus cyanescenti-albis.
Adult. Plumage similar to that of D. melanophrys, but having only a light shade of grey in front of the eyes, and a black tail with white shafts. Bill black, with the culmen, hook, unguis, and edge of lower mandible bright yellow; a narrow basal spot on the lower mandible orange; legs and feet bluish white. Total length 32·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 19·5; tail 8; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 5·4, from gape to extremity of lower mandible 5; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 4·25.
Obs. The yellow does not melt into the black as in transitional states of Diomedea melanophrys, but the two colours are well defined, and the former terminates in an acute point about half an inch from the base of the upper mandible. In very mature birds the yellow deepens to orange on the hook, where it spreads, and then fades away to pale yellow at the tip.
In the Otago Museum there is a fine specimen which has the bill perfectly black, with a broad, well-defined stripe of yellow down the culmen, which widens considerably and deepens to orange on the hook; the extreme edges of the lower mandible are likewise yellow. There is just a pale shade of grey in front of the eyes, which becomes darker above them; shoulders, upper surface of wings, and tail sooty black, the shafts of the latter white; the rest of the plumage pure white.
There is a specimen of this Albatros in the Auckland Museum; and Dr. Crosbie, of H.M.S. ‘Virago,’ showed me the head of another. Both of these, as I was informed, were obtained off the New-Zealand coast, although the proper range of this species appears to lie in more northern latitudes.
There are likewise specimens, more recently obtained, in the Canterbury and Otago Museums.
Dr. Bree says that this species “has occurred still more rarely than D. exulans in European seas. Two instances are, however, mentioned by Esmark (Degland, Orn. Eur. p. 359) as having been killed near Kongsberg, in Norway, in the month of April 1837,” in consequence of which Bonaparte and Degland gave it a place among the birds of Europe. It ranges, according to Latham, from 30° to 60° in the southern hemisphere, all round the pole.
Prof. Hutton has expressed his opinion that the three allied forms, D. chlororhyncha, D. culminata, and D. melanophrys, are in reality one species; but in this view I do not concur, because the adult birds are easily discriminated, the well-marked black and yellow bill of the two former distinguishing them from the Mollyhawk, whilst as between each other the differently coloured head in the adult bird is a very conspicuous feature.
In the Otago Museum there is a specimen of Diomedea chlororhyncha (marked ♂, St. Paul’s Island) which comes very near in general appearance to D. cauta, but it wants the face-adornment along the base of the mandible which distinguishes the latter species.
Diomedea cauta, Gould, in Proc. Zool. Soc. part viii. p. 177 (1840).
Diomedea (Thalassarche) cauta, Bonap. Compt. Rend. de l’Acad. Sci. 1856.
♀ ad. fronte et vertice cinerascenti-albis: pileo colloque toto pulchrè cinereo lavatis: regione ante- et supraoculari cinerascenti-nigris: dorso et interscapulio cum alâ totâ cinerascenti-nigris: uropygio et supracaudalibus albis: remigibus brunnescenti-nigris, scapis ad basin flavicanti-albidis, secundariis versus apicem brunnescente tinctis: caudâ saturatè argentescenti-cinereâ, scapis albidis: subtùs purè albus: subalaribus albis, plumis exterioribus nigricantibus: iride lætè vinascenti-brunneâ: pedibus sordidè corneo-albicantibus, tarsis saturatioribus: rostro cyanescenti-corneo, ad apicem sordidè nigro, culmine medialiter et gonyde obscurè flavicantibus, ad basin conspicuè nigro marginatis: margine mandibulari ad basin lætè flavo.
Adult female. The whole of the head and neck delicate pearl-grey, shading off almost to white on the crown and forehead; lores and a line over each eye greyish black, shading off below into the pearl-grey; back and upper surface of wings greyish brown; rump, tail-coverts, and the whole of the underparts pure white, softly blending with the grey on the lower fore neck; quills brownish black, the shafts whitish horn-colour towards the base, the longer secondaries tinged with sepia-brown; tail-feathers dark silvery grey, with white shafts, and paler on the under surface; lining of wings white, some of the feathers towards the edge of the wing greyish black; irides rich vinous brown; feet dull fleshy white, the tarsi darker; bill bluish horn-colour, lighter and tinged with yellow along the culmen, and also on the under surface of the lower mandible; the sides of the unguis or hooked extremity, as well as the terminal expansion of the lower mandible, dull black; the upper mandible margined at the base with a narrow black band, which broadens on the ridge and extends along the groove on each side to the nostrils. Base of lower mandible fringed on each side with a membrane of a bright yellow colour, bordered behind with black, and forming a very distinguishing feature in this species. Another bright yellow membrane extends, in an oblique line, down the cheeks for about three inches from the angles of the mouth, but this is only observable on the feathers being moved aside. Total length 35 inches; extent of wings 91, from carpal flexure to the tip 22·5; tail 9; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 5·3, length of lower mandible 5; tarsus 3·25; middle toe and claw 5·7.
This fine species was first described by Mr. Gould (as quoted above) and named by him the Shy Albatros, in allusion to its cautious habits when on the wing. In his ‘Birds of Australia’ he gives the following account of it:—
“I first saw this species of Albatros off the south coast of Tasmania, and had frequent opportunities of observing it during my stay in Recherche Bay, at the southern entrance of D’Entrecasteaux’s Channel, where I was wind-bound for nearly a fortnight. Unlike other Albatroses it was most difficult to procure, for it seldom approached our ship sufficiently near for a successful shot. I succeeded, however, in shooting several examples while they were flying round the bay in which we had taken shelter. It is not usual for Albatroses to approach the land or enter a secluded bay like that of Recherche, and I attribute this deviation from the ordinary habits to the temptation presented by the vast quantities of fat and other remains of whales floating about, the locality being one of the principal whaling-stations on the coast of Tasmania. I have no doubt likewise that it was breeding on the Mewstone and other isolated rocks in the neighbourhood, as the plumage of some of the specimens I procured indicated that they had lately been engaged in the task of incubation.
“It is a large and powerful bird, the male being scarcely a third less in size than the D. exulans; is rapid and vigorous on the wing, and takes immense sweeps over the surface of the ocean. It will be interesting to learn the extent of the range of this species. A head in the possession of D. culminata, D. chlororhyncha, and D. melanophrys, to which and the present the generic appellation of Thalassarche has been given), the beautiful grey on the sides of the mandibles and the yellow mark at the base of the lower mandible will at all times distinguish this bird from the other members of the genus. The stomachs of those I obtained in Recherche Bay contained blubber, the remains of large fish, barnacles, and other crustaceans.”
Prof. Hutton added this bird to the New-Zealand avifauna on the authority of a specimen captured at Blueskin Bay, in Otago; and in 1877 I exhibited and described Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. x. p. 217. Mr. Cheeseman has since recorded a male specimen, presented to the Auckland Museum by Mr. Bate of Parnell.
In lat. 55° S., long. 135° W., in fine but intensely cold weather, a pair came up to us and followed our steamer for two or three hours. They fly in company with D. exulans and appear to associate freely enough with the smaller Petrels, but they did not once approach very near to the ship. Their flight is graceful and in wide circles, the outstretched wings appearing narrower and straighter than in the other species of Albatros, there being scarcely any perceptible curve.
A shrewd collector, who appeared to know the bird well, assured me that he found it breeding on the Snares, the nest being placed on a high platform of rock and the birds being quite unapproachable, rising on the slightest alarm and circling high in the air till all danger was past, in which respect their habits differ entirely from those of the Wandering Albatros, which will often allow itself to be captured on the nest.
This species may be readily distinguished from all the other members of the group, notwithstanding the similarity of colour, by the basal black band on the bill and the peculiar fleshy membranes which fringe the base of the lower mandible and extend down the cheeks, in the form of a narrow rib, the use or purpose of which in the natural economy of the bird it is impossible to imagine.
This feature was entirely new to me; but I find that it exists in another species also, for Capt. Carmichael, writing of D. chlororhyncha, says:—“A curious circumstance, with regard to this bird, is that when irritated the feathers of its cheeks are separated, so as to display a beautiful stripe of naked orange skin running from the corners of the mouth towards the back of the head.”
The only thing analogous to it among the other Diomedeæ is the fleshy rib which extends from the angles of the mouth backward in D. fuliginosa.
I am indebted to Mr.
Sooty Albatros, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 1, p. 309 (1785).
Diomedea fuliginosa, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 568 (1788).
Diomedea spadicea, Lesson, Man. d’Orn. ii. p. 391 (1828).
Diomedea fusca, Aud. Orn. Biogr. v. p. 116 (1839).
Diomedea palpebrata, Forst. Descr. An. p. 55 (1844).
Phæbetria fuliginosa, Reich. Natürl. Syst. Vög. p. v (1852).
Ad. fuliginoso-cinereus, alis caudâque saturatioribus: facie laterali nigricante: fasciâ postoculari albâ: primariorum scapis ad basin albis, rectricum scapis omninò albis: rostro nigro, gonyde albicante: pedibus albis purpureo lavatis: iride saturatè cinerascenti-brunneâ.
Adult male. Head and neck and upper surface of wings and tail brownish black; back and mantle slaty brown, with obscure wavy bands or margins of brownish grey; the rest of the plumage uniform dark slaty grey; the eyes surrounded posteriorly for two thirds of their circumference by a distinct mark of white; the shafts of the primaries white in their basal portion, and those of the tail-feathers in their whole extent. Irides dark greyish brown; bill jet-black and perfectly smooth, with a white cartilaginous line along each side of the lower mandible; legs and feet white, with a purplish tinge. Total length 32·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 19; tail 9·5; bill, along the curvature 4·25, from the gape to extremity of lower mandible 3·75; tarsus 2·75; middle toe and claw 4·75.
Adult female. Similar to the male, except that the whole plumage is lighter, being of a dull sooty brown, darker on the head and upper surface of wings and tail; the feathers of the back and the interscapulars broadly margined with paler brown.
Young. Differs from the female only in having the plumage of the upper parts more largely tinged with brown, the margins of the feathers paler, and the marks encircling the eyes light grey instead of white.
Nestling. Covered with thick down having a woolly appearance, and being sooty black with pale brown tips.
Var. A specimen obtained by Mr. Reischek at Antipodes Island is remarkable on account of its very pale colour. The general upper surface is slaty grey, becoming darker on the head; the underparts uniform light slate-colour.
Note. The fine series in my collection consists of the adult male bird, female, and young, as described above.
This well-known species (the “Cape-Hen” of sailors), which appears to be generally distributed over the temperate latitudes southward of the Equator, is comparatively common in the New-Zealand seas. Its graceful form and long cuneated tail at once distinguish it from all the other members of the group, while its short and rather feeble legs indicate its more aerial character. Thus we find Mr. Gould observing that “in its actions and mode of flight it differs very considerably from all the
In the winter of 1856 I received a very fine specimen from the Wairarapa plains, where it was found alive many miles from the sea, apparently blown inland by the violence of the prevailing storms. I have since received several specimens from the South Island, all in adult plumage, and a young bird from Cook’s Strait, where the violence of the storm had driven it ashore.
It flies fast and often very near to the surface, almost touching the water, and with the wings more angular than in D. exulans. The black head is very conspicuous, and the length of tail enables one to distinguish the species almost at any distance. Its flight is more like that of an ordinary Petrel, and it has the same habit of coming up close under the stern of the ship and down into the trough of the sea.
On my last voyage to England (viâ Cape Horn) on the 16th March, about lat. 55° S. and long. 144° W.—in a heavy westerly wind with the thermometer very low,—a pair of these birds came up to us and followed our steamer during a great part of the day, although she was making nearly 20 knots an hour.
An egg of this species examined by me is of a narrow elliptical form, measuring 4·2 inches in length by 2·7 in breadth; of a dingy brownish white, splashed, dotted, and marked all over its larger pole with dull blackish brown. Another, of the same length but somewhat narrower, is of a clear greyish white, minutely and indistinctly spotted, and presenting a pretty regular zone of sepia-brown near its larger end.
Some naturalists separate this form from the other Albatroses under the generic name of Phœbetria, Reich., with the following distinguishing characters:—Bill excessively compressed; a sulcus on the sides of lower mandible; feathers forming a deep re-entrant angle on culmen; an acute salient on one side of lower mandible; nostrils very large; tail elongated and cuneate.
As mentioned on page 202, it has been proposed to treat three of the preceding forms of Albatros as belonging to one and the same species, but the more specimens I examine the more satisfied I am as to their being specifically distinct. In D. chlororhyncha the shape of the head and whole expression of the face are so entirely different from D. melanophrys that I do not understand how any naturalist who has compared them can confound the species. The dark loral spot is one of the distinguishing features of D. melanophrys, but I have seen a very old example in which it had entirely disappeared, the whole of the head and neck being snowy white.
In the Natural-History Museum of the Jardin des Plantes there is a beautiful specimen of Diomedea culminata; head and entire neck delicate uniform slate-grey; there is no loral spot, but there is a dark rim round the eyes; bill black, with the culmen yellow, broadening on the hook; lower edge of under mandible up to commencement of the symphysial margin, and forming an angle upwards at the base, bright yellow. In the same collection there is a very fine specimen of D. chlororhyncha, in which the forehead and crown are pure white; the cheeks and face of a very delicate pearl-grey, this wash presenting a distinct boundary line extending from the mandible to the upper margin of the eyes; bill black, with the ridge of the upper mandible and the extreme tip of the lower bright yellow, this colour running up into an acute point near the root of the bill, and spreading out on the hook, where it deepens into orange-red. In the Liverpool Museum there are two specimens of D. melanophrys, in which the colour of the bill is changing from brownish black to yellow. In two specimens of D. chlororhyncha in the same collection the bill is perfectly black, with a bright yellow culmen, changing to reddish on the ridge of the unguis.
Diving Petrel, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 413 (1785).
Procellaria urinatrix, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 560 (1788, ex Lath.).
Pelecanoides urinatrix, Lacép. Mém. de l’Inst. 1800, p. 517.
Halodroma urinatrix, Illiger, Prodr. Syst. Mamm. et Av. p. 274 (1811).
Procellaria tridactyla, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 149 (1844).
Puffinuria urinatrix, Gould, B. of Austr. pl. 60 (1848).
Haladroma berardii, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 206 (1857, nec Temm.).
Ad. suprà nitenti-niger, scapularibus albo apicaliter vix notatis: collo laterali fuscescenti-cinereo: fronte brunnescente: subtùs albus, hypochondriis cinereo lavatis: rostro nigro: pedibus cyanescentibus, viridi tinctis, palmis cyanescenti-albis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Crown and sides of the head, hind neck, and all the upper surface shining steel-black; the forehead tinged with brown, the sides of the neck dusky, and the scapulars touched with white; throat, fore neck, and all the underparts pure white; the sides of the body and flanks sometimes stained with grey. Irides and bill black; legs and feet cobalt, tinged with green, the webs bluish white. Length 9·5 inches; extent of wings 16·5; wing, from flexure, 5·5; tail 2; bill, along the ridge ·75, along the edge of lower mandible ·75; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 1·5.
Nestling. Covered with sooty-grey down; head and neck nearly bare; black feathers first appear on the wings.
The Diving-Petrel is very common in the seas surrounding New Zealand, consorting in flocks, and living on medusæ and other marine productions. It is specially abundant at all seasons in the Gulf of Hauraki. Its flight, which is rather laboured, consists of a rapid fluttering movement along the surface of the water: then it drops and dives through the waves with amazing agility. Latham states that they “croak like frogs, and sometimes make a noise like the cackling of a hen.” My description is taken from a specimen picked up on the Waikanae beach in September 1863.
They swim in the sea with the head much uplifted, and are very active on the water.
Some years ago, during a severe gale, many hundreds of them were cast ashore in the Bay of Plenty, and it was observed that a number of them were afflicted with a large flat tick measuring ·25 of an inch across the body and legs.
The stomach of one I opened contained black comminuted matter and one or two small seeds, apparently of some kind of seaweed. I observed that the skin of this bird was very tough and thick, the roots of the feathers appearing underneath as in the Penguins and some other birds.
The young birds are so fat that it may truly be said of them that a wick inserted through the body of a dead one will burn as steadily as if in a lamp!
Mr. Burton found this Petrel breeding on Stephen’s Island, in Cook’s Strait. It also breeds on Karewa Island (off Tauranga), on the small islets off the Great Barrier, and on the “Hen and Chickens.”
Specimens of the egg in my son’s collection from Portland Island are almost spherical, measuring 1·5 inch in length by 1·2 in breadth; they are yellowish white, with a smooth surface.
Procellaria bérard, Quoy et Gaim. Voy. Uran., Zool. p. 135 (1824).
Haladroma berardii, Temm. Pl. Col. 517 (1831).
Pelecanoides berardii, Gray, Gen. of B. iii. p. 646 (1844).
Ad. similis P. urinatrici, sed rostro tenuiore, pedibus flavicantibus, palmis nigricantibus.
Adult. Similar to P. urinatrix, but with a more slender bill, and having the legs and feet yellowish, with dark webs. Length 7 inches; wing, from flexure, 4·25; tail 1·5; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible ·6, from gape to extremity of lower mandible ·8; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw 1·1.
The above description was taken from a specimen obtained by Mr. Henry Travers on Pitt’s Island, in January 1872, this being my authority for admitting the species into our list of birds. I have never met with it since in New Zealand, and am somewhat in doubt about the propriety of retaining the species, the colour of the feet being a very unreliable test of specific distinctness. I ought, however, to mention that I examined four specimens in the Natural-History Museum at the Jardin des Plantes, and that they all had yellowish legs and feet.
Dr. Finsch also identified a specimen brought by Mr. Henry Travers as belonging to this species Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 234).
It is very closely allied to P. urinatrix; and its habits of life are doubtless the same.
At noon on the 29th of December, as we were passing Rangitoto, near the entrance to the Auckland harbour, in a little costal steamer, we came upon a flock of Petrels to the number of 80 or 100. They allowed us to approach very near before they rose; then they took wing irregularly, kept close to the surface, with a vigorous flight, and took to the water again nearer to the island. I could not positively identify the bird, but it probably was either this species or the preceding one. The flock kept well together, and the birds seemed very restless and playful.
Mr.
Mr.
Procellaria turtur, Kuhl, Monogr. Procell. p. 143, pl. xi. fig. 8 (1820, ex Banks MS.).
Prion turtur, Gould, Ann. N. H. xiii. p. 366 (1844).
Halobæna typica, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 768 (1856).
Pseudoprion turtur, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 166.
Ad. suprà pulchrè et saturatè cinereus, scapularibus brunnescentibus albo terminatis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus, minimis brunnescentibus: remigibus fuliginoso-brunneis, intùs albis, secundariis cinereis: caudâ cinereâ, ad apicem brunneo fasciatâ; facie anticâ albâ minutè cinereo punctulatâ: supercilio albo ab oculo postico suprà regionem paroticam ducto: plumis subocularibus et regiome paroticâ cinereis: facie laterali et corpore reliquo subtùs albo, pectore laterali summo et hypochondriis imis pulchrè cinereis: sub-alaribus albis: rostro clarè cinereo, ad basin nigricante: pedibus pallidè cinereis, anticè viridi lavatis, palmis albicanti-canis: iride nigricanti-brunneâ.
Adult. Crown of the head, back of neck, and upper parts generally delicate blue-grey; a small spot in front of the eyes and a streak below them greyish black; space surrounding the bill, the lores, a broad line above and continued beyond the eyes, the throat, fore neck, and all the under surface pure white, tinged on the sides of the body and flanks with blue-grey; the primaries and their coverts are black on their outer webs; a black band with fading edges covers the smaller wing-coverts, and passes across the lower region of the back and the scapulars, leaving the tips of the latter white; and when the wings are expanded this assumes the form of a crescent; the middle tail-feathers are blackish towards the tips, and their under-coverts are tinged with blue. Irides brownish black; bill bluish grey, darker on the sides, and inclining to black at the base; legs and feet light blue, tinged with green in front, the webs whitish grey. Total length 11 inches; extent of wings 22; wing, from flexure, 7; tail 3; bill, along the ridge 1, greatest width at base ·4, length of lower mandible 1·2; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·6.
Young. Assumes the adult plumage on emerging from the downy state.
Chick. Covered with thick, soft down, and having much the appearance of a little ball of wool. General colour grey; whitish on the fore neck, breast, and abdomen. Bill whitish horn-colour at the tip.
Nestling. The downy covering darkens to a slaty grey as the young bird advances, and the feathers begin first to show themselves on the wings.
This charming little Petrel is extremely abundant off our coasts, and I have often observed flocks of them on the wing together numbering many hundreds. In boisterous weather it appears to suffer more than any other oceanic species from the fury of the tempest, and the sea-beach is sometimes found literally strewn with the bodies of the dead and dying. I have frequently watched them battling, as it were, with the storm, till at length, unable longer to keep to windward, they have been mercilessly borne down upon the sands, and being unable, from sheer exhaustion, to rise on the wing again, have been beaten to death by the rolling surf or pounced upon and devoured by a hovering
This Petrel, like many of the others, feeds on squids and other small jelly-fish, which contribute likewise to the support of our great cetaceans. The presence of large flocks at sea is regarded by whalers as a favourable sign on this account, and among sailors the Dove Petrel is generally known as the “Whale bird.”
In rising from a plane surface I observed that they always accomplished it by running a few feet with the wings outstretched, so as to give the body an impetus forward; and they seemed never to tire of climbing over the armchairs or other inclined surfaces in the room, using both wings and feet in this operation. At sea they are very active on the wing, and are rarely seen to rest on the water; they hover over the rolling billows, and dance, fairy-like, in the trough of the sea, sometimes poising their bodies like butterflies over a flower, at others cutting the air with the swiftness of a meteor, and always apparently intent on the one object of seeking the small marine animals on which they feed.
In the winter of 1878 I had occasion to visit the Wellington west coast, after a north-west gale had been blowing for several days, and I found that large numbers of Prion had been killed by the fury of the tempest and their bodies washed ashore on the beach. In travelling by coach from Waikanae to Otaki, a distance of only ten miles, I counted no less than twenty-seven lying on the strand, and there were probably many more. As I performed the rest of the journey to Manawatu in a buggy, I was able to stop and pick up specimens. In this way I was fortunate enough to obtain, during one day, twenty fresh birds. Of these, twelve were referable without hesitation to Prion turtur and eight to P. banksii. The difference in the size and form of the bill was constant, and among individuals of each species there was only a slight variation.
Reischek found this Petrel breeding in holes underground, on both the Little Barrier and the Chickens; but it was very scarce, and met with only on the highest wooded ridges in the centre of the island. He found a fresh egg on the 1st November, and met with young birds (one in each nest) in the beginning of December, and reports that during the breeding-season this Petrel hovers about after dusk, making a noise like the cackling of a Bantam-hen after laying her egg, but not quite so loud.
Of the egg of this species I have received specimens from the Island of Kapiti, in Cook’s Strait, where also Mr.
Prion banksii, Gould, Ann. N. H. xiii. p. 366 (1844).
Prion rossii, Gray, Cat. Brit. Mus. Anseres, p. 165 (1844).
Pachyptila banksi, Smith, Ill. Zool. S. Afr., Birds, pl. lv. (1849).
Procellaria banksii, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Procell. p. 17 (1863).
Pseudoprion banksii, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 166.
Ad. similis P. turturi, sed rostro latiore, pileo saturatiore et caudâ nigro latiùs terminatâ distinguendus.
Adult. Plumage similar to that of P. turtur, but with the crown of the head darker, and a broader terminal band of black on the tail: distinguished by its broader bill. Total length 11·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 9; tail 3·5; bill, along the ridge 1·35, greatest width at the base ·6, from gape to extremity of lower mandible 1·35; tarsus 1·4; middle toe and claw 1·5.
Nestling. Covered with slaty-grey down.
At a Meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society, held on the 29th January, 1876, five examples of the adult and young of I Was formerly much in doubt about the propriety of retaining the above specific distinction; but a further investigation of the subject has satisfied me that the species is a good one. After a storm on the coast in the month of July I found the Otaki beach strewn with the bodies of the Dove Petrel; and had thus an opportunity of collecting a large number for comparison. Apart from the slight differences of colour, P. banksii has the tail longer and more conical, the wing decidedly longer, and the bill appreciably broader at the base than in P. turtur; besides which the unguis or hooked extremity has a very different form Prion banksii, together with a specimen of the egg, were exhibited; and the Author pointed out the characters which, to his mind, sufficiently distinguished this species from Prion turtur on the one hand, and Prion vittatus on the other. The specimens exhibited were obtained on the small islands off the New-Zealand coast, known as “The Brothers.” (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. viii. p. 197.)
Mr. Gould, in treating of the group, says that Cat. Birds of New Zealand, 1871, p. 80.Prion ariel is much smaller than P. turtur, and that the pectination of the bill is not discernible when that organ is closed, that P. turtur is the most delicate in colour as well as the most slender and elegant in form of the four species inhabiting the southern ocean, that P. banksii has the bill of a breadth intermediate between that of P. turtur and that of P. vittatus and exhibiting the pectination of the mandibles when closed, and that “there is another and broader-billed species than P. vittatus” not yet described. Captain Hutton, writing on the same subject, observes:—“A regular sequence of the Prions can be formed from P. vittatus to P. ariel; and therefore I do not think it desirable to retain more than three specific names, to mark each end and the centre of the chain; and ariel, as the latest, will have to be omitted. On the New-Zealand coast the intermediate (P. banksii) is much the most common”P. turtur is certainly far more plentiful on every part of the coast that I have visited; and, as already mentioned in treating of the species, numbers are cast ashore after every gale of wind. According to my experience the broad-billed form is far less common than either P. turtur or P. banksii.
Broad-billed Petrel, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 414 (1785).
Procellaria vittata, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 560 (1788, ex Lath.).
Procellaria forsteri, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 827 (1790).
Prion vittatus, Lacép. Mém. de l’Inst. 1800, p. 514.
Pachyptila vittata, Illiger, Prodr. p. 275 (1811).
Procellaria latirostris, Bonn. et Vieill. Enc. Méth. i. p. 81 (1823).
Pachyptila forsteri, Swains. Classif. of B. ii. p. 374 (1837).
Prion australis, Potts, Ibis, 1873, p. 85.
Ad. similis P. banksii, sed saturatior: pileo et facie laterali nigricanti-cinereis: tectricibus alarum brunneo lavatis: staturâ majore et rostro conspicuè latiore facilè distinguendus.
Adult. Similar to P. banksii, but darker, the crown of the head, the sides of the face, and the ear-coverts being blackish grey, and the wing-coverts shaded with brown: distinguished by its larger size and much broader bill. Irides brownish black; bill blue-black on the upper mandible, greyish blue on the lower, and on the bare membrane between the crura; legs and feet pale blue. Total length 12·5 inches; extent of wings 26; wing, from flexure, 8·25; tail 3·5; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 1·5, greatest width at the base ·8, from gape to extremity of lower mandible 1·7; tarsus 1·2; middle toe and claw 1·6.
Although closely resembling the preceding species in the colours of the plumage, this Prion may be readily distinguished by the peculiar form of its bill, which is much dilated at the base, and very conspicuously pectinated along the edges.
As already stated in treating of Prion turtur, after boisterous weather in July I found the sea-beach between Waikanae and Manawatu strewn with the dead bodies of Prion turtur and P. banksii, the former species predominating. Having occasion to make the journey again after stormy weather in the early part of the following month, I found the strand strewn with even a larger number of bodies, but, strange to say, nearly all belonging to the very broad-billed species, Prion vittatus. Out of twenty-four specimens picked up in succession, there were only three of Prion turtur and none of P. banksii. Scores of others which I was able to determine from the box-seat of the coach belonged to P. vittatus, with here and there a P. turtur, but not a single example could I find of the intermediate form so plentiful a month before. It may be inferred from this singular fact that the species do not intermingle, but fly in separate communities. I have observed flocks of Prion turtur on the wing together numbering many hundreds. Prion vittatus and P. banksii in like manner, no doubt, keep to themselves, for it is evident that the flocks in the vicinity of our coast, when caught in the fatal storm on the occasion I have referred to, were composed almost exclusively of Prion vittatus.
I opened a large number of these birds for the purpose of ascertaining on what they had been feeding. As might have been expected with storm-tossed fugitives, the stomachs of many were quite empty. In others there was a black mass of comminuted matter, and in two or three of them I detected among this matter what appeared to be the beaks of a very minute cephalopod.
Two eggs of this species, collected by Macgillivray on the island of St. Paul, in the Indian Ocean, are pure white, and measure 2 inches in length by 1·5 in breadth.
Prion ariel, Gould, Ann. N. H. xiii. p. 366 (1844).
Procellaria ariel, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Procell. p. 18 (1863).
Pseudoprion ariel, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 166.
Ad. similis P. turturi, sed minor.
Adult. Similar in plumage to Prion turtur, but smaller in all its proportions. Total length 10 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·5; tail 2·25; bill, along the ridge ·75, along the edge of lower mandible I; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 1·5.
Mr. Sharpe says (“Zool. of Kerg. Island,” Phil. Trans. R. S. p. 101) that he considers This is the smallest of the Prions. On the 13th February, 1881, I picked up two storm-killed specimens on the beach near Otaki; and on the same day I caught with my hand another that was fluttering on the wing evidently much exhausted by its efforts to preserve life. This was a female, and from being storm-driven the stomach was empty. It is undistinguishable from P. turtur except by its smaller size, and I am in doubt about the propriety of keeping it separate Prion ariel “nothing but the young of P. turtur;” but the bird described above was a fully matured one.
On one occasion, when nearly thirty miles from land, about sundown, just as the sky had become overcast, I observed large flights of the Dove Petrel—sometimes in close communities, sometimes more widely scattered—all coming in the same direction and taking a south-west course. This constant stream of passengers was kept up till dark, and probably much later; but during the time they were visible some tens of thousands must have passed by us, all of them, under some common impulse, making for mid-ocean. Long after dark, I noticed a flock of them hunting in company and very near the surface of the water on our weather port.
A friend who visited Mutton Island, towards the end of December, assures me that he found numbers of young Dove Petrels nesting in holes burrowed in the layers of guano, and looking like little balls of bluish-grey down, but he saw no old birds during his stay there of several hours; and it is rather a curious circumstance that the nests were all on the southern side of the island, probably on account of its more sheltered position.
Mr. Sharpe, adopting Latham’s view, has suggested (Zool. Kerg. Island, p. 139) that the difference in the bill which characterizes the various species of Prion may be only a sexual character. But I think I have placed that point beyond all question. The twenty specimens mentioned on page 210 were carefully dissected by me, with the following results:—Of Prion banksii there were four males and four females; of P. turtur there were seven males and five females. In some cases, owing to the state of the reproductive organs at that season of the year (first week in July), I was unable to determine the sex with absolute certainty. In others, however, the testes were sufficiently conspicuous; whilst in two females of P. turtur and in one of P. banksii I was able to detect a bunch of undeveloped eggs. The examination in this respect was therefore conclusive.
Blue Petrel, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 415 (1785).
Procellaria cærulea, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 560 (1788, ex Lath.).
Pachyptila cærulea, Illiger, Prodr. p. 275 (1811).
Procellaria similis, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 59 (1844).
Procellaria forsteri, Smith, Ill. Zool. S. Afr. pl. 411 (1849).
Halobæna cærulea, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 768 (1856).
Fulmarus cæruleus, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 107 (1871).
Procellaria cærulea, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 306 (1873).
Ad. suprà clarè cinereus, pileo summo brunnescente lavato: tectricibus alarum minimis et alâ spuriâ brunnescentibus: remigibus extùs brunnescenti-cinereis, intùs albis, secundariis clariùs: cinereis: caudâ obscurè cinereâ albo terminatâ, rectrice extimâ albicante: fronte, loris, supercilio indistincto, facie laterali et corpore subtùs toto albis, pectoris superioris lateribus et hypochondriis imis cinereis: rostro rufescenti-brunneo, culmine et apice saturatioribus: pedibus flavicanti-albidis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Upper surface pale ashy grey, darker on the scapulars and washed on the crown of the head with brown; the whole of the small wing-coverts as well as the primary coverts greyish brown; forehead, sides of the face, an indistinct line over the eyes, the throat, fore neck, and all the under surface pure white, stained on the sides of the breast and on the lower part of flanks with ashy grey; outer primaries greyish brown, with black shafts, whitish on their inner webs; inner primaries and secondaries dark grey on their outer webs; middle tail-feathers greyish brown, largely tipped with white, the lateral ones uniform dark grey, and the outermost one on each side entirely white. Irides black; bill reddish brown, darker on the ridge and at the tips; legs and feet yellowish white, with brown claws. Length 11·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 8·5; tail 3·5; bill, following curvature of upper mandible 1·3, from gape to extremity of lower mandible 1·4; tarsus 1·2; middle toe and claw 1·6.
Mr. Gould states that he found this species “very abundant off the north-east coast of New Zealand” in May 1840, and that he observed it in every part of the ocean he traversed between the 40th and 55th degrees of south latitude, both in the Atlantic and Pacific. Nevertheless it is a very rare bird in local collections. The Auckland Museum has, for some years past, possessed a specimen, and in 1877 I received one, in very perfect plumage, from Mr.
Mr. Layard records that “it is not uncommon along the coast of South Africa, and is occasionally cast ashore after a gale of wind.”
It is readily distinguished by the scapulars being edged and the tail-feathers broadly tipped with white.
Of the egg of this species Mr.
Procellaria capensis, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 213 (1766).
Daption capensis, Steph. Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 241 (1826).
Procellaria punctata, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7473.
Ad. pileo et collo postico usque ad interscapulium fuliginosis: dorsi totiùs plumis albis ad apicem conspicuè fuliginoso maculatis: tectricibus alarum minimis fuliginosis, medianis et majoribus interioribus ad basin conspicuè albis: remigibus fuliginoso-brunneis, intùs ad basin albis, secundariis albis, ad apicem fuliginoso maculatis: caudæ dimidio basali albo, apicali latè fuliginoso-brunneo: mento fuliginoso: corpore reliquo subtus albo, subcaudalibus exterioribus et subalaribus marginalibus fuliginosis: rostro nigro: pedibus saturatè brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. The whole of the head, throat, back, and sides of the neck sooty black; the back, mantle, rump, and upper tail-coverts white, handsomely spotted with sooty black, each feather marked with a terminal triangular spot of that colour; fore neck, breast, and all the underparts pure white; primaries blackish brown, paler on the inner webs, and more or less varied with white; secondaries and scapulars white towards the base, black in their apical portion; wing-coverts sooty black, the longer ones varied with white; under surface of wings white, stained with sooty grey towards the edges; the long under tail-coverts tipped with sooty grey. Irides and bill black; legs and feet dark brown. Length 15 inches; wing, from flexure, 10; tail 4; bill, following curvature of upper mandible 1·25, length of lower mandible 1·4; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2.
To those who have made a voyage in the southern hemisphere probably no bird is so familiar as the so-called “Cape-Pigeon.”
It is numerous off the New-Zealand coast at most seasons of the year, and is the commonest of the birds inhabiting our seas. Nor indeed does it seem to be limited to any particular tract of ocean, for it is met with in all the colder latitudes.
In stormy weather it often approaches the land, following in the wake of the tossing vessel, hovering gracefully over the water, and occasionally alighting on the surface to pick up any floating substance that may arrest its attention. On one occasion, in comparatively smooth weather, a number of these birds attended our little steamer to the very mouth of the Wanganui river; but this occurrence was quite exceptional.
I do not know any more pretty sight than to watch the Cape-Pigeons on the wing. They move about with such absolute command of wing, presenting to the observer alternately their snow-white breast and then their prettily marked upper surface, the whole set off by their sooty black head and neck, that they look like large painted moths hovering in the air. The eye never tires of following them and noting their ever-varying evolutions, all performed with the utmost ease and gracefulness. Unlike the Albatroses and other sea-birds which exhibit a considerable amount of individual variation, one is struck with the wonderful uniformity in the plumage of these birds. All have the same freckled and spotted back and rump, and the same broad splash of white on the upper surface of each wing. There is no transitional plumage from the young to the adult states, and no difference observable between the sexes.
When clustering together and disputing for the possession of some floating offal, they utter a low cackling note, like ka-ka-ka-ka.
The peculiar roundness of back which characterizes the various species of Albatros and other Procellariidæ, when on the wing, is conspicuously apparent in this bird.
Professor Hutton states that he has observed a Cape-Pigeon following a ship for several days in succession, when she has been making from 150 to 200 miles in the twenty-four hours. He adds:—“It is, I believe, the generally received opinion of naturalists that these birds, when seen for several days together, have never slept during the whole period, but have followed the ship night and day. To me, however, it appears incredible that any animal should be able to undergo so much exertion for so long a time without taking rest. Mr. Gould says that birds caught and marked are generally seen next day; but such is not my experience. I have sometimes marked ten or twelve Cape-Pigeons in a day, and seldom seen one again. Mr. Gould, however, is quite right when he says that sometimes a marked bird turns up after being absent for two or three days; and how can this be accounted for by the theory of the birds constantly following the ship? Most of the Petrels, more particularly those that burrow or live in holes in rocks, are no doubt nocturnal in their habits when they are on or near land; but when they are at sea they all become more diurnal. A few can certainly be often seen flying under the stern at night; and once, when I was keeping the middle watch, at about 1 A.M., a Cape-Pigeon, in crossing over the ship, struck a rope and fell on deck. Still they are never numerous, and where there were fifty or a hundred birds in the daytime there are only one or two at night. Their defenceless condition is, as far as I can see, the only reason for the Petrels hiding themselves by day and flying by night; for the oceanic mollusca &c. on which they feed are equally diurnal and nocturnal. At sea, however, where they have no enemies to fear and no holes to hide in, the conditions are quite different, and it is then better for them to take their rest at night and to be alert and feeding in the daytime, and they change their habits accordingly. I therefore believe that, although a few may follow a ship for a night, most of them sleep on the sea; and in the morning, knowing very well that a ship is the most likely place to obtain food, they fly high with the intention of looking for one. Some find the ship that they were with the day before; some another one. In the latter case, if the second ship is going in an opposite direction to the first, they are never seen by the first again; if, however, the course of the two ships is the same, the bird might very likely lose the second ship and rejoin the first, after a lapse of two or three days. A height of 1000 feet would enable a bird to see a ship 200 feet high more than fifty miles off; and often, although unable to see a ship itself, it would see another bird which had evidently discovered one, and would follow it in the same way that Vultures are known to follow one another. This opinion is much strengthened by the fact that at sunrise very few birds are round the ship, but soon afterwards they begin to arrive in large numbers; and I think I may safely say that this is always the case; for, having had to be on deck from four to eight o’clock every third morning for six of my voyages, and about once a week during my last voyage, I have had better opportunities for observing this than most people.” (Ibis, 1865, pp. 292–294.)
Mr. Layard writes:—“At one season of the year, about November and December, they disappear, and the voyager finds the sea duller and tamer than ever. We presume they go off to breed; but where they select their nurseries we know not.”
Sealers declare that the only locality known as a breeding-place of this species is the island of South Georgia; and, common as the bird is in all the temperate latitudes of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, its egg is still a desideratum in all the known collections.
Procellaria cookii, Gray in Dieff. Trav. ii. p. 199 (1843).
Procellaria leucoptera, Gould, P. Z. S. 1844, p. 57.
Procellaria brevipes, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp., Birds, p. 294 (1848).
Rhantistes cooki, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 768 (1856).
Rhantistes velox, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 768 (1856).
Cookilaria leucoptera, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 190 (1857).
Cookilaria velox, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 190 (1857)
Æstrelata cookii, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 152.
Fulmarus cookii, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 106 (1871).
Fulmarus leucopterus, Gray, Hand-l, of B. iii. p. 106 (1871).
Procellaria cookii, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 307 (1873).
Ad. suprâ saturatè cinereus, plumis quibusdem pallidiùs terminatis: alâ totâ nigricanti-brunneâ, primariis et secundariis intùs albis, his ferè omninò albis: rectricibus centralibus cinerascentibus, reliquis albo variis, duabus externis intùs purè albis: fronte albâ, cinerascenti-nigro variâ: regione suboculari conspicuè cinerascentinigrâ: facie laterali et corpore subtùs albis, pectoris lateribus cinereo lavatis et minutè variis: subalaribus albis, exterioribus plus minusve nigricantibus: rostro nigro: pedibus flavicanti-brunneis, palmis pallidioribus: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Crown of the head, hind part and sides of the neck, the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts dark ashy grey, changing to slaty grey in certain lights, the tips of the feathers paler, or very narrowly margined with greyish white, giving a peculiarly soft effect to the plumage; entire upper surface of the wings blackish brown, the primaries largely, and the secondaries entirely white on their inner webs; the forehead white, each feather largely centred with greyish black, presenting a spotted appearance on the surface; under the eyes a broad mark of greyish black; sides of the face, throat, fore neck, and all the underparts pure white, stained and freckled on the sides of the breast with ashy grey; under surface of wings white, largely marked with greyish black along the outer edges; middle tail-feathers dark ashy grey, the lateral ones mottled or freckled, and the two outermost ones on each side entirely white on their inner webs. Irides and bill black; legs and feet pale purplish blue, with the webs a little darker and yellowish. Total length 12·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 9·25; tail 4; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 1·4, length of lower mandible 1·5; tarsus 1·2; middle toe and claw 1·5.
I have taken the above description from the type specimen in the British Museum, which was obtained off the New-Zealand coast. Up to the time of my first edition I had never met with it, although informed of a specimen in the collection of the , at Auckland. Numerous examples have since been received from the Hauraki Gulf and other localities, but it has not yet been recorded in the South Island. This Petrel seems to be generally distributed around our coasts, at any rate to the north of Cook’s Strait. It is diurnal in its habits, and on a fine sunny afternoon in April, while lying off the port of Napier, a score or more of them passed our weather-bow, displaying the contrasts of
It deposits its single egg at the end of a burrow from three to eight feet long, very tortuous and entirely dug out by the birds themselves. At the extremity of this burrow there are invariably two chambers, one beyond the other, and in the further one usually the bird deposits her egg. Up to this time the male and female share the same compartment, but the male now withdraws himself, and for the rest of the breeding-season occupies another hole at some little distance from the nest. The burrows are generally on sloping ground, and, owing to their depth and extent, involved often two hours’ digging to get out the occupants. And here I may record a very wonderful fact in natural history, an excellent illustration of which by a local taxidermist attracted much attention at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886. On some of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf, and on several groups of rocky islets off the New-Zealand coast, there exists a very remarkable lizard, which has long since disappeared from the mainland. This is the tuatara of the Maoris and Sphenodon of naturalists. But this is the point of interest to us at present: wherever the tuatara and burrowing Petrel co-exist, there appears to be a perfect understanding between them; they share the same underground habitation and respect each other’s rights to the utmost. On the Chickens Mr. Reischek found the tuatara very abundant, and (I grieve to add) collected for the market some thirty or forty specimens, many of them of very large size. He assures me that in every instance he found the Petrel (sometimes Æstrelata cookii, sometimes Puffinus assimilis) and a lizard occupying one and the same burrow. Often the terminal chamber had, as it were, two compartments, facing each other, one of which was occupied by the bird, the other by the lizard; but generally the two were living “cheek by jowl.” Whether the bird was sitting on its single egg or had hatched out its callow young, it was never without its attendant lizard, keeping watch over the Petrel’s nest as the Hesperides were wont of old to guard the golden apples which Gaia gave to the lady Hêrê. Captain Mair tells me that he has observed exactly the same state of things on the island of Karewa, in the Bay of Plenty, where both tuataras and Petrels are abundant; and his brother, Major Mair, sends me a similar report from the Rurima Rocks lying adjacent thereto. But here comes the curious part of the story. Mr. Reischek affirms positively that the lizard assumes the guardianship of the cave, and actively defends the nest against any invasion from without. Under ordinary circumstances the tuatara, in the wild state, does its best to escape, but here, as Mr. Reischek declares, whenever he attempted to meddle with the bird on the nest the lizard would immediately come to the rescue, attacking his hands and fingers with exceeding ferocity and biting fiercely. So real and constant was this mode of defence that he had at length to make it a rule to capture and remove this “dragonette” before attempting to handle the egg or young bird on the nest.
The breeding-season begins about the first week in October, or perhaps a little later, freshly-laid eggs having been found on November 2nd. The egg, which is perfectly white, is broadly ovoido-elliptical, and measures 1·9 inch in length by 1·5 in breadth; the surface is smooth but not glossy. A rather larger example than usual, from the Little Barrier, measures 2·1 inches in length by 1·5 in breadth.
Procellaria lessonii, Garnot, Ann. Sci. Nat. vii. p. 54, pl. 4 (1826)
Procellaria leucocephala, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 206 (1844)
Rhantistes lessoni, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 768 (1856).
Astrelata leucocephala, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 189 (1857).
Æstrelata lessonii, Cass. Proc. Phil. Acad. 1862, p. 327.
Fulmarus lessoni, Gray, Hand-1. of B. iii. p. 106 (1871).
Procellaria lessoni, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 303 (1873).
Ad. pileo summo et facie laterali albidis: regione ante- et suboculari nigricante: collo postico et laterali albicante obsoletè cinereo transfasciato: interscapulio et dorso superiore obscure cinereis, ad apicem obsoletè fulvescente fasciatis: dorso postico et uropygio saturatè fuliginosis, supracaudalibus albis, versus apicem cinerascentibus: tectricibus alarum fuliginoso-brunneis, majoribus extùs cinereis: remigibus fuliginoso-brunneis, intùs cinerascentibus: caudâ albâ, pennis centralibus suprà cinereis, reliquis plus minusve obsoletè brunneo vermiculatis: corpore subtùs albo: subalaribus fuliginoso-brunneis: rostro nigro: pedibus obscurè flavis, digito externo et palmis partim nigris: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Crown of the head and nape greyish white, obscurely and minutely freckled with darker grey; back, mantle, and rump cinereous grey; upper surface of wings brownish black, the larger coverts narrowly edged with greyish white; sides of the head white, with a broad mark of brownish black crossing the eyes; throat, fore neck, and all the underparts pure white; primaries and secondaries brownish black, lighter on their inner webs; tail-feathers pale cinereous grey on their upper surface, and freckled at the tips; inner lining of wings sooty black, varied with grey. Irides and bill black; tarsi and a portion of the feet dull yellow; the outer toe of each foot and a diagonal patch across the webs black. Total length 18 inches; wing, from flexure, 12; tail 5·5; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 1·9, length of lower mandible 1·7; tarsus 1·6; middle toe and claw 2·5.
I have never seen this fine Petrel but once in New Zealand, and it is evidently very rare. The one I refer to was picked up in a dying condition, in the ocean surf, near Kaipara heads. Mr. Reischek informs me that he saw it once at the Hen and Chickens, but could not secure it. The example figured in my former edition was obtained at the Bay of Islands, and is now in the British Musem. So far, therefore, as our present information goes, this bird confines its range to the ocean lying northward of New Zealand.
Mr. Gould has given the following account of it in his ‘Birds of Australia’:—“While engaged in watching the movements of the several species of the great family of Procellariidæ, which at one time often and often surrounded the ships that conveyed me round the world, a bright speck would appear on the distant horizon, and, gradually approaching nearer and nearer, at length assume the form of the White-headed Petrel, whose wing-powers far exceed those of any of its congeners: at one moment it would be rising high in the air, at the next sweeping comet-like through the flocks flying around; never, however, approaching sufficiently near for a successful shot; and it was equally wary in avoiding the boat with which I was frequently favoured for the purpose of procuring examples of other species.” He states, moreover, that during flight the dark colouring on the wings shows very conspicuously, assuming the form of the letter W.
Procellaria incerta, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Procell. p. 9 (1863).
Æstrelata incerta, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 147.
Ad. suprà saturatè fuliginoso-brunneus, alis obscurioribus: pileo colloque dorso concoloribus: subtùs albus: subcaudalibus apicaliter nigricanti-brunneis: rostro nigro: pedibus aurantiacis, digitis et membranis apicaliter nigricantibus: unguibus nigris.
Adult. Head, neck all round, and all the upper surface dark sooty brown, deepening to brownish black on the wings and tail; the feathers of the back and the small wing-coverts narrowly margined with pale brown; in front of the eyes an obscure mark of black; breast and abdomen pure white; sides of the body stained with slaty grey; inner lining of wings uniform blackish brown; under tail-coverts, especially the longer ones, blackish brown in their apical portion. Bill black; legs and feet orange-yellow, the outer toe and the interdigital webs, beyond the second joint, brownish black. Total length 19 inches; wing, from flexure, 12·75; tail 5·5; bill, along the ridge 1·9, along the edge of lower mandible 2; tarsus 1·75; middle toe and claw 2·5.
This is a species that may with certainty be regarded as inhabiting the New-Zealand seas, although it may not be more plentiful than its near ally, Æ. lessoni.
Dr. Schlegel describes its range thus—“Southern Oceans: New Zealand, Australia, and New Caledonia”; and there is a specimen in the Leyden Museum labelled as having come from New Zealand.
Dr. Coues thinks it likely that this bird will prove to be the young of Æstrelata lessoni; but Mr. Salvin accepts it as a valid species, and the specimen in the British Museum from which I have taken my description appears to be a perfectly adult bird.
This species has not often been recorded, but this is hardly surprising when one considers the nature of its habitat. After a voyage by sailing-vessel from New Zealand to London, Sir Diomedea melanophrys and another small species with a white head and mottled body. These were very common near the Bounty Islands, but were not seen afterwards. The Mollymawks we had till we reached the South Tropic. It was not till we rounded the Horn that we saw any D. exulans or D. fuliginosa. The latter species I am positive we never saw in the Pacific, as it is so easily recognized by the blue streak on the mandibles. It is very abundant between the Falkland Islands and latitude 30° S. Thalassidroma nereis followed us almost to the Horn; but after entering the Atlantic T. melanogastra took its place, at first in large flocks, but since latitude 50° S. only a few stragglers have been seen. In the Pacific I saw one Lestris, and large flocks of ‘Whale-birds,’ as the sailors call them, which were the Blue Billy (Prion turtur); but in the South Atlantic we met flocks of another but larger-sized grey bird, which they also called ‘Whale-birds.’ These were evidently Procellaria glacialoides. We never saw a Cape-Pigeon during the voyage. Where can they be at this season—February to March? Only two Tropic-birds, one Frigate-bird, and a few Noddies were seen near St. Paul’s Rocks, and these complete the list of birds.”
Procellaria fuliginosa, Kuhl, Monogr. Procell. p. 142, pl. x. fig. 6 (1820).
Procellaria atlantica, Gould, Ann. N. H. xiii. p. 362 (1844).
Procellaria macroptera, Smith, Zool. of South Africa, Aves, pl. lii. (1849)
Pterodroma fuliginosa, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 768 (1856).
Pterodroma atlantica, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 191 (1857).
Æstrelata fuliginosa, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 157.
Fulmarus atlanticus, Gray, Hand-1. of B. iii. p. 107 (1871).
Procellaria fuliginosa, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 304 (1873).
Ad. omninò-fuliginoso-niger, gutture pallidiore: subtùs brunneo lavatus: rostro et pedibus nigris: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Entire plumage sooty or brownish black, paler on the throat, and tinged with brown on the underparts. Irides, bill, and feet black. Total length 17·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 12·5; tail 5; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 1·75, length of lower mandible 1·75; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2·4.
This species, which ranges over both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, inhabits the seas all round New Zealand, but seldom approaches the land. If I was right in my identification of those observed on the wing during a passage from Auckland to Sydney in July 1871, this Petrel is a remarkably powerful flier, coursing about with the activity of a Martin, and generally near the surface; but it is almost impossible to distinguish the various allied species with any certainty by merely observing them from the deck of a ship.
Of this species Mr. Salvin says (Ibis, 1888, p. 360):—“Sir P. gouldi, Hutton. They agree with one in the British Museum from the coast of Tasmania, referred by Gould to P. macroptera, Smith. These I have compared with a large series from the South Atlantic Ocean, the Cape Seas, and elsewhere; and though they are rather larger and (especially the New-Zealand specimen) have stronger bills, I do not think the differences sufficiently constant or important to justify the recognition of more than one form of this widely-ranging species. Some stress has been laid upon the greyness of the face of P. gouldi; but this character, too, fails, and a specimen before me with a short wing has the chin white.”
Procellaria mollis, Gould, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. xiii. p. 363 (1844).
Cookilaria mollis, Bonap. Consp. Av. 1855, ii. p. 190.
Rhantistes mollis, Bonap. Compt. Rend. xlii. 1856, p. 768.
Æstrelata mollis, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 630.
Œstrelata mollis, Salvin, Proc. Z. S. 1878, p. 738.
Ad. suprà griseus, pileo paullò saturatiore: alis brunnescenti-nigris: caudâ griseâ: plumis frontalibus albido marginatis: regione oculari nigrâ, fasciam longitudinalem supra-auricularem formante: genis et faciei lateribus albis, griseo fasciatis, gulâ et corpore reliquo subtùs albis: gutture imo et præpectore cinereis vel griseo fimbriatis: subalaribus schistaceo-fuliginosis: rostro nigro: pedibus flavis, digitis dimidio apicali nigricantibus.
Adult. Crown of the head and general upper surface dark slaty grey, the feathers of the shoulders and back margined with paler grey; forehead and fore part of face speckled with white; in front of and below the eyes a conspicuous mark of black; throat and fore neck white; the grey of the upper surface spreads down the sides of the neck and breast, meeting in front, and forming a band with freckled edges; underparts of the body pure white, the flanks sometimes stained and freckled with grey; entire upper surface of wings brownish black, the primaries dusky on their inner webs; tail-feathers slaty grey, the three outer ones on each side more or less freckled with white, particularly on their inner webs; inner lining of wings dark slaty grey, more or less varied with white; some of the axillaries uniform slaty grey, others are freckled and clouded with paler grey. Irides and bill black; tarsi and basal portion of two inner toes yellow, the rest of the feet black. Total length 14 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·25; tail 4·5; bill, along the ridge 1·35, along the edge of lower mandible 1·5; tarsus 1·25; middle toe and claw 2.
Young. Gould states that the young differs in having all the under surface dark grey and the throat freckled with grey.
Obs. In some of the British-Museum specimens there is evidence of dimorphic coloration, the entire underparts being pale slaty brown.
Dr. Finsch states that the ‘Novara’ Expedition collected specimens of this bird in lat. 35° S., long. 175° 5′ E. It is therefore clearly entitled to a place in our avifauna.
Of this bird Mr. Gould writes:—“It is a species that will ever live in my memory, from its being the first large Petrel I saw after crossing the line, and from a somewhat curious incident that then occurred. The weather being too boisterous to admit of a boat being lowered, I endeavoured to capture the bird with a hook and line; and the ordinary sea-hooks being too large for the purpose, I was in the act of selecting one from my stock of salmon-flies, when a sudden gust of wind blew my hooks and a piece of parchment ten inches long by six inches wide, between which they were placed, overboard into the sea, and I was obliged to give up the attempt for that day; on the next I succeeded in capturing the bird with a hook I had still left, and the reader may judge of my surprise when on opening the stomach I there found the piece of parchment, softened by the action of the salt water and the animal juices to which it had been subjected, but so completely uninjured that it was dried and again restored to its original use when a further supply of flies could be procured.”
Procellaria affinis, Buller, Trans. N.-Z. Inst vol. vii. pp. 215–16 (1875)
Œstrelata gularis?, Salvin, Ibis, 1888, p. 358.
id. suprâ saturatè cinereus: dorsi plumis et supracaudalibus nigro terminatis: tectricibus alarum minimis et alâ spuriâ nigricanti-brunneis: primariis extùs nigricanti-brunneis, intùs albis: secundariis pallidè cinereis, albo angustè marginatis, basaliter albis: rectricibus saturatè cinereis, duabus externis intùs albidis: fronte albâ cinerascenti-nigro variegatâ: regione suboculari conspicuè cinerascenti-nigrâ: facie laterali guttureque albis: pectore imo et abdomine cinereis, plumis basaliter albis: corpore reliquo subtùs albo, pectoris lateribus cinereo lavatis, hypochondriis et subcaudalibus inferioribus cinereo variis et minutè transfasciatis: subalaribus albis, exterioribus conspicuè nigricantibus: rostro nigro: pedibus sordidè flavis, digito externo et membranis interdigitalibus nigris.
Adult. Crown, hind neck, and all the upper surface dark ashy grey, the feathers of the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts margined with greyish black; all the small wing-coverts and the primary quills brownish black, the latter largely marked with white on their inner webs; the secondaries and their coverts ash-grey, narrowly margined with white, and wholly white towards the base of each feather; tail-feathers dark ashgrey, the two outermost ones on each side marked with light grey on their inner webs; forehead slightly mottled with white; lores, chin, and throat perfectly white; a conspicuous spot of greyish black under each eye; upper part of breast washed and freckled with grey; middle part of breast and the abdomen dark cinereous, the underpart of the feathers white; sides of the body and smaller tail-coverts freckled and minutely barred with grey; long under tail-coverts white. The inner surface of the wings is pure white, but there is a broad bar of slaty black extending from the elbow to the carpal flexure, where it spreads and is continued along the outer edge. Total length 13 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·5; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 1·25, along the edge of lower mandible 1·5; tarsus 1·2; middle toe and claw 1·75.
I described this species from a specimen in the Canterbury Museum, to which I found attached a ticket with the following memorandum, “Shot; Potts River, 1872.” I afterwards received a freshly skinned one from Mr.
Dr. Finsch has expressed his belief that this Petrel is the same as Procellaria mollis (Gould); but the two birds are absolutely and entirely distinct. It may possibly prove to be identical with Procellaria gularis (Peale), as suggested by Mr. Salvin; but there is no specimen of the latter in Europe with which to compare it. The unique example upon which Peale founded his description (U. S. Expl. Exp., Birds, p. 299) is in the Smithsonian Institution, and I hope to investigate the subject further during my proposed visit to America next year. In the meantime I have thought it better to figure and describe my bird under the new name which I bestowed upon it in New Zealand.
Procellaria neglecta, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Procell. p. 10 (1863).
ÆSTRELATA neglecta, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 170.
Ad. suprà sordidè nigricanti-brunneus: remigibus obscurioribus: præpectore pallidè brunneo: corpore subtùs albo: rostro nigro: pedibus sordidè flavis, digitis et membranis exterioribus nigricantibus.
Adult. Crown of the head and hind neck sooty brown, mixed on the latter with white; the rest of the upper surface brownish black; the interscapulars and small wing-coverts narrowly margined with pale brown; around the eyes there is an obscure mark of brown which fades away on the face; the whole of the under-surface pure white; some of the axillary plumes slaty grey with white tips, others white clouded with grey, as also are the feathers forming the lining of the wings; quills brownish black with white shafts and white on the inner webs, shading into brownish black at the tips; tail-feathers and upper tail-coverts brownish black, white at the base, which, however, is only visible on disturbing the plumage. Irides and bill black; tarsi and basal portion of toes pale yellow, the rest of the feet black. Total length 15·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 12; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible 1·7; tarsus 1·7; middle toe and claw 2·25.
Obs. In some specimens there is an obscure patch of brown on each side of the breast; in others it spreads into a broad yellowish-brown pectoral band, narrower in the centre.
The claim of this species to a place in our avifauna rests at present only on a label in a continental museum; but it is a Petrel that is almost certain to be met with in our seas, and I have therefore felt no hesitation in including it on what might otherwise have been very insufficient authority.
There is likewise a dark-coloured form, in which the whole of the plumage is sooty brown, deepening to brownish black on the upper parts. This colour, however, is confined to the surface, the whole of the plumage being pure white underneath. In this dark form, which Mr. Salvin refers without hesitation to Æ. neglecta, the legs and feet are entirely black. This cannot be due to immaturity, inasmuch as nestlings pass from the down into both phases of plumage, and we must therefore regard it as another illustration of that law of dimorphism among sea-birds for which, at present, we are utterly unable to account.
Dr. Coues thinks that this form may be referred to parvirostris; but Mr. Salvin regards it as a true species. My description is taken from the single example in the British Museum.
Giant Petrel, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 396, pl. c (1785).
Procellaria gigantea, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 563 (1788).
Procellaria ossifraga, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 343 (1844).
Ossifraga gigantea, Hombr. & Jacq. Voy. Pôle Sud, Zool. iii. p. 148 (1853).
Ad. schistaceo-brunnescens, facie laterali et corpore subtùs paullò pallidioribus: dorso et tectricibus alarum pallidiore cinereo angustè marginatis: rostro flavicanti-corneo: pedibus cinerascenti-nigris, unguibus albicanticorneis: iride nigricanti-brunneâ.
Adult male. Entire plumage uniform dark slate-grey, with glossy edges to the feathers, imparting to the surface a pretty, sheeny appearance. Irides blackish brown; bill whitish horn-colour; legs and feet greyish black, the claws whitish horn-colour. Total length 37·5 inches; extent of wings 6 feet 9 inches; wing, from carpal flexure, 21·5; tail 9; bill, along the ridge 5, along the edge of lower mandible 4; height of bill, to summit of tubular nostrils, 1·6; tarsus 3·75; middle toe and claw 6; hind claw ·5.
Adult female. Entire plumage dull slaty brown, paler or changing to creamy grey on the face, throat, and underparts of the body; on the upper parts some of the feathers are strongly tinged with chocolate-brown; and all the feathers of the back, as well as the wing-coverts, have paler greyish margins. Total length 32 inches; extent of wings 66; wing, from flexure, 18·5; tail 7·5; bill, to anterior edge of tube 1·75, thence, following the curvature, to the tip 2, along the edge of lower mandible 3·75; bare tibia 1·25; tarsus 2·75; middle toe and claw 5.
Obs. On the approach of the moulting-season the plumage has a faded or washed-out appearance.
Var. Albinoes, more or less perfect, are not of unfrequent occurrence. One which I obtained near Waikanae, on the West Coast, and presented to the Colonial Museum, was of snowy whiteness without blemish of any kind; even the legs and feet were whitish, the bill being yellowish horn-colour. A more beautiful object than this snow-white Petrel could scarcely be imagined. It proved on dissection to be a ♂, and I noticed that it was almost entirely free from the strong Petrel odour. There is another albino of almost equal purity in the same collection, which was captured by Sir
At Liardet’s establishment, in Wellington, there was exhibited for several years a white specimen with widely scattered slaty black feathers all over the body, particularly on the upper parts, and with the tail-feathers pale ash-grey. It was sent to the Colonial Exhibition in 1886, and is now in Mr. Silver’s collection of New-Zealand birds at Letcomb Regis. There is an almost exactly similar specimen in the Liverpool Museum.
In the Otago Museum there is another albino which shows traces of the normal colour on the mantle and scapulars, with a few scattered dark feathers on the underparts. This specimen came from Macquarie Island, whence also the Museum received a singular variety in glossy adult plumage, but differing from the normal form in having the head and neck creamy white, shading into pale bluish grey on the breast and deepening on the underparts; the upper surface is as in ordinary specimens, except that the edges of the wings are prettily variegated with creamy white and pale brown; bill dull horn-colour; legs and feet dark brown.
It is not an unusual thing to meet with individuals having the forehead, face, and throat more or less mottled with greyish white, or with a single white feather among the primaries.
In a specimen from Campbell Island the feathers of the back and mantle are more or less tipped with light brown, and have lighter shafts.
The Giant Petrel, or “Nelly,” as it is called by sailors, is by no means uncommon in our seas. Of late years, with the increase of shipping of all kinds, it has become far more plentiful around our coasts and often ventures into the deep sounds or estuaries. I have counted as many as fourteen at one time following the steamer within four or five miles of the Wellington heads. Their power of wing is something marvellous. For hours together they keep up their rapid sailing movement without ever resting or descending to the water for a moment. It is very interesting to watch them in this tireless flight, and to observe how completely they have their wings under control. They approach the steamer at a swift rate with a low flapping movement of the wings, and then make a wide circuit, keeping them perfectly rigid, but shifting the balance of the body in such a way as to make alternately one wing and then the other incline upwards or downwards, thus altering the plane without the slightest visible alular movement. The manner in which the bird steers itself through the air, first ascending far above the masthead, then sweeping downwards, with the point of the wing at its lower inclination just skimming but never actually touching the water, even in a turbulent and broken sea, is really wonderful, and would seem to indicate very perfect organs of vision as a means of measuring distance. Now and then it alters its mode of flight and sails or glides over the surface of the sea with its wings formed into a bow shape, and with an occasional flap to give it fresh impetus.
Like the Albatros, it descends into the water in a very ungainly, straddling way, and, if in a hurry, with an awkward splash; keeps its wings uplifted till the body is steady, then deliberately folds them up and settles down to dinner or floats lazily on the surface, with upstretched neck and eyes ever on the alert. When garbage or food of any kind is thrown overboard, they all descend together and congregate around it, uttering low guttural notes as if disputing for its possession; but they never seem to quarrel or fight over it, and when disposed of, they generally break up into pairs and float about in friendly company, till, actuated by some common impulse, they mount again in the air and come sweeping up astern. On the wing, the tail is usually spread and has a broad cuneiform appearance.
It is capable, too, of very rapid movements. On one occasion I was attentively watching six or seven of them, sailing about in circuits that ever crossed but never clashed, and had turned to my note-book for a few seconds to refer to something. On looking up again they had all disappeared as if by magic; and then I descried them in the water more than a mile astern, with their heads together, discussing some object that had been thrown overboard and had excited their notice. They are untiring, too, in their pursuit; for I have noticed that at sundown, when the Albatroses have drawn off from the steamer and disappeared one by one, the Giant Petrel (or “Stink-pot,” as the sailors sometimes call it) has remained, still crossing and recrossing the wake of the ship, in undiminished numbers and unaffected by the deepening gloom.
It is universally dispersed over the temperate and high southern latitudes; and Mr. Gould has expressed his belief that it frequently performs the circuit of the globe, a conclusion inferred from the circumstance that an albino variety followed the vessel in which he made his passage to Australia for a period of three weeks, the ship often making two hundred miles during the twenty-four hours. He adds:—“It must not be understood that the bird was merely following the vessel’s speed, nor deemed incredible when I state that during the twenty-four hours it must have performed a much greater distance, since it was only at intervals of perhaps half an hour that it was seen hunting up the wake of the vessel to secure any offal that had been thrown overboard, the interim being employed in scanning the ocean in immense circles.” He informs us further that on visiting Recherche Bay in
Some years ago a number of them actually followed the floating carcase of a whale into the harbour of Akaroa, and when discovered were engaged in tearing off the blubber Writing from Portland Island, Mr. Robson says:— “We have had numbers of the Giant Petrel here, for some weeks past, feeding on the remains of a dead whale. Amongst them, till very recently, there was a splendid albino—as white as snow —which I tried hard to shoot for your collection, but unfortunately without success.”
It is easily caught with a hook and line, the former baited with meat. The bird nibbles at the bait and is caught by the hook entering the upper mandible and is forthwith drawn in. Like the Albatros it is unable to rise from a level surface; and although more active on its feet, habitually falls forward, resting on its breast.
The following account of this Petrel (called Quebranta-huesos, or Break-bones, by the Spaniards) is given in Darwin’s ‘Voyage of a Naturalist’ (p. 287):—” In its habits and manner of flight there is a very close resemblance with the Albatros; and, as with the Albatros, a person may watch it for hours together without seeing on what it feeds. The ‘Break-bones’ is, however, a rapacious bird; for it was observed by some of the officers at Port St. Antonio chasing a Diver, which tried to escape by diving and flying, but was continually struck down, and at last killed by a blow on its head. At Port St. Julian these great Petrels were seen killing and devouring young Gulls.”
I may add that on one occasion, when steaming up Cook’s Strait, I observed at a distance one of these Giant Petrels pursue and capture a small bird (apparently Prion turtur), and then, holding it by the wing, batter it against the water till it was killed.
This bird is habitually silent, except when fighting or when voiding its natural excrement, on which occasions it utters a grunting note. It is more pugnacious than other members of its class, and rival males when in conflict make a clashing noise with their bills, and drag each other about in a most unmerciful manner.
Sometimes, when impelled by extreme hunger, they will swim up alongside of the little coastal steamers and take the food that is thrown to them. A pair captured under these circumstances, at the mouth of the Wanganui river, by the crew of the “Huia,” came into Mr. Drew’s possession, and when I afterwards saw one of them in his garden it had become quite tame and docile, following him about with open bill and outstretched wings asking to be fed. It allowed me to handle it with impunity, making no attempt to bite, although, as a rule, these birds are very vicious. Its capacity for swallowing was surprising, and it gorged its crop with fresh meat till it could hold no more; then it stretched its neck on the ground and worked it violently in its efforts to accommodate another piece. Curiously enough, it would not touch fish of any kind. Although, by way of experiment, starved for several days, it still obstinately declined the fish offered to it. When, however, its mate died and had been skinned, the survivor regaled itself freely on the carcase till it became decomposed.
Professor Hutton states that this species breeds in the cliffs of the Prince-Edward Islands and Kerguelen’s Land, and adds:—” When a person approaches the nest the old birds keep a short distance away, while the young ones squirt a horridly smelling oil out of their mouths to a distance of six or eight feet.” Layard describes the eggs as being white, and measuring 4·2 inches in length by 2·5 in breadth.
There is an egg in the Otago Museum from Macquarie Island, ovoido-conical in form, measuring 3·75 inches in length by 2·25 in breadth; the shell has a very rough surface and, originally creamy white, is much stained and discoloured. Another specimen (from the Falkland Islands) in Mr.
Procellaria glacialis, var. β, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 563 (1788).
Procellaria tenuirostris, Aud. Orn. Biogr. v. p. 333 (1839).
Priocella garnotti, Hombr. & Jacq. Voy. Pôle Sud, iii. p. 148, pl. 32, figs. 43–56 (1844).
Procellaria glacialoides, Smith, Ill. Zool. S. Afr. pl. li. (1849)
Thalassoica tenuirostris, Bp. C. R. xlii. p. 768 (1856).
Thalassoica polaris, Bp. C. R. xlii. p. 768 (1856).
Procellaria smithi, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Procell. p. 22 (1863).
Fulmarus glacialoides, Gray, Hand-L of B. iii. p. 105 (1871).
Procellaria glacialoides, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 301 (1873).
Ad. suprâ dilutè argentescenti-cinereus: pileo undique et corpore subtùs toto albis: pectoris lateribus dorsi colore lavatis: primariis extùs nigricanti-brunneis, intùs albicantibus: rostro albicanti-corneo, carnoso tincto, nigro apicato, culmine ad basin cyanescente: pedibus carnoso-cinereis, digitis exterioribus externè saturatioribus: palmis pallidè flavis: iride brunnescenti-nigrâ.
Adult. Hind part of neck, back, and all the upper surface, as well as the sides of the breast, delicate silvery grey; the rest of the plumage pure white; primaries blackish brown on their outer, and greyish white on their inner webs; tail-feathers delicate silvery grey. Irides brownish black; bill whitish horn-colour, with a tinge of pink, the ridge as far as the opening of the nostrils bluish, the tips of both mandibles black; legs and feet pinkish grey, darker on the joints and along the edges of the outer toes; the interdigital webs pale yellow, and the claws brown. Total length 19·5 inches; extent of wings 43·5; wing, from flexure, 13; tail 6; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 2, along the edge of lower mandible 1·76; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 3.
There are several instances recorded of the occurrence of this beautiful Petrel on the New-Zealand coast; and the above description is taken from a fine example which I picked up, in a dying state, on the sea-beach near the mouth of the Turakina river, and afterwards presented to the Colonial Museum.
There are two specimens in the Canterbury Museum, both obtained in the South Island.
The late Thalassœca glacialis, informs us that it is common on the South-African coasts, and frequently enters the bays—also that it flies higher above the surface of the water than the lastnamed bird, and rests more frequently.
Antarctic Petrel, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 400 (1785).
Procellaria antarctica, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 565 (1788, ex Lath.).
Priocella antarctica, Hombr. & Jacq. Voy. Pôle Sud, p. 149 (1844).
Procellaria antarctica, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, pl. 33 (1846).
Thalassoica antarctica, Reich. Naturg. Schwimmv.,
Thalassœca antarctica, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 31.
Fulmarus antarcticus, Gray, Hand-I. of B. iii. p. 105 (1871). Priocella antarctica, Hector, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. ix. p. 464 (1877).
Procellaria antarctica, Buller, Man. Birds of New Zealand, p. 88 (1882).
Aeipetes antarcticus, Forbes, Voy. of Chall., Anat. Petrels, p. 59 (1882).
Ad. pileo colloque toto, cum scapularibus et tectricibus alarum minimis, fuliginoso-cinereis: gulâ et colli lateralibus brunnescentibus: secondariis et tectricibus alarum albis: corpore reliquo purè albo: caudâ fuliginoso-nigro terminatâ: rostro brunnescenti-nigro: pedibus pallidè brunnescenti-cinereis.
Adult. Head, hind neck, and general upper surface dull brownish black; on the throat and sides of the neck the brown fades off into the white; the rest of the under surface pure white, except a broad band along the edge of the wings, which is slaty brown; primaries brownish black, white on their inner webs except at the tips; the whole of the secondaries and their large coverts are pure white, presenting a broad oblique band in the closed wing; scapulars brownish black, white at the base; tail-feathers pure white, with a broad terminal band of dull brownish black. Irides and bill black; legs and feet dull yellow, brownish on the outer side of tarsi and on the outer toes. Total length 19·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 12; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2; tarsus 1·75; middle toe and claw 2·5.
I am still in doubt as to the propriety of admitting this species into our avifauna, the specimen described by Sir
Forbes proposed to make this Petrel the type of a genus, Aeipetes, which he says is “easily distinguishable from Thalassœca by the much shorter and more slender bill, and differently shaped nasal tubes; number of rectrices 12 instead of 14 as in Thalassœca and 16 in Ossifraga; tracheal septum incomplete, and the structure of the syrinx different.”
Procellaria tenuirostris, Temm. Pl. Col. vol. v. livr. 99 (1836).
Priofinus brevicaudus, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 769 (1856).
Nectris brevicaudus, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. ii. p. 201 (1857).
Nectris brevicauda, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1864, p. 127.
Puffinus brevicaudatus, Hutton, Cat. Birds New Zeal. p. 45 (1871).
Dr. Finsch was the first to identify our bird with Puffinus brevicaudusPuffinus tenuirostris; and Mr. Salvin says of it:— “It seems well established that P. brevicaudus of the Australian and New-Zealand seas does not differ from P. tenirostris of Japan. The latter name has priority.”
Ad. omninò fuliginosus, corpore superiore brunnesente lavato: rostro nigricanti-brunneo, mandibulâ pallidiore: pedibus vinascenti-cinereis: iride nigrâ.
Adult male. Entire plumage sooty or blackish grey, the upper surface strongly tinged with brown. Irides black; bill blackish brown, the under mandible paler; legs and feet vinous-grey; the webs yellowish flesh-colour, blackish brown towards the edges. Total length 15 inches; wing, from flexure, 10·75; tail 3·75; bill, along the ridge 1·5, from gape to extremity of lower mandible 1·8; tarsus 1·75; middle toe and claw 2·25.
Female. Differs from the male only in having the plumage more suffused with pale brown, the feathers of the breast, sides, and underparts generally having brownish margins.
Young. Has the blackish grey of the upper sides of the face and sides of the neck fading gradually into the white of the underparts; the bill also is darker, being of a uniform brownish black, very slightly paler along the under edge of the lower mandible.
Younger state. A fledgling in Mr. Drew’s collection, which was picked up on the Wanganui sea-beach, has the plumage as in the adult, except that the throat and fore neck are ash-grey, the down of that colour giving place, however, to white feathers, which are at present very minute. On the lower cheek the down has almost disappeared.
Obs. A specimen picked up by myself on the ocean-beach near Otaki gave the following measurements:—Total length 14 inches; extent of wings 26·5. This was in the early part of February, and the bird was in adult plumage, but too far gone to admit of my preserving it.
This species of Petrel is very abundant on our coasts, and retires inland, sometimes to a distance of fifty miles, to breed. It nests in underground burrows, forming often large colonies, and resorting to the same breeding-place year after year. There is said to be an extensive nesting-ground of this kind in the Kaimanawa ranges in the Taupo-Patea country. At certain seasons the natives collect large numbers of these birds and preserve them in calabashes, potted in their own fat, either for future use or as gifts to neighbouring tribes.
It is extremely abundant in the seas surrounding Tasmania and among the islands in Bass’s Strait, to some of which it resorts in countless numbers for the purpose of breeding. Green Island is described as the great Petrel nursery; and a most interesting account thereof, by Mr. Davies, may be found in the second volume of the ‘Tasmanian Journal.’ The following extracts must suffice:—“About the commencement of September these birds congregate in immense flocks, and shortly afterwards proceed, at sunset, to the different isles upon which they have established their rookeries. Here they remain during the night for the space of about ten days, forming their burrows and preparing for the ensuing laying-season. They then leave and continue at sea for about five weeks. About the 20th November, at sunset, a few come in to lay, and gradually increase in numbers until the night of the 24th. Still there are comparatively few, and a person would find some difficulty in collecting two dozen eggs on the morning of that day. It is not in my power to describe the scene that presents itself at Green Island on the night of the 24th November. A few minutes before sunset flocks are seen making for the island from every quarter, and that with a rapidity hardly conceivable. When they congregate together, so dense is the cloud, that night is ushered in full ten minutes before the usual time. The birds continue flitting about the island for nearly an hour, and then settle upon it. The whole island is burrowed; and when I state that there are not sufficient burrows for one-fourth of the birds to lay in, the scene of noise and confusion that ensues may be imagined; I will not attempt to describe it. On the morning of the 25th the male birds take their departure, returning again in the evening; and so they continue to do until the end of the season…… . Besides Green Island the principal rookeries of these birds are situated between Flinders Island and Cape Barren and most of the smaller islands in Furneaux’s group. The eggs and cured birds form a great portion of the food of sealers, and, together with the feathers, constitute the principal articles of their traffic…… It takes the feathers of forty of these birds to weigh a pound; consequently sixteen hundred must be sacrificed to make a feather bed of forty pounds weight. Notwithstanding the enormous annual destruction, I did not, during the five years I was in the habit of visiting the Strait, perceive any sensible diminution in their number. The young birds leave the rookeries about the latter end of April, and form one scattered flock in Bass’s Strait. I have actually sailed through them from Flinders Island to the heads of the Tamar, a distance of eighty miles. They shortly afterwards separate into dense flocks, and finally leave the coast.”
The following extract from Flinders’s Voyage (vol. i. p. 170), describing a single flight of these birds, will give the reader an idea of their prodigious numbers:—“There was a stream from fifty to eighty yards in depth and three hundred yards or more in breadth; the birds were not scattered, but were flying as compactly as a free movement of their wings seemed to allow; and during a full hour and a half this stream of Petrels continued to pass without interruption, at a rate little inferior to the swiftness of the Pigeon. On the lowest computation I think the number could not have been less than a hundred millions. Taking the stream to have been fifty yards deep by three hundred in width, and that it moved at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and allowing nine cubic yards of space to each bird, the number would amount to 151,500,000. The burrows required to lodge this quantity of birds would be 75,750,000; and allowing a square yard to each burrow, they would cover something more than 18½ geographic square miles of ground.”
It is very plentiful in the Hauraki Gulf, and is diurnal in its habits. It associates on the water in large communities, has a vigorous flight, and utters a peculiar cry represented by the syllables hakwa-kwa, from which it derives its native name. It breeds on all the islands in the Gulf—not, however, in colonies, but each pair selecting its own locality and excavating a deep burrow, sometimes 5 feet in extent, with a rounded chamber at the further end, where a single egg is deposited about the end of September. A specimen in my son’s collection, from Lord Howe’s Island, is of a rather elliptical or slightly pyriform shape, measures 2·75 inches in length by 1·6 in breadth, and is perfectly white.
Procellaria grisea, Gmel. ex Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. p. 399 (1785).
Procellaria tristis, Forster, Descr. An. p. 205 (1844).
Puffinus major, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr. p. 17 (1846).
Procellaria fuliginosa, Hombr. Voy. Pôle Sud, iii. p. 138 (nec Strickland, 1853).
Puffinus tristis, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 244.
Nectris amaurosoma, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1864, p. 124.
Puffinus amaurosoma, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 102 (1871).
Puffinus tristis, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 317 (1873).
Puffinus griseus, Finsch, J. f. O. 1874, p. 209.
Mr. Salvin writes:—“There is now a large series of skins of this bird in the British Museum; and I have taken the opportunity of comparing birds from the North Atlantic with others from the Pacific Ocean, and have failed to see how two species can be set up as proposed by Mr. Ridgway. In his recently published ‘Manual’ it will be seen that dimensions do not afford any diagnostic characters, and that the only difference to be detected is that the under wing-coverts in the Atlantic bird are grey, transversely mottled with white at the tips, whereas in Puffinus stricklandi, Ridgw. Man. N. Amer. Birds, p. 61 (1887)P. griseus they are white, transversely mottled with grey at the tips. A comparison of specimens shows how trivial this difference is. In the Pacific Ocean this species occurs as far north as the Kurile Islands, whence specimens have been sent by Mr. H. J. Snow.” (Ibis, 1888, p. 355.)
Puffinus griseus, Salvin, Ibis, 1888, p. 355.
One of the Ngatiapa witnesses in the Rangatira case gave the following evidence:—“Pirihakoakoa is the name of a place in the cliffs far up the Rangitikei river—where the Hakoakoa was accustomed to breed. We repaired thither at the right season to extract the young birds from the holes. The cry of this bird was pipiriki-pipiriki-tawharara.”
Ad. similis P. tenurostri, sed major et obscurior, plumis corporis superioris sordidè brunneo marginatis: aubtùs interdum pallidior: rostro cinerascenti-nigro, culmine flavicanti-brunneo: pedibus dilutè cyanescentibus: palmis pallidè brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Entire plumage blackish grey, the feathers of the upper parts narrowly margined with dull brown; in some specimens lighter grey on the throat and underparts of the body; inner lining of wings greyish white, mottled and clouded with dark grey. Irides black; bill dull greyish black, inclining to yellowish brown on the ridge; tarsi and toes bluish grey, the webs yellowish. Total length 15 inches; wing, from flexure, 11·5; tail 3·5; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2·1; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 2·3.
Nestling. Covered with thick slaty grey down.
This bird resembles Puffinus tenuirostris, but is appreciably larger, as will be seen on referring to their respective measurements. It is a common species in the New-Zealand seas, and is said to be extremely abundant at Stewart’s Island and on the adjacent coast. It is also comparatively plentiful on the Island of Kapiti, where it is found breeding as late as March. On the Island of Karewa and
Mr. Marchant informs me that he found this species breeding in burrows near the summit of the Island of Kapiti about the end of February. The excavations were in peaty ground over which a fire had passed, destroying all the surface vegetation. The young at this time were half-grown, thickly covered with light grey down, and extremely fat. On being held up by the feet, oily matter ran freely from their throats. The old birds, on being taken hold of, fought fiercely with their bills.
Mr. Kennedy also informs me that when engaged on a survey of the Kaimanawa ranges, his native workmen caught numbers of these birds in their burrows. On their first arrival at the breeding-ground the young birds were very small, but in the month of April they had attained their full size and were veritable lumps of fat, “pure oil pouring from the bill when the birds were held up by the feet.”
It sometimes breeds in the hills at the back of Wellington, and I once met with the bird on the coach road in the Ngauranga gorge.
There are some nesting-grounds of this species on Whale Island in the Bay of Plenty. I visited these breeding-places about the middle of January and found the nestlings still occupying their deep burrows, but they were well grown, with black quills and tail-feathers sprouting vigorously through their thick downy mantle of slaty grey.
These birds are at all times more nocturnal than diurnal, and when hovering overhead at night utter a frequent call-note, like tee-tee-tee, from which the Maori name is derived.
There are several well-known breeding-places on the south-east coast of Otago, and on Stewart’s Island, from which large supplies of potted birds are annually drawn and forwarded to the Northern tribes, a poha titi (or cask of preserved Petrel) being a gift worth the acceptance of the highest chief.
Of this species probably Dr. Crowfoot writes (Ibis, 1885, p. 268):—“This Petrel, called by the Norfolk-Islanders ‘Mutton-bird’ or ‘Ghost-bird,’ from its child-like cry at night, lays its eggs on Norfolk, Phillip, and Nepean Islands. Its breeding-period extends over a considerable time. I have seen young birds nearly fledged on the 27th October, and have obtained fresh eggs on the 15th January. This bird digs out a hole in the soft soil on the faces of the cliffs, also in the sand on flat ground. Some of the burrows are six feet and more in length. The bird also lays extensively on Phillip Island in shallow recesses under overhanging boulders and in colonies, i. e. many may be found close together. On Norfolk Island its holes are always isolated and the burrows deep. One egg only is laid. Both bird and egg have a very strong peculiar smell, and I can usually tell a fresh hole from an old one by the smell of the entrance. There is no nest. The eggs, which are pure white, vary from 2·5 inches to 2·75 in length, and from 1·5 inch to 1·75 in breadth. Some are equally rounded at both ends; others are much pointed at one end.”
An egg supposed to belong to this species, and sent to me by Mr. Drew (who obtained it at Kapiti), is ovoido-elliptical in form, measuring 3·1 inches in length by 1·95 in breadth; it is white, with a smooth surface, but much discoloured by soiling.
Of the closely allied species, Puffinus carneipes, Mr. Salvin writes (l. c.):—“Sir
“The bird is rare in collections, and we have considerable doubts as to the correct determination of those stated to be in the Leyden and other museums (cf. Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, vi. Procellariœ, p. 26); the Leyden birds should, I believe, be referred to Puffinus griseus (Gm.).”
Of this species Dr. Finsch writea (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. viii. p. 202):—“Procellaria carneipesProcellaria carneipes, Schleg., in the Leyden Museum, is identical with Procellaria griseus.” But Mr. Salvin regards it as a valid species, and it seems to me very readily distinguishable from the latter bird by its more robust bill.
Majaqueus carneipes, Reich. Naturg. Schwimmv., Natatores, pl. xiv. f. 2601; Syst. Av. p. iv (1852).
Nectris carneipes, Coues, Pr. Ac. Nat. Sc. Phil. 1864, p. 126.
Puffinus carneipes, Salvin, Ibis, 1888, p. 356.
Ad. similis P. tristi, sed major et suprà, obscurior: rostro conspicuè majore facilè distinguendus: dorsi plumis scapularibusque brnnnescente marginatis: rostro flavicanti-corneo, brunnescenti-nigro apicato, culmine quoque ad basin brunnescenti-nigro: pedibus sordidè carneis, membranis interdigitalibus pallidè brunneis.
Adult male. Entire plumage uniform sooty or blackish grey, the crown, hind neck, and general upper surface being several shades darker, and the feathers composing the maantle obscurely margined with brown. Irides black; bill yellowish horn-colour, brownish black at the tips of both mandible, and along the culmen to the opening of the nostrils; legs and feet dull flesh-colour, the webs pale brown. Total length 19·75 inches; extent of wings 43; wing, from flexure, 12·75; tail 4·6; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·25; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 2·75.
Female. Similar to the male, but with somewhat lighter plumage and of smaller size. Total length 19 inches; extent of wings 42·5; wing, from flexure, 12·5; tail 2·25; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2; tarsus 1·9; middle toe and claw 2·75.
Nestling. Covered with thick dark-grey down.
This fine Shearwater is comparatively common off New Zealand, and breeds in large colonies on some of the small islands near the coast.
The above descriptions were taken from a pair obtained by Captain Fairchild on White Island, where they were breeding, and sent to me alive at the beginning of November. When taken out of the box in which they had been confined on board the ‘Hinemoa,’ they were very vicious, attacking everything with their bills, and even snapping savagely at each other when brought within reach. When taken hold of they uttered a cry like that of a young child in pain. At other times they had a peculiar chuckling note; and it was amusing, when travelling with them by train, to hear the passengers remark from the sounds that “there were fowls under the seats.”
Captain Fairchild sent me at the same time the nestling of a Diving Petrel (Pelecanoides nrinatrix) which he assured me had been taken from the same burrow as the pair of Titi.
I dissected the latter, and found the testes in the male bird largely developed; and in the ovary of the female a cluster of embryo eggs, the largest being of the size of buck-shot. It would seem from this that, like some other Petrels, it has two broods in the season.
Puffinus chlororhynchos, Less. Traité d’Orn. p. 612 (1831).
Puffinus sphenurus, Gould, Ann. & Mag. N. H. xiii. p. 365 (1844).
Thiellus chlororhyncha, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 201 (1850).
Thiellus sphenurus, Bonap. ibid.
Procellaria chlororhyncha, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, vi. Procell. p. 25 (1863).
Procellaria sphenura, Schl. ibid.
Puffinus chlororhynchus, Salvin, Ibis, 1888, p. 352.
Ad. omninò schistaceo-fuliginosus, interscapulio scapularibusque ad apicem pallidioribus: gulâ et jugulo anteriore schistaceis: abdomine crissoque et supracaudalibus saturatè brunneo tinctis: rostro grisescenti-nigro, apice et culmine obscurioribus: pedibus flavescenti-brunneis.
Adult. General plumage dark slaty brown, changing to dark slaty grey on the throat and fore neck; the feathers composing the mantle edged with grey; flanks, upper portion of abdomen, with upper and lower tail-coverts more strongly tinged with brown; quills and tail-feathers slaty black with polished shafts; lining of wings uniform slaty grey. Irides black; bill greyish black; legs and feet yellowish brown. Total length 17 inches; wing 10·25; tail 6; bill, along the ridge 1·8, along the edge of lower mandible 1·9; tarsus 1·7; middle toe and claw 2·3.
Obs. In the female the general plumage is more suffused with brown.
Note. Mr. Salvin’s collection contains a New-Zealand example. There is a specimen from Lord Howe’s Island in the British Museum, and another from the Seychelles, received from Canon Tristram.
Mr. Salvin writes (Ibis, 1888, p. 352):—“Lesson’s type of his P. chlororhynchus in the Paris Museum was brought from Australia (Baie des Chiens Marins), so Pucheran tells us, by Quoy and Gaimard in 1820. Those writers who have attempted to separate it from P. sphenurus of Gould attribute to it a more western range, extending from Western Australia to the Mascarene Islands and the Cape of Good Hope, and reserve the name of P. sphenurus for the more eastern bird, giving its range ‘Australian Seas.’ Gould’s types of P. sphenurus, however, came from Houtmann’s Abrolhos, off the coast of W. Australia, so that the difference of habitat breaks down. I have compared specimens from the Mascarene Islands (Mauritius and Rodriguez), Raine’s Islet (N.W. Australia), Bird Islet (N. Australia), Norfolk I., Lord Howe’s I., Eimeo (Society I.), and New Zealand, and fail to see how any separation can be maintained., The Mascarene birds have perhaps a rather stouter bill, the colour of which in the skin is more of a fleshy yellow; but these differences seem to me to be of little importance, as intermediate specimens occur. The slight difference in size is not more than occurs in most birds having so wide a range. Gould’s figure represents a bird with a dark bill, but his description gives it as ‘reddish fleshy-brown, darker on the culmen and tip.’ We have two skins said to have come from New Zealand, where its occurrence, at least on the shores of the North Island, can hardly fail to be established.”
A specimen of the egg in my son’s collection, from Lord Howe’s Island, is rather ovoido-elliptical in form, measuring 2·5 inches in length by 1·5 in breadth, and is perfectly white.
Procellaria gavia, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 148 (1844).
ÆSTRELATA, gavia, Coues, Proc. Phil. Acad. 1866, p. 154.
Puffinus assimilis, Hutton, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. i. p. 161 (1868, nec Gould).
Ad. suprà nitidè brunnescenti-niger: facie laterali et corpore subtùs toto albis: rostro sordidè plumbeo, mandibulâ pallidiore: pedibus flavicanti-albis, extùs nigro limbatis: iride nigrâ.
Adult male. Crown of the head, nape, and all the upper surface, including the wings and tail, glossy brownish black, fading away gradually towards the under surface; sides of the face, throat, fore neck, and all the under surface white. Irides brownish black; bill dark grey, lighter and sometimes yellowish grey on the under mandible; tarsi and toes pinkish flesh-colour, stained with blackish brown along the front of the tarsus, and on the outer edges of the toes; webs darker. Total length 14·5 inches; extent of wings 27·5; wing, from flexure, 8·5; tail 3; bill, along the ridge 1·4, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2.
Female. Upper parts dull yellowish brown, with dingy tips; underparts white; on the sides of the neck the dark colour fades imperceptibly away. Total length 14·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 8·5; tail 3; bill, along the ridge 1·25; tarsus 1·5.
Another example (in the Otago Museum) is somewhat smaller and has the plumage of the upper parts darker.
Young. The young bird assumes the colours of the adult from the nest, but with rather paler margins to the wing-coverts, the woolly covering clinging longest to the back and flanks.
Nestling. Covered with very thick slate-coloured down on the upper, and white on the under, surface.
Obs. In this Petrel the white on the femoral region is very conspicuous when the bird is on the wing.
One from Selwyn (in the Canterbury Museum) has the upper parts sooty grey, and the underparts pure white, the former colour extending forwards from the shoulders and being nearly confluent on the lower fore neck. Another (marked ♀) from Chicken Island is somewhat smaller in all its proportions, and has the plumage of the upper parts sooty black, there is less white on the cheeks, and the dark colour is not spread forward on the fore neck.
Mr. Salvin writes (Ibis, 1888, p. 356):—“Sir This species of Petrel, which enjoys a wide oceanic range, is comparatively common in the seas surrounding New Zealand; and after stormy weather it is frequently picked up, either dead or in an exhausted state, among the sea-drift on the open strand. It is certainly not the same as P. opisthomelas, Coues, as I formerly supposed, for the latter species may be at once distinguished by its “fuliginous-black under tail-coverts” (see Proc. Nat. Sc. Phil. 1864, p. 139)P. opisthomelas, Coues, as regards the colour of its plumage, but may at once be distinguished by its pure white under tail-coverts.”P. opisthomelas (obtained off the coast of Lower California), which was sent over from the Smithsonian Institution for the purpose of being figured in his forthcoming ‘Monograph,’ and this feature is very distinct.
They congregate in flocks, often of considerable size, and fly in a compact body, generally in a zigzag course, with a very rapid movement of the wings and not far above the water. Their flight is peculiar, too, in this respect, that they appear all to turn at the same moment, like a company of soldiers, showing first the dark plumage of the upper surface and then the white underparts as they simultaneously dip towards the water.
Their habits are sociable, and flocks may often be seen in the daytime disporting themselves in the sea, making short flights just above the surface, then flopping into the water, splashing and chasing one another in their playful gambols, and when tired of their fun rising in a body and rapidly disappearing from view in the manner already described. On one occasion I saw a flock of several hundred thus amusing themselves in the broad sunshine (although the bird is more nocturnal than diurnal) as our ship was steaming through the narrow “French pass” in Cook’s Strait.
They seem to scatter at night, for as darkness approached I have noticed numerous single examples, as if the flocks of the daytime were dispersing over the surface of the ocean in quest of their food. They fly low but swiftly, and utter a note resembling the native name by which the bird is called, but somewhat prolonged, as paka-ha-a—paka-ha-a. During the breeding-season I have seen very large flocks of them between Whale Island and the mainland, some of them hovering on the wing, hundreds together in “schools” or flocks, and others scattered far and wide over the surface, floating in a listless manner as if resting after the hunting exploits of the night.
Occasionally, perhaps once in several years, they appear in prodigious flocks and seem to cover the sea for miles around; but they soon scatter again over “ocean’s boundless bosom,” and are then not more plentiful than the other Petrels. This periodical “mustering of the clans” is doubtless due to a superabundance of some particular food-supply in the part of the sea where they congregate.
Whale Island is one of their favourite breeding-grounds, the places selected being the stony, scrub-covered slopes near the summit, as well as the holes and crevices among the rocks far above high-water mark. The adjacent little island of Motoki is also a nesting-ground. The island of Karewa in the Bay of Plenty, and the numerous islands in the Hauraki Gulf are also favourite breeding-grounds. They nest in communities and their burrows are like rabbit-warrens, covering acres in extent. As a rule, they go down vertically for about a foot and then spread off laterally for a distance of two feet or more, thus forming a chamber in which the Petrel deposits her single egg and afterwards cradles her young. In the early morning the old birds go off to sea, and do not return to their nests till after dark, when there is great noise and excitement among the nestlings in their eagerness for the food which has been stewing for them all day long in their parents’ crops.
The Maoris state that the young birds quit their nests for the sea towards the end of February, which would accord with my observations on Whale Island. They do their best, however, to interfere with this domestic arrangement, for when the fledglings are about to take their departure, they are visited by Maori hunting-parties, who capture sometimes four or five hundred of them in a day, and pot them in their own fat as huahua, which is esteemed a great delicacy. Having regard to the profit the island is strictly tapu during the early part of the breeding-season, and no native is allowed to land there. The expiation of the tapu and the slaughter of the innocents form one and the same event!
It breeds on several of the larger islands in the Hauraki Gulf; and Mr. Cheeseman found it nesting on the “Hen and Chickens.”
An egg of this species in my son’s collection is broadly oval, measuring 2·3 inches in length by 2 in breadth, and is perfectly white.
Dusky Petrel, Lath. Gen. Syn. vi. p. 416 (1785).
Procellaria obscura, Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 559 (1788, ex Lath.).
Nectris obscura, Kuhl, Beitr. Zool. 1820, p. 147, pl. xi. fig. 11.
Puffinus obscurus, Bonap. Synop. 1828, p. 371.
Oymotomus obscurus, Macg. Man. Orn. 1844, ii. p. 13.
Puffinus obscurus, Salvin, Ibia, 1888, p. 357.
Ad. suprà brunnescenti-niger: facie laterali inferiore et corpore subtùs albis: subalaribus exterioribus et subcaudalibus externis cinerascenti-nigro variis: rostro nigro: pedibus flavicanti-brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Crown and sides of the head, hind neck, and entire upper surface brownish black; chin, fore neck, and entire under surface pure white; feathers covering inner edges of wings and the lateral under tail-coverts largely varied with slaty black; on the sides of the neck the dark plumage blends with the white of the under surface without any line of demarcation; wing-feathers uniform dark brown; tail-feathers black. Irides black; bill jet-black and slightly polished; legs and feet yellowish brown, shading into brownish black on the outer side of the tarsi and on the outer toes; claws black. Total length 13 inches; wing, from flexure, 8·2; tail 3·5; bill, along the ridge 1·3, along the edge of lower mandible 1·6; tarsus 1·4; middle toe and claw 1·8.
Obs. There is no observable difference in the sexes, except that the dark plumage in the female is duller.
Of this species Mr. Salvin writes (l.e.):—“A skin, said to have come from New Zealand, in our collection, belongs to the larger form of this species. It agrees with one from Manua, Samoa Islands, except that the crissum is white in the middle to its extremity, the sides alone being dusky. In the Samoa bird the central feathers of the crissum are dusky tipped with white. These differences can hardly be considered specific, seeing that considerable variation prevails in this respect when a large series of birds is examined. The smallest birds with the darkest crissum that I have seen are from the Pelew Islands.”
Like most of the Petrels, it has a peculiar cry. Of another species, described further on, the Rev. Mr. Eaton in his account of the habits of the birds in Kerguelen Island (Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. 1879, p. 131) says:—“Occasionally late in the evening and during the night a piercingly shrill piping note, repeated singly at intervals of four or five seconds, used to be heard on the hills about Observatory Bay. Generally the sound changed its direction, showing that the bird which uttered it was flying. This call might be imitated on a piccolo-fife in the key of G or F. In its complete form it consists of a series of single notes separated by pauses of four seconds or more, followed by a jerky succession of notes in the same tone. One night the sound was traced to a crevice in a cliff beneath an immovable rock. The place was marked by a pile of stones, and visited the next morning. While efforts were being made to move the rock the bird within the recess became alarmed, and uttered a cry somewhat like that of a Kestrel-hawk in its tone, but not nearly so loud. On another night the sound was followed up to a hill. Every now and then the bird ceased piping, but it recommenced whenever the call was imitated with the lips. Its nook was therefore easily discovered; it was in a terrace on the hillside under a piece of rock. The stone was pulled away, the nesting-place laid open, and two birds in it disclosed, one of which escaped. The female was caught, and she proved to be a P. melanogaster.”
Puffinus assimilis, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 186.
Procellaria nugax, Solander, MS. (Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. 1856, p. 205).
Puffinus assimilis, Salvin, Ibis, 1888, p. 357.
Ad. similia P. obscuro, sed minor et obscurior, plumis corporis superioris cinerasceate marginatis: subalaribus et subcaudalibus omninò albis.
Adult. Very similar in appearance to P. obscurus, but smaller. There is less brown in the dark colouring of the upper surface, the prevailing colour being slaty black, the edges of the feathers having a bluish-grey or ashy tinge; the blending of colours on the sides of the neck is softer; the lining of the wings is pure white over the entire surface, as are also the under tail-coverts; and the wing-feathers instead of being uniform slaty brown are white on their inner webs, shading into grey towards the tips. Irides black; bill brownish black. Total length 12·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 7·75; tail 2·5; bill, along the ridge 1·15, along the edge of lower mandible 1·25; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2.
Nestling. Taken from the nest on Little Barrier, 6th Nov. Covered with, long, soft, dark grey down, paler on the underparts, and becoming whitish on the crop; throat bare, with minute white tufts of down just appearing.
Obs. A specimen of P. assimilis, obtained by Mr. John Macgillivray on Raoul Island (Kermadec group), and now in the British-Museum collection, is somewhat smaller in all its dimensions, but precisely like our bird in all other respects—coloration of plumage, soft parts, &c.
Mr. Reischek informs me that he found this species on the Chicken Island in December 1880. He discovered adult birds with their unhatched egg and the tuatara lizard (Sphenodonpunctatum) all in the same burrow, and sometimes young birds associated with the reptile, but occupying separate chambers. He writes:—“I found them very plentiful at this season on the south-eastern side of this island. On the smaller island I met with them again, but there were only a few of them there. I noticed that they ventured further inland for the purpose of breeding than Puffinus gavia. They commence their nesting-operations about the end of October, and their habits at this season are in no respects different from those of the latter species.”
Like Majaqueus parkinsoni and Æstrelata, cookii, it resorts, on the Little Barrier, to the wooded parts of the island, selecting always a high elevation and generally a little way inland. During the breeding-season the male bird habitually goes out to sea during the day, returning at night and hovering over the island with much clamour, but observing a discreet silence on approaching its nest.
Reischek informs me that in bright moonlight nights he has found them sitting in the trees uttering their cry of ha-kwa-kwa. He obtained an egg on the 17th October which was nearly hatched out, and met with nestlings three weeks later.
The egg of this Petrel is ovoido-conical in form, measures 2·2 inches in length by 1·4 in breadth, and when fresh is perfectly white.
Puffinus bulleri, Salvin, Ibis, 1888, p. 354.
Ad. suprà saturatè griseus, capite toto suprà cum cervice posticà fuliginoso-nigris, loris et regione ophthalmicâ vix griseo intermixtis: tectricibus alarum minoribus fuliginoso-nigris, majoribus externè griseis et extrorsum albo limbatis: remigibus fuliginoso-nigris, pogonio interno bitriente interno nigro: paginâ alarum inferiore et corpore subtùs niveis, crisso utrinque schistaceo limbato: caudâ cuueatâ nigricante, rectricibus lateralibus griseo tinctis: rostro obscurè plumbeo, mandibulâ infrà carneâ: pedibus externè corylinis, internè flavis.
Adult male. General upper surface dark slaty grey, shading into sooty brown on the crown, nape, and small wing-coverts; the secondaries and their coverts margined with greyish white; the primaries and the tail-feathers black in their whole extent, the former greyish white on the under surface, except towards the tips; the tertials and the scapulars brownish black, more or less tipped with grey; the upper tail-coverts somewhat lighter than the plumage of the back, and each feather narrowly tipped with greyish white; throat, sides of face, the entire fore neck, and all the underparts pure white, except that the lateral under tail-coverts are slaty grey on their outer webs; under surface of wings and axillary plumes pure white, only the long covert of the first primary on each wing showing a tendency to grey. Irides black; bill blue-black, fading into bluish grey on the sides of both mandibles; inner side of tarsi, which are much flattened, the middle and inner toes, and the interdigital web flesh-white; outer aspect of tarsi and the whole of the outer toe brownish black. Total length 19·5 inches; extent of wings 40; wing, from flexure, 12; tail 6; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·1; tarsus 1·8; middle toe and claw 2·5.
Female. Mr. Salvin’s collection contains a specimen (purchased from Mr. Whitely, of Woolwich, as having come from New Zealand) which is duller in plumage than my bird, with more brown on the upper surface. This is probably the female.
The only example of this fine Petrel I have had an opportunity of examining in the flesh was picked up by myself on the ocean-beach near the mouth of the Waikanae river on the 1st October, 1884, having been blown ashore by the “rangawhenua,” as the Maoris call all winds from the sea.
It is remarkable for its length of neck and tail. Indeed at first sight it looks more like a small Shag than a Petrel, and several of the Maoris at Waikanae to whom I showed it declared that it really was a Kawau till I pointed out to them its tubular nostrils. It proved on dissection to be a male.
On passing Whale Island in a boat with a Maori crew in the summer of 1886, a black-looking Petrel with a conspicuously long tail hovered over us for some time and then steered out seaward at a considerable elevation and with a swift flight. On asking our steersman, Wepiha, if he knew the bird, he replied “He Kahu no te moana” (a Hawk from the sea). Unless I am right in referring the bird to the above species, I am unable to identify it, for it never came very near to us, and did not reappear from the dreary waste of waters.
Mr. Salvin, who has been good enough to dedicate the species to myself, writes of it:—“This distinct species appears to belong to the section of the genus possessing long cuneate tails, of which P. chlororhynchus is the best-known species. Its coloration at once makes it easily recognizable, no other species having a grey mantle, with which the dark head and dark wings are in striking contrast, this style of coloration being characteristic of many species of Æstrelata.”
Cinereous Fulmar, Lath. Gen. Syn. ii. pt. 2, p. 405 (1785).
Procellaria cinerea, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 563 (1788, ex Lath.).
Procellaria hæsitata, Forster, Descr. An. p. 208 (1844).
Procellaria hasitata, Gould, B. Austr. fol. pl. 47 (1848).
Priofinus cinereus, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 769 (1856).
Adamastor typus, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 187 (1857).
Puffinus cinereus, Lawr. B. of N. Am. p. 835 (1860).
Puffinus kuhlii, Cass. Proc. Phil. Acad. 1862, p. 327.
Procellaria adamastor, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Procell. p. 25 (1863).
Procellaria cinerea, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 305 (1873).
Ad. suprâ cinerascenti-brunneus, dorsi plumis et supracaudalibus pallidiore brunneo terminatis; remgibus et rectricibus brunnescenti-nigris: facie et colli lateribus obscurè cinerascentibus brunneo variis: subtùs albus pectoris lateribus brunneo lavatis: rostro flavo, versus apicem nigricante: pedibus sordidè flavis; iride nigrâ.
Adult. Crown of the head, back of the neck, and all the upper surface greyish brown, the feathers of the back and the upper tail-coverts edged with paler brown; the face and sides of the neck dusky grey mottled with brown; throat, fore neck, and all the underparts pure white, stained on the sides of the breast with brown; quills and tail-feathers brownish black. Irides black; bill yellow, stained towards the tips with black; legs and feet dull yellow. Total length 20 inches; wing, from flexure, 13·25; tail 5·5; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 2·5, from gape to extremity of lower mandible 2·5; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 2·6.
Professor Hutton states that this species is “very common on the coast;” but I have never myself seen a specimen in New Zealand, nor do the local museums contain any. That it is extremely abundant, however, in certain latitudes may be inferred from the following notice of this Petrel in Darwin’s ‘Voyage of a Naturalist:’—“I do not think I ever saw so many birds of any one sort together as I once saw of these behind the island of Chiloe. Hundreds of thousands flew in an irregular line for several hours in one direction. When part of the flock settled on the water the surface was blackened, and a noise proceeded from them as of human beings talking in the distance.”
There are two specimens in Mr. Salvin’s collection received from Whitely as having been obtained in “New-Zealand seas.” These are male and female.
I met with a large flock of them, in the month of August, about 300 miles eastward of Australia. They appeared to be active on the wing and very restless.
Procellaria parkinsoni, Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 245.
Majaqueus parkinsoni, Gray, Hand-1, of B. iii. p. 108 (1871).
Procellaria parkinsoni, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 302 (1873).
Ad. oraninâ brunnescenti-niger, interscapulio scapularibusque pallidioribus marginatis: rostro flavicanti-brunneo, culmine et apice brunnescentibus: pedibus nigris: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Entire plumage brownish black, the feathers of the back and mantle narrowly edged with a lighter shade. Irides black; bill yellowish horn-colour, shaded with dark brown on the culmen and towards the tips of both mandibles; legs and feet black. Total length 18 inches; wing, from flexure, 1375; tail 5; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible 2, length of lower mandible 2; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 2·75.
Young. Plumage, as in the adult, glossy black; down adhering to underparts long, thick, and blackish brown in colour; bill black, marked with horn-grey on the sides and unguis; feet black.
Nestling. The young is first thickly covered with sooty down, which adheres to the plumage for a considerable time, as in other Petrels, imparting to the body an appearance of unnatural size. It comes off first from the head, breast, and upper surface; and in this operation the bird itself no doubt assists.
Obs. The above description of the adult is taken from a New-Zealand specimen in the British Museum, presented by Miss
This species, which appears to be peculiar to the New-Zealand seas, is by no means uncommon in the Hauraki Gulf, resorting to the Little Barrier and adjacent islands to breed. Mr. Kirk, the well-known botanist, who has carefully explored these islands, informs me that he found both this and Gould’s Petrel breeding in subterranean burrows. He observed that the two birds differed entirely in character—M. gouldi being extremely vicious, fighting savagely even with a dog when attacked, whereas M. parkinsoni would allow itself to be seized by the hand in its burrow almost without resistance.
It is diurnal in its habits, hunting in the open sea like the Albatros. I have watched several at one time following our steamer, not immediately in the ship’s track, but wheeling about with angular wings, like black kites, occasionally mounting high in the air, then descending almost to the surface, and always maintaining a circular course of flight.
It has a soft whistling cry of kuia, whence its name. It is also said to make at certain times a mewing sound, like a young cat.
I have not often been able to identify them on the wing, for, at a little distance, dark Petrels are all very much alike. A pair which I saw, in fine, calm weather, off the port of Napier early in December, were flying low, keeping close to the surface of the water, and with a somewhat rapid movement of their wings.
The stomachs of several which were examined contained blubber-like matter and the sharp-pointed beak of some cephalopod.
My son Walter obtained at Manawatu, in the month of September, an adult bird which had been captured by the Maoris far inland; and at this season it was so fat that he had the utmost difficulty in detaching the skin.
It breeds in communities, often resorting for that purpose to the tops of low mountains far removed from the sea. The Maoris soon discover these breeding-places, and not only collect the young, but capture large numbers of the old birds by lighting fires on calm nights and thus decoying them to their destruction.
In the Bay of Plenty, about four miles north of Matata, there is a high sea-cliff of soft sand-stone called Te Tuhi-o-mahuika. The softer parts of the rock have been eroded by the weather, leaving the harder contorted strata intact and projecting from the face of the cliff in all sorts of eccentric shapes; and here it was, according to Maori tradition, that their famous ancestor, Mahuika Mahuika was the Maori “Ulysses.” It was he who discovered the art of making fire by the friction of two dry sticks. He had dominion over the animal creation and was exacting in his demands. On one occasion, according to mythical tradition, being thirsty he appealed to the Kiwi to bring him water. The bird refused, whereupon he kicked it and broke its back, which accounts for the crouching attitude of the Kiwi as compared with other birds.moko of the present day. In the deeper cavities caused by this singular erosion of nature the Black Petrel forms her nest and hatches her brood in perfect security, no one ever attempting to scale these perpendicular cliffs.
Mr. Cheeseman writes to me from Auckland:—“This species breeds on the coast-ranges north of the Manukau, and on the Cape Colville peninsula, also on many of the small islets off the eastern shore. A friend fishing a short time ago in Rangitoto channel, caught a small shark, which he cut up for bait, throwing portions overboard. He was soon surrounded by large numbers of M. parkinsoni, and by continuing to throw over small pieces of the shark, he induced them to come so near the boat as to enable him to kill several with the blade of his oar, some of which he brought to the Museum.”
Mr. Reischek found it nesting under the root of a tree, near the top of the Waikomiti hill, fully twelve miles from the sea. He likewise met with it on the Little Barrier, principally on the tops of the hills and about the centre of the island. He generally found it in natural cavities, dug round and adapted to the wants of the bird. When not breeding two were often found associated in the same hole; but when the nest contained an egg, only the female remained in charge. In the month of November he has seen the old birds assisting each other in the labour of cleaning out and adapting the hole they have selected, and afterwards in collecting dry leaves and pieces of moss wherewith to make it comfortable and form a nest, which is usually placed in a depression at the further end of the cavity. These breeding-holes are generally from one to two feet deep; then comes the nest-chamber, measuring often two feet in extent and about half that in width. One nest was found in the hollow of an old puriri stump. At the end of November a single egg is produced and, according to the natives, the young bird is hatched out at the end of December or beginning of January. In April or May the canoes visit the island to collect the young Petrels, which by this time have grown to the full size and are excessively fat. Except at the breeding-season, when they are to be seen about the island in the early morning and again in the evening, these birds are only to be met with far out
Trans. N.-Z. Inst, vol. xviii. pp. 87, 88. Procellaria parkinsoni. They were clearing out their old burrows; and staying to observe, I noticed them digging with their bills, removing the earth by a backward motion of their feet, till the burrow was cleansed. In most cases I found them working; in others the burrows were clean and the refuse outside. Some burrows were in loose soil, others under the roots of trees and under stones, also in hollow trees. I have found them sometimes very far inland, and always on the tops of mountains. When they have finished cleaning out the burrows, which process male and female accomplish together, they remain quiet till the last rays of the sun have disappeared, then any one can hear their call, which is similar to that of the Black Swan; and on coming out they stop a moment, pick up a few leaves or grass, and go back into the burrows; this operation they repeat several times, and always on entering the chamber they make a peculiar noise together. After dark, both come out, rise and circle round, calling until they attract others; and when a large flock is assembled, they fly away to their haunts on the ocean, returning before daylight. At this season, before they lay, they are very fat. When caught, on their return from the ocean, if they cannot protect themselves by scratching and biting, they expectorate a lot of oily matter on their assailant. The first time I caught one of these birds it treated me in that manner. In December 1884, on the Waitakerei ranges, 1000 feet above sea-level, and twelve miles from the ocean, I found the female sitting on an egg, nearly hatched.”
An egg in my son’s collection is broadly elliptical, measuring 2·7 inches in length by 2 in breadth; originally white, it is much soiled over its entire surface by contact with the bird’s feet. Other specimens which I have examined are slightly narrower or more elliptical.
Pterodroma macroptera, Gould, Handb. B. of Austr. ii. p. 449 (1865, nec Smith).
Æstrelata gouldii, Hutton, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. ii. p. 79 (1869).
Procellaria gouldi, Hutton, Cat. Birds N. Z. p. 47 (1871).
Procellaria gouldi, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 308 (1873).
Ad. fuliginoso-niger, subtús brunnescentior: fronte, loris et facie anticâ albicanti-cinereis: rostro et pedibus nigris; iride nigrâ.
Adult male. General plumage sooty black, tinged with brown on the underparts; forehead and parts surrounding the base of the bill whitish grey, shading gradually into the darker plumage. Irides, bill, and feet black. Total length 17 inches; wing, from flexure, 12; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2·5.
Female. Differs from the other sex only in having the plumage more suffused with brown, many of the feathers of the back, breast, and under tail-coverts being margined with pale brown.
Young. There is a full-grown fledgling in the Auckland Museum, in which the plumage is as in the adult, but with long thick down of a sooty-grey colour still adhering to the breast, and some paler-coloured down on the throat. Obtained on the Hen Island in the Hauraki group.
Nestling. Covered with dingy slaty-grey down; the black feathers appear first on the head and in four or five parallel series on the cheeks. The down is long, thick, and fluffy, especially on the underparts; and the bill and feet are perfectly black.
Remarks. The form of this Petrel is rather slender; the tail is long and cuneate; and the wings, when folded, extend about half an inch beyond it.
I have taken the above description from the type specimen in the Auckland Museum. Professor Hutton, who first distinguished the species, observes:—” It is very common on the Tasmanian and New-Zealand coasts, and is undoubtedly the bird that Mr. Gould refers to as the dark Petrel with a grey face, which he shot off the coast of Tasmania, and which he suggests might be Procellaria macroptera of Dr. A. Smith. According to that author, however, the bird he called P. macroptera has no grey face, but a white circle round the eye and reddish-brown legs and feet, in all of which respects it differs from the present bird … . I am informed by Mr. Kirk that this bird breeds in holes on a little island called Kitakita, near the Kawau, and that when attacked by dogs fights hard for its life, often tearing open their noses with its sharp curved bill, and in this respect differing remarkably from P. parkinsoni, which we found on the Little Barrier Island to surrender at discretion, without any fighting.”
As already stated on p. 221, Mr. Salvin disallows this species; but I have thought it safer to retain it for the present, especially as Dr. Finsch writes:—” I got the type specimen from the Auckland
I have seen this Petrel as far south as the Bay of Plenty. It flies low and more swiftly than M. parkinsoni.
Unlike the preceding species, which resorts to the summits of the hills, this Petrel, which is comparatively plentiful on the Little Barrier, generally seeks holes near the base of the cliffs. They breed in companies, sometimes four or five pairs having their nests within the same little cavern, each nest being placed at the end of a separate burrow, having a bend and varying in length, with an oval chamber at the further end. These burrows are generally about three feet in extent (one, however, measured four), and the nest-chamber is decidedly smaller than that usually formed by Majaqueus parkinsoni. The egg is deposited on a few dry leaves, there being very little care bestowed on the nest itself.
Like the allied species it is diurnal at sea, and doubtless sleeps at night on the bosom of the deep, for it does not return to land after the responsibilities of the breeding-season are over; but with the recurrence of spring, the reproductive instinct impels it again to navigate its way back to its “island sanctuary” to repair its burrow and refit its nest.
Reischek found Gould’s Pertel all round the coast of the Little Barrier, and on some occasions came upon wild pigs intent on rooting out the eggs and young birds. This they would often accomplish if the conditions were favourable. In the case of Æstrelata cookii, however, the length and tortuous course of the burrow placed the nest beyond the reach of these merciless depredators. The above collector found broken egg-shells at the end of August, and the Maoris say that the breeding-season extends through September, which is no doubt the fact, as the young birds do not come to their full maturity till the end of December or beginning of January, when the food-parties repair to the island to dig them out.
Curiously enough, here again Messrs. Hutton, Kirk, and Reischek are at issue, for the latter says:—“Instead of being fierce like Procellaria parkinsoni, which rushes to the attack the moment the dog shows himself at the mouth of the hole,
My explanation of this conflict of testimony among accurate observers is that it is impossible to lay down any general rule of character for either species, their conduct under circumstances entirely novel to them being determined partly by the disposition of the individual bird and partly by the conditions under which they are found, for theoretically a mother with hatched offspring would be fiercer than the occupant of a newly-made nest.
There is a breeding-place of this Petrel, as I am informed, sixty miles inland from Opotiki, near the source of the Waioeka, a river which takes its rise in Maungatapere and Rangiwhakakapua, the range of mountains terminating at the East Cape. It is said to breed in large numbers on the Island of Karewa, in the Bay of Plenty. In March the Maoris visit the island and collect the young of this and other species.
This Petrel breeds also on Whale Island and on the other small islands off the east coast, on several of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf, and (according to Cheeseman) on the coast-line north of the Manukau.
An egg of this species, in the Auckland Museum, which was obtained on one of the small islands in the Gulf of Hauraki, is of a regular oval form, measuring 2·6 inches in length by 1·76 in breadth, and is of a dirty white colour. Another specimen in my son’s collection is more ovoid, measuring 2·75 inches in length by 1·95 in breadth, and is of a creamy-white colour.
Thalassidroma nereis, Gould, P. Z. S. 1840, p. 178.
Procellaria nereis, Bonap. C. R. xlii, p. 769 (1856).
Thalassidroma nereis, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 322 (1873).
Garrodia nereis, Forbes, P. Z. S. 1881, p. 736.
Ad. pileo colloque toto, cum interscapulio et tectricibus alarum minimis, et medianis exterioribus fuliginoso-nigris: dorso postico, uropygio et supracaudalibus, scapularibus et tectricibus alarum majoribus canescentibus: remigibus brunnescenti-nigris, secundariis vix canescente lavatis: caudâ sordidè canescente, ad apicem nigricante: gutture pallidiùs fuliginoso: corpore reliquo subtùs albo, subalaribus exterioribus brunneis: rostro nigro, versus basin mandibulæ albicante: pedibus saturatè brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Head, neck, and all the upper surface dark ash-grey; rump and upper tail-coverts paler, or silvery grey; under surface pure white, the grey plumage presenting a distinct margin across the upper part of the breast. Irides and bill black, the latter whitish towards the base of lower mandible; legs and feet dark brown. Length 6·5 inches; extent of wings 13; wing, from flexure, 5·5; tail 2·75; bill, along the ridge ·5, along the edge of lower mandible ·55; bare tibia ·6; tarsus 1·3; middle toe and claw 1.
Obs. The sexes are alike, both as to size and plumage.
This pretty little Storm-Petrel was originally discovered and described by Mr. Gould, who obtained four specimens during a calm on his passage from Hobart Town to Sydney in May 1839, and who met with it again a month earlier in the following year between New South Wales and the northernmost point of New Zealand. I have received specimens from Otago and from Cape Campbell. Under stress of weather it is sometimes driven inland, and I remember an instance of a foot-passenger on the Wanganui bridge catching one with his hands as it fluttered past him.
The species is readily distinguishable from the other Storm-Petrels by its diminutive size and the absence of white on the rump.
Mr. Reischek found it breeding on Guano Island in the beginning of November. He discovered five or six nests, each containing a single egg.
Mr.
An egg of this species in my son’s collection is ovoido-elliptical, has a fine granulate surface, and measures 1·25 inch in length by ·9 in breadth; originally white, it has now a soiled appearance, with a zone of minute specks at the larger end.
Frigate Petrel, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 410 (1785).
Procellaria marina, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 826 (1790).
Thalassidroma marina, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 17 (1844).
Thalassidroma hypoleuca, Moquin-Tandon, Orn. Canar. p. 45 (c. 1850).
Pelagodroma marina, Reich. Syst. Av. p. iv (1852).
Pelagodroma fregata, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 769 (1856).
Thalassidroma marina, Hutton, Ibis, 1872, p. 249.
Thalassidroma fregata, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 321 (1873).
Ad. suprà cinerascenti-fuliginosus, pileo saturatiore: uropygio imo et supracaudalibus clariùs cineraceis: tectricibus alarum brunnescentibus, majoribus pallidioribus: remigibus et rectricibus brunnescenti-nigris: fronte cum supercilio distincto, facie laterali et corpore subtùs toto albis: plumis circumocularibus et regione auriculari cinerascenti-fuliginosis: collo laterali, hypochondriis imis et subcaudalibus clariùs cineraceis: rostro nigro: pedibus nigris, palmis flavicantibus: iride saturatè rufescenti-nigrâ.
Adult. Crown of the head, nape, and a broad patch from the under margins of the eyes, spreading over the earcoverts, sooty grey; upper surface sooty brown, darker on the wings, and changing to a light grey on the upper tail-coverts; forehead, streak over the eyes, face, throat, and all the underparts pure white, shading into grey on each side of the breast; quills and tail-feathers brownish black, the former greyish white on their inner webs. Irides dark reddish brown; bill black; legs and feet black, the webs yellowish. Total length 8 inches; wing, from flexure, 6; tail 3; bill, following the curvature of upper mandible ·65, length of lower mandible ·75; bare tibia ·85; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·4.
Nestling. Covered with thick long down of a uniform grey colour.
Obs. Both sexes appear to be exactly alike. The Canterbury Museum contains several specimens, both male and female, from the Chatham Islands.
Individuals present a certain degree of variation. A specimen in the Otago Museum has the crown and upper surface generally blackish brown; underparts white; the former colour extending downwards in a broad band over both sides of the chest, but not meeting; face with a broad patch of slaty black covering the eyes, spreading over the ear-coverts, and merging in the dark chest-band; under tail-coverts bluish grey.
A specimen in the Auckland Museum (sent from Mokohinu Lighthouse) has the patch on the face conspicuously darker, and the interdigital webs pale yellow, with black edges, and a line of black between the inner and middle toe.
The White-faced Storm-Petrel appears to have a wide range over the southern ocean. It is not so plentiful, however, off the New-Zealand coast as the Grey-backed Storm-Petrel, although the habits of the two birds appear to be very much the same.
Mr. Gilbert discovered it building in some of the small islands lying off Cape Leuwin, in South Australia, in December; and he met with young birds almost ready to leave their holes, on East Wallaby Island, a month later. Its egg, of which I have obtained several specimens, is pure white, and measures 1·5 inch in length by 1·15 in breadth.
Procellaria grallaria, Licht. Verz. Doubl. p. 83 (1823).
Thalassidroma melanogaster, Gould, Ann. N. H. xiii. p. 367 (1844).
Fregetta melanogastra, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 769 (1856).
Procellaria melanogastra, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Procell. p. 6 (1863).
Thalassidroma melanogaster, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 319 (1873).
Ad. fuliginoso-brunneus, tectricibus alarum majoribus pallidiùs brunnescentibus: gulâ albo variâ, plumis basaliter albis: corporis lateribus, supracaudalibus, subalaribus et axillaribus albis: subcaudalibus fuliginosis albo terminatis: rostro et pedibus nigris: iride nigrâ.
Adult. General plumage sooty black, darker on the wings and tail; sides of the body, flanks, and long upper tail-coverts pure white; some of the under tail-coverts on each side edged with white; long inner wingcoverts and axillary plumes pure white. Irides black; bill and legs black. Total length 9 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·5; tail 3; bill, along the ridge ·75, along the edge of lower mandible ·9; bare tibia ·75; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·1.
Occasional examples of this Storm-Petrel are recorded; and specimens are to be found in the Auckland, Nelson, and Canterbury Museums, all obtained on the adjacent coasts. Mr. Gould, who met with it in great abundance, in March 1840, between the eastern coast of Australia and New Zealand, observes:—“It is a bird of powerful flight, and pats the surface of the rising waves more frequently than any other species that came under my notice; or perhaps the great length of its legs rendered this action more conspicuous.”
During stormy weather it often follows in the wake of the labouring vessel, and apparently for days together. I observed this myself, in 1856, during a severe gale, experienced off the Chatham Islands, which lasted nearly a fortnight. These Storm-Petrels followed us day and night; and it was some relief to the extreme monotony and misery of our situation (for our vessel was a mere schooner of 80 tons) to watch the movements of these fairy-like beings as they danced among the surging billows, running with fluttering wings in the hollow of the waves, and then hovering over their foaming crests with the lightness of summer butterflies. I observed that the same individual bird often remained in our wake for considerable distances, without ever resting on the water or changing its course for one moment, its powers of endurance being truly wonderful. I found, on inquiry, that seamen make no distinction between this species of Storm-Petrel and its congeners, calling them all “Mother Carey’s chickens,” and resenting as a positive sin any attempt to shoot or capture these “spirits of departed sailors,” as they facetiously term them, to whom they profess to commit the destinies of the voyage. It is an interesting sight to watch this Petrel fluttering over the stormy ocean—alternately skimming over the rolling billows and treading, as it were, the trough of the sea. It is a pretty object when seen under these circumstances, and it is not surprising that from time immemorial it has excited the sympathy of the hardy sailor. As the bird trips lightly over the waves the black and white plumage shows very clearly against the opaline blue of the deep sea water. Like the other members of the group, it subsists on small mollusks, medusæ, and any kind of greasy substance that may be floating on the water.
Procellaria pelagica, Wilson, Am. Orn. vii. p. 90, pl. 69 (1813, nec. L.).
Procellaria oceanica, Kuhl, Beitr. Zool. p. 136, tab. x. fig. 1 (1820).
Procellaria wilsoni, Bonap. Journ. Acad. Phil. iii. pt. 2, p. 231 (1824).
Thalassidroma wilsoni, Aud. Birds Amer. 8vo, vol. viii. p. 106, pl. 460 (1839).
Thalassidroma oceanica, Schinz, Europ. Faun. p. 397, pl. 1 (1840).
Oceanites wilsoni, Keys. & Blas. Wirb. Eur. p. 238 (1840).
Oceanites oceanica, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 769 (1856).
Oceanites oceanicus, Salvin, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, p. 735.
Ad. fuliginoso-brunneus, pileo undique aliquantò cinerascente, regione auriculari et collo postico magis nigricantibus: tectricibus alarum fumoso-nigricantibus, majoribus versus apicem pallidè brunneis: remigibus rectricibusque nigris, intùs brunnescentibus: supracaudalibus et crissi lateribus conspicuè albis: plumis uropygialibus imis nigris albo terminatis: subcaudalibus saturatè brunneis ad basin albis: rostro nigro: pedibus nigris, membranis interdigitalibus sordidè flavis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. General plumage sooty black, darker on the head and hind neck; a broad band of white crosses the rump and upper tail-coverts, covers the flanks and spreads out on each side of the under tail-coverts; small upper wing-coverts margined with pale brown; quills and tail-feathers black, the former dusky on their inner webs. Irides, bill, and legs black; interdigital webs dull yellow. Total length 7 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·2; tail 3; bill, along the ridge ·6, along the edge of lower mandible ·7; bare tibia ·5; tarsus 1·3; middle toe and claw 1·15.
Obs. The sexes are exactly alike in plumage.
Another well-known species (This species is almost cosmopolitan on the high seas. It is very numerous in the ocean that surrounds the Australian coast, and is sometimes met with off New Zealand, although it is by no means so plentiful as the other species of Storm-PetrelFregetta grallaria) is certain to occur in our seas; but as no authentic New-Zealand specimen has been yet recorded, I will content myself with giving here a description of the bird, whereby it may hereafter be identified by local collectors:—Adult. Head, neck, and entire upper surface, except the uropygium, sooty black; the feathers of the back and the larger wing-coverts minutely margined with white; breast, abdomen, sides of the body, and middle portion of wings underneath, flanks, rump, and upper tail-coverts pure white; lateral under tail-coverts tipped with white. Irides, bill, and feet black. Total length 7·25 inches; wing, from flexure, 6·5; tail 3; bill, along the ridge ·75, along the edge of lower mandible ·8; bare tibia ·6; tarsus 1·3; middle toe and claw ·8. The sexes are alike in plumage, except that the female appears to have broader white margins on the plumage of the upper surface.
The gifted
Supercilious Duck, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 497 (1785).
Anas superciliosa, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 537 (1788, ex Lath.).
Anas leucophrys, Forster, Descr. Anim. p. 93 (1844).
Anas mülleri, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 649 (1856).
Ad. suprà brunneus, plumis omnibus fulvescente marginatis, pilei et colli postici plumis quasi striatis: lineâ superciliari distinctâ fulvescenti-albâ, alterâ inferiore brunneâ a summâ maxillâ per oculum post regionem paroticam ductâ: facie reliquâ, et gutture toto. fulvescenti-albis, lineâ faciali indistinctiore a basi maxillæ versus regionem paroticam, hâc et colli lateribus brunneo striatis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus et eodem modo limbatis, majoribus velutino-nigro terminatis: remigibus brunneis, secundariis extùs lætè purpurascenti-viridibus, versus apicem velutino-nigris, angustè albo terminatis: caudâ brunneâ, rectricibus angustè fulvo marginatis: corpore reliquo subtùs pallidiùs brunneo, latè fulvescente marginatis, quasi marmoratis; subalaribus albis: rostro plumbeo, mandibulâ brunnescente: pedibus flavicanti-brunneis: iride rufescenti-brunneâ.
Adult. Top of the head and a broad streak from the base of the upper mandible through the eyes brownish black, the former slightly marked with grey; a narrow streak from the forehead over the eyes, the cheeks and the whole of the throat yellowish white, sometimes tinged with rufous; from the gape, or angles of the mouth, and crossing the cheeks a mottled streak of very dark brown; ear-coverts and sides of the neck greyish brown, mottled or striated with yellowish white; general upper surface blackish brown, each feather margined more or less distinctly with fulvous white, and those composing the mantle having a strong coppery hue; fore neck, breast, and underparts greyish brown, varied with fulvous white; inner lining of wings and axillary plumes pure white; sides of the body and flanks blackish brown, each feather margined with dull fulvous white; primary quills dark velvety brown on their upper surface, greyish underneath; speculum rich glossy green, bounded on both sides with velvety black; the secondaries with a narrow terminal edge of white, and of those overlapping the speculum the whole of the inner webs deep velvety black; the superior wing-coverts dark brown, with a broad edging of velvety black, below which there is a line of yellowish white. Irides reddish brown; bill bluish lead-colour, the nail black, and the lower mandible tinged with brown; legs yellowish brown, the webs darker. Length 20 inches; wing, from flexure, 16; tail 2·5; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·25; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2·25.
Young. General plumage paler than in the adult; the facial streaks, and the throat, washed with fulvous brown; the underparts tinged with rufous brown.
Nestling. Upper parts dark olive-brown, with produced hair-like filaments of paler brown; sides of the head and underparts of the body pale yellowish brown, lightest on the abdomen; from the base of the bill, on each side, a dark band passes beyond the eye, and another in a curve below it; there are markings of fulvous white on the edges of the wings; and on each side of the back there are two irregular spots of the same, about an inch apart. Irides black; bill and legs plumbeous, the nail of the former brown.
Varieties. Slight differences are observable in the plumage of fully adult birds; and a specimen which I obtained at Manawatu in the winter of 1864 was very curiously marked on the breast, each feather having a crescentic
A specimen in my collection (marked ♀) has the whole of the face and throat stained, and the white of the underparts strongly suffused, with chestnut-brown; the speculum on the wing indistinct, the feathers being outwardly edged with brown.
An example obtained from the Wairarapa Lake, and presented by me to the Colonial Museum, is much larger than ordinary examples, and presents some peculiar markings in the plumage. There is a broad irregular patch of white on the lower part of the fore neck; the speculum on the wings is nearly obliterated, the secondaries being dull white on their outer webs, while their coverts have a broad terminal band of pale brown and white. The two outer primaries in one wing, and the second and third in the other, are entirely white. There are likewise some eccentric markings on the feathers of the crop and sides of the breast. These individual peculiarities may be due to hybridism, possibly the result of a cross with the Domestic Duck.
Another, which I likewise presented to the Colonial Museum, is a partial albino received from Marl-borough. In this specimen the primaries and secondaries in both wings are almost entirely white in their apical portion; a broad band of white meets the upper margin of the speculum; the wing-coverts are irregularly barred with white, and some of the scapulars are entirely white.
My eldest son, during a shooting-excursion to Ngapuke, in the Hawke’s Bay district, saw on several occasions a pure albino among several hundred of the Grey Duck, and remarked on its large size and swiftness of wing. It was very shy and he was unable to get a shot at it.
Obs. The sexes are alike in plumage, but differ slightly in size. In well-plumaged birds the light margins on the wing-coverts form crescentic loops, like fine network.
Hybrid. More recently (in March 1885) my son shot at Wainuiomata, near Wellington harbour, what is undoubtedly a hybrid. It is a fine bird, and weighed in the flesh 3 lb. 9 oz.
This specimen combines in a very pronounced way the characters of the two species to which it owes its parentage. On dissection it proved to be a female. Careful measurements before the bird was skinned gave the following result:—Extreme length 24·5 inches; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·25; tarsus 1·75; middle toe and claw 2·5. The crop was widely distended with the seed-vessels of some cyperaceous plant. The following is a description of the plumage:—Head, neck, and breast the same as in the male parent bird, except that there is a broad patch of pure white on the chin, and another, two inches wide, crossing the fore neck immediately above the breast; underparts generally uniform brownish black; small wing-coverts exactly as in the parent bird, with marginal crescents; speculum broad and black with steel-blue reflections at the base, margined on both sides with white, which is continued on the secondaries, being more or less mixed with grey; quills black, the first two in both wings white; lining of wings white; mantle, back, rump, and upper tail-coverts black, the whole of the back having a bluish gloss; tail-feathers brownish black; bill (which is large and broad like that of the Domestic Duck) greyish black, with a darker nail; under mandible dull yellow marked with brown; legs and feet dull orange-yellow, the inter-digital webs brownish black, marked irregularly with bright yellow towards the outer edge, as so commonly seen in the domestic bird.
When shot it was in association with a male of Anas superciliosa and two well-grown young birds.
In my former edition I treated Mr. Layard writes of Common in every part of our country, the Grey Duck ranges over the whole of Australia as well, and is found also in some of the Polynesian islands. I found it extremely abundant at the Chatham Islands; and it is said to occur on Norfolk Island alsoAnas sandwichensis (Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 649, sine diag.) as a synonym of this species; and in my Introduction to the present work (page lvi) I have extended the range of our bird accordingly. But my attention has since been directed to Dr. Sclater’s more recent differentiation of that species under the name of Anas wyvilliana (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, p. 350).Anas superciliosa (Ibis, 1882, p. 537):—“This is the common Duck of the country (in New Caledonia), being found on all our marshes and rivers when not too much persecuted by sportsmen and pot-hunters; it also frequents the sea-shore and islands within the circling reef. It breeds inland, generally on the mountains covered with niaoulie-forest near some damp spot, either a rivulet of water or a little swamp, but is especially careful to place its rough loose nest above the reach of a chance inundation.”
It is deservedly in high estimation for the table, and may be regarded as perhaps the most valuable of our indigenous birds. It is less plentiful than it formerly was, which is no doubt partly attributable to the increased traffic on our rivers, but is chiefly owing to the indiscriminate use of the gun. Happily, however, the Colonial Legislature has undertaken the care of this among other native species, and the Wild-Birds Protection Act now makes it a punishable offence to shoot or trap these birds during certain months of the year.
It frequents rivers, bush-creeks, lagoons, and swamps, often consorting in large flocks, but more generally associating in parties of from three to seven. In some localities it affords very good shooting; and being seminocturnal in its habits, a clear moonlight night is considered by many the best time for this kind of sport. The birds on reaching their feeding-ground make a circuit in the air to reconnoitre, and then descend in an oblique direction, the rapid vibration of their wings producing a whistling sound, very familiar and pleasant to the ear of a sportsman.
In its habits, the Grey Duck differs in no respect from the other members of its group. In the water it swims low, with the neck erect and the head gently swayed to and fro; when at rest it either floats on the surface, with the head drawn closely in, or it reposes on the bank very near to the water’s edge, often selecting a jutting point of land, as affording a more unobstructed view and less danger of surprise; and when the banks are soft and muddy it takes up its station on a log of wood, bare rock, or other projecting object. Naturally of a wild disposition, the attempts to domesticate this bird, even when it is taken from the nest and reared by hand, generally end in failure—although I have met with one or two striking instances to the contrary, and with one case of its crossing, in captivity, with the Domestic Duck.
Regarded as an article of food, the Grey Duck is in its prime during the autumn and commencement of winter; but the quality of the game differs according to the locality, those from the lakes and rivers of the interior having a richer flavour as a rule than birds living in the vicinity of the seashore, where the food is coarser.
In many of our harbours and estuaries, when the tide has ebbed and the exposed sandy spits run far out into the rippling waters, flocks of Grey Duck may be seen resting there in long straggling lines, with here and there, in the very midst of them, a Sea-Gull displaying his snow-white head and breast, or a Black Shag spreading his wings, like funereal banners, to dry in the morning air. On these occasions a person on horseback, or even on foot, if not carrying a gun, may often come within easy range of them; but it is notorious that, except in the more unfrequented parts of the country, the Grey Duck has learnt from cruel experience to detect the presence of fire-arms, and, unless under cover, a sportsman has no chance whatever of getting within shot-range. The same remark applies to other Ducks, but particularly to this species and to Casarca variegata. Any one carrying a long stick, or indeed anything having any resemblance to a gun, is similarly avoided by the wary Grey Duck.
They seem generally to prefer cool and shady resorts, but I have also seen dozens of them floating on the bosom of the Waikato, under a strong noonday sun, as if enjoying the perfect calm. In the deep, quiet pools, or basking in the sunshine on the scattered rocks in the midst of a mountain-stream—its plump form exhibited to perfection—it is one of the commonest features of a New-Zealand river.
From the box-seat of the passing coach I once witnessed, in the Manawatu gorge, a very unusual sight. A fine old Hawk (Circus gouldi) was apparently determined to dine off young duck, and was persistently chasing a small brood that were disporting themselves in the water below us. He made frequent dips upon them with his outstretched talons, but the little things were always on the alert, diving under the moment their pursuer approached. The old birds, evidently quite satisfied as to the safety of their brood, took no heed of what was going on, and remained quite motionless on their post of observation till we had passed out of sight.
In the Bay of Plenty district there are Duck-preserves which are a source of great profit to the natives and are jealously guarded by them. From October to February no canoes are permitted on the principal lake, and no fires are allowed to be lighted in the vicinity. Various kinds of Duck breed here in great numbers. From feeding on the small green beetle and on the nahonaho, a stingless gnat which swarms in countless myriads over all the waters in the lake district, the birds become extremely fat; and during the moulting-season, which extends over part of February and March, they are incapable of flight owing to the loss of their quills. The strict “tapu” which is enforced during the close season is now removed with great ceremony, and all the population, men, women, and children, start together on a Duck-hunting expedition. The men with dogs in short leashes keep within the belt of manuka scrub along the margin of the lake; the women and children proceed to the middle of the lake in canoes, then take to the water, and with great noise and splashing drive the frightened birds up into the bays or inlets, where they seek refuge in the scrub and sedges and are immediately pounced upon by the trained dogs which are still held in leash. The Duck-hunter snatches the bird away from the dog, kills it noiselessly by biting it in the head, and then throws it behind him to be collected by a party of women who follow on foot for that purpose. In the season of 1867, seven thousand, it is said, were caught in this manner, in three days, on one lake alone. These were not all Grey Duck, but included also the Black Teal (or Scaup), the Shoveller, and the White-winged Duck.
At the Bitter Lake (Rotokawa), in the Taupo district, they are caught in a similar manner. Those that escape the dogs are caught by snares set at night. The snares are placed along the margins of the lake and on the warm stones where the Ducks are accustomed to congregate after dark.
Captain Mair says:—“At Rotoiti, Rotoehu, and Rotoma, as well as on other lakes in the Bay of Plenty district, I have observed that the Ducks at one season leave the waters and travel into the surrounding woods. This happens about March and therefore not during the breeding months. Probably they retire for more security during the seasonal moult; for although at other times these lakes fairly swarm with Ducks, at this period they are quite deserted. In the woods, however, the dogs turn them up in all directions. When on the lakes it is interesting to watch the Ducks feeding on the gnats and green beetles which float on the surface of the warm water, forming a thick scum. On this diet they are always in good condition. The beetles, I may mention, get shaken into the water from the overhanging scrub by the action of the winds, and the gnats appear to be killed by the sulphurous vapour that rises from the water, and are seen floating on the surface in countless millions.”
From the gullet I have taken a quantity of the minute seed of Triglochin triandrum, a common aquatic plant. The various species of Lemna appear also to contribute to the sustenance of this bird.
There is a large raupo-swamp at Matata—lying between the sea-coast and the hills—extending some fifteen or sixteen miles in all directions, crossed in some places by narrow ridges of dry land, and intersected by a perfect network of streams whose courses are indicated by long tortuous lines or fringes of weeping-willows. It was from the Maori pahs placed in well selected positions within these extensive marshes that Major Mair and his Arawa contingent had, in 1865, to dislodge the hostile tribes who were harbouring the murderers of Volkner and Fulloon. Accompanied by a force of 500 “friendlies” he pursued the enemy from point to point, and finally captured the whole of them (numbering in all 600) in the very gallant attack which he made on Te Teko. These singular fens are naturally a great rendezvous for Waterfowl of all kinds, and since the destruction of Rotomahana by the volcanic outbreak of Tarawera, it is undoubtedly the best shooting-ground in the colony. The Grey Duck, Scaup, Brown Teal, Shoveller, Bittern, and Pukeko are all equally abundant, and a sportsman in a canoe, with a Maori boy to do the paddling, may easily bag 50 brace
Ortygometra tabuensis) and its spotted congener (O. affinis) are frequently to be heard, although seldom seen; and the melancholy cry of the Fern-bird is so general and persistent that its nickname of “Swamp-Sparrow” is not undeserved.
On the 5th October, standing on the Paikakariki road-cutting, waiting for Cobb’s coach to come up, and gazing with a delight that never tires on the magnificent panorama that there presents itself to view,—the far-reaching ocean, with the rock-bound island of Kapiti rearing its majestic outline a few miles distant, and away to the north the low-lying coast-line, intersected with streams, and forming a border to the long sweep of sandhills and swamps that lie between Ruahine and the sea,—I cast my eyes for a moment below, and there, in a “negro-head” swamp, of which from the position I occupied I had a complete view, I witnessed a very pretty picture of wild bird-life. A Grey Duck had brought out her brood and was keeping watch on a clump of toetoe, just above the surface of the water, while the ducklings (of which I counted eleven or twelve) were gaining their first experience of “life in the swamps.” It was interesting to observe how they pursued one another through the intricacies of that stagnant pool, all covered with duck-weed, broke up into parties of two and three, skimmed along the surface of the water, disappeared in the sedge and tangle, assembled again for a moment, then dispersed in opposite directions, every now and then rallying round the parent bird, as if to be assured that all was right. On the appearance of a Hawk overhead, or of an innocent sea-bird making a wider circuit than usual in its survey of the sandy beach beyond, an alarm-note from the old Duck operates like magic and not a sign is visible of the brood of young ones, all hidden away under the overhanging tufts of vegetation till the threatened danger has passed. Cautiously one of them reappears on the pool and is followed by others, as one by one they recover confidence, and in a few minutes all is excitement again, and they are frolicking about in the liveliest manner.
This intuitive or instinctive sense of danger and the impulse to hide so generally manifested by the Waterfowl, especially in the earliest stage of their existence afterquitting the egg-shell, is indeed very remarkable. The downy young of many species of Limicolæ and other Seafowl appear to find their best security in perfect stillness. On being surprised or alarmed they simply squat on the ground and remain perfectly motionless, without uttering a sound of any kind, instinctively trusting to escape detection from their likeness to surrounding objects. I have often passed and repassed within a foot of a young bird thus concealed without being able to find it; and at length, on discovering it, I have been astonished at the passive manner in which it would allow itself to be handled without making any sign.
This species sometimes breeds rather late in the season; for I have a note in my journal that I saw a flock of very young ducklings in the Horse-shoe lake (Whangaehu) on the 14th January, more than three months later than the instance recorded above.
As an instance of how the Grey Duck may be tamed by protection, I may mention that, on October 26, I saw a pair with eleven young ones within a few yards of Travers’ Bridge, Avon, almost in the heart of Christchurch, and several other pairs in the vicinity. It has generally been found almost impossible to domesticate this bird owing to its tendency to revert to the wild state. But not very long ago, when riding between Woodville and the Manawatu Gorge, I saw, at a “Cockatoo homestead,” a flock of domestic ducks on the roadside, and with them a perfectly tame Anas superciliosa, apparently a bird of the first year. It was distinguishable at a glance from the rest by its manner of walking, carrying its head low or in a crouching attitude. Its smaller size and more slender form also betrayed it, before I came near enough to examine the plumage.
It usually breeds among the sedge and tangle in low situations in the immediate vicinity of its haunts. As a rule, the place selected is a dry and convenient situation on the ground—always well-concealed
Mr. Barker contributes the following:—“A short account may interest you of a Grey Duck’s nest I discovered in a tree this spring, at Peel Forest; I was walking through the bush to ascend the gorge of a small mountain-torrent that drains Mount Peel, when from a tree above my head flew a wild Grey Duck. On inspection the tree turned out to be an old broad-leaf, well covered with a mass of ferns, overhanging a bank which had evidently been in former times the south bank of the creek, now running some twenty feet away. On climbing a young tree close by I was surprised and pleased to see, in the hollow formed by the divergence of two large branches in the broad-leaf, a beautifully formed Grey Duck’s nest of fine down inside with a basis of small twigs, and containing nine eggs of a creamy-green colour. The nest was made the more beautiful by the natural way the long pendent fronds of the ferns hung over and around it, completely hiding the mother from view when on the nest. On measuring the distance from the ground I found it to be thirteen feet nine inches. I was particularly anxious to find out how the mother would contrive to get her young ones down, as unless she carried them I could not see how she would manage it, for owing to the steepness of the tree they would not be able to clamber down, and even if shoved over the edge must tumble through small underwood on to hard stones. The bird’s way of getting to the nest was most ingenious: the nest was on the side of the tree away from the stream, and so obstructed with creepers that she could not get in on that side; but on the other a branch grew at right angles to the tree over the bed of the stream; she flew on to this branch, walked along it, and where it joined the tree was a small hollow arch formed by the curving and meeting together again of two old stems; through this small cavity she squeezed herself (so small is the orifice that if I had not seen it I could not have believed a Duck would think of working its way through), and on the other side about eight inches below her is the nest, into which by a steep slope she slides. The way from the nest along the bough was well worn by her constant traffic backward and forward. “I visited the nest regularly for a week, when unfortunately bad weather set in, and it being in a rather inaccessible situation, owing to the torrents of water that come out of the narrow gorge after heavy rain, I was unable to get to it again for a fortnight, and when I did I was disgusted to find the young had all hatched out and gone, and the rain had quite spoilt the nest. However, I made a close examination of the tree, and could find no signs whatever of disturbance along the edges of the cavity in which the nest was built, or down the semiperpendicular fern-covered trunk of the tree, such as one might expect had they endeavoured to descend on that side; while through the arch I discovered some of the down of the nest clinging to the side of the bark, as if they had gone that way. I also looked well on the ground beneath, but could find no sign except under the arch connected with the bough at right angles to the tree; here was a small piece of moss-covered bark, which was detached from the bottom edge of the arch and had evidently been dislodged by their journeyings. However, I was fully convinced that they had escaped out of the nest through the hole on to the branch, the other way being quite impracticable. How the parent bird managed to get her young to the ground, I am unable to tell you; but I incline to the belief that she carried them on her back, as some bushmen assured me they had actually witnessed this feat.”Metrosideros tomentosa). In the forked branches of these trees, some twenty or thirty feet above the surface of the water, the Grey Duck often builds her nest and hatches her young. The natives state that when the ducklings are ready to take to the water the old birds bring them down to the lake on their backs
I have sometimes found its nest on the summit of a cliff overlooking a river; and in one instance placed in a bunch of The following paragraph appeared in a Colonial newspaper:—“A curious freak of a wild Duck has been noticed in the Wairoa district, one of those birds having built its nest in a tree, and there brought forth its brood. As is well known, these birds usually build low; but in the instance we refer to, in a rata tree, high up on a cliff overhanging the river, the bird had formed its nest. The position of the nest, which is inaccessible, was first noticed by the bird’s efforts to entice its young into the water. The Duck was seen to fly out of the tree down towards the river, uttering a peculiar cry, and shortly afterwards the ducklings, six in all, fell one after another over the nest on to the river-bank, from which they scrambled into the water.”Astelia, in the fork of a dead tree, at an elevation of 20 feet or more from the ground
Anas chlorotis, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 15, pl. 20 (1844).
♂ ad. suprà saturatè brunneus, dorsi plumis vix olivaceo lavatis et obsoletè fulvo marginatis, tectricibus alarum cinerascenti-brunneis, pallidiùs marginatis, majoribus rufescenti-fulvo terminatis: remigibus saturatè brunneis, scapis rufescentibus, minimis extùs sordidè viridibus rufescenti-fulvo terminatis, secundariis extùs angustè fulvo limbatis: scapularibus fulvo vermiculatis, extùs nigricantibus: supracaudalibus brunneis, latiùs fulvo marginatis: caudâ brunneâ angustè fulvo limbatâ: pileo sordidè rufescenti-brunneo, nigro vario: regione oculari albidâ: facie laterali brunneâ, genis rufescentibus: regione supraparoticâ viridi versus occiput extendente: gulâ fulvescente: pectore ferrugineo, maculis obsoletis nigris cordiformibus marmorato: abdomine medio crissoque pallidioribus, fulvescentioribus, obsoletè nigro transnotatis: hypochondriis brunneo et fulvescente transvermiculatis, plagâ crissali utrinque nigrâ, rufescente marginatâ et suprà viridi nitente: subcaudalibus nigris: subalaribus et axillaribus albis: rostro saturatè brunneo, ungue pallidiore: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
♀ capitis et colli lateribus fulvescentibus minutè brunneo striolatis: pectore haud rufescente: hypochondriis et scapularibus haud vermiculatis: subcaudalibus rufescentibus nigricante medialiter notatis.
Adult male. Head and anterior portion of neck blackish brown, darker on the crown, and narrowly edged with rufous, mottled on the chin with fulvous; eyelids greyish white; sides of the head posteriorly and the nape shining green in certain lights; this dark plumage is bounded anteriorly by a narrow zone of rufous white which nearly encircles the neck; below this zone and on the lower part of fore neck castaneous, changing into chestnut-brown on the breast and sides of the body, with numerous obscure rounded spots of black; general upper surface dark fuscous, margined with pale brown, and slightly glossed with green; on the lower sides of the neck posteriorly and on the smaller scapulars numerous freckles and vermiculations of pale rufous brown; the longer scapulars have a broad apical spot of velvety black on their outer webs, below which, and on the inner webs, they are vermiculated with pale ferruginous; primaries dusky brown, highly glossed with green, and margined on their outer webs with a narrow line of pale rufous brown; outer secondaries shining velvety green on their outer webs, with a broad apical margin of rufous white, dusky on their inner webs, their coverts dark brown, terminally edged with rufous, the closed wing presenting a dull speculum margined accordingly; the long inner secondaries dull shining green on their outer webs, broadly edged with pale fulvous; inner lining of wings and axillary plumes pure white, with a wash of dark brown near the margin; the long plumage covering the flanks castaneous brown, beautifully vermiculated with pale ferruginous; abdomen pale brown, obscurely spotted with a darker shade; below the vent and the under tailcoverts velvety black, tipped with brown; on each side of the rump a conspicuous spot of white, with black vermiculations on its upper edge; tail dark glossy brown, its upper coverts shining greenish brown, margined with rufous. Irides black; bill bluish black, the pectination of the upper mandible yellowish brown; feet dull slaty grey. Length 17 inches; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 1·65, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2·25.
Adult female. Head and anterior portion of neck blackish brown; the crown darker, and edged with rufous; the sides of the head, throat, and fore neck thickly speckled and mottled with fulvous grey; no gloss on the head, nor is there any marginal zone on the neck, the colours gradually blending; lower part of neck behind
Young male. Head and neck as in the adult female; there is no gloss on the crown, nor white circlet on the fore neck; the lower part and sides of neck are dull ferruginous brown, each feather with a central round spot of darker brown in its apical portion; breast and abdomen rufous white mixed with fulvous and obscurely spotted with brown; scapulars, as well as the long plumage covering the flanks, dark brown margined with fulvous, and showing little or no vermiculation; under tail-coverts pale rufous, blotched with dark brown; in place of the white rump-spots a few feathers freckled brown and white.
Nestling. Covered with thick, soft down, blackish brown with lighter markings on the upper surface; chin and underparts yellowish brown.
Varieties. In some examples of the male, the colour of the lower part of neck and breast deepens to a dark chestnut, and the abdomen is mottled and banded with pale fulvous on a dark brown ground; while in others the white circlet is wanting, and the vermiculation on the upper parts is scarcely apparent.
An albino form, the whole of the plumage being of a dull cream-colour, with obsolete markings, was shot in the Horowhenua Lake in June 1878.
In the Colonial Museum there is a partial albino, the head, hind neck, shoulders, and upper surface of wings being varied with irregular patches of white.
In the hands of the local taxidermist, Mr. Liardet, I saw two more (also from the Wairarapa) with partially white heads, and at Wanganui I examined a specimen in which the whole of the head and neck, and a portion of the back, were pure white.
Obs. The example figured in my Plate is a particularly fine male bird obtained in the Canterbury district, the skin of which is now in my collection:—Crown dark castaneous with greenish reflexions; the rest of the head, as well as the nape, metallic or bronzy green; a mark of fulvous white, a quarter of an inch wide in the middle, separating the dark brown of the upper fore neck from the rich castaneous colouring below; the feathers of the lower hind neck and shoulders more or less vermiculated with chestnut-brown; scapulars very prettily marked, being dark brown with a broad lunate spot of velvety black on the outer web, bordered along the inner edge with a line of fulvous brown, beyond which the webs are conspicuously vermiculated with chestnut-brown.
The female is somewhat smaller than the male. In some specimens the large wing-coverts overlapping the speculum are broadly margined at the tips with pale rufous.
Note. Mr. Reischek brought from the West Coast Sounds some examples of an apparently smaller form of this Duck. A pair of these (now in my collection), marked male and female, were shot together at night, at the mouth of a creek in Supper Cove. The male (in the “young” plumage described above) gives the following measurements:—Total length 16·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 7·25; tail 2·75; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; tarsus 1·25; middle toe and claw 1·9. The female is smaller, the wing from flexure being only 7 inches.
Some confusion has hitherto existed regarding this species, owing to the differences of plumage exhibited by the male, female, and young; but I trust that the above exhaustive account will sufficiently clear up the difficulty. I have shot birds in the various states of plumage described above, and have determined the question of sex by careful dissection.
This elegant little Duck is distributed all over the country, being met with in every inland lake, and often in the deep freshwater streams which run into them, where the overhanging vegetation affords ready shelter and concealment. Being a nocturnal feeder, it is not so commonly seen as the
For many miles along the low banks of the Manawatu and other tidal rivers in the North Island there are what the settlers term “kahikatea swamps,” extending often considerable distances inland. Here the land, at all times wet and swampy, is liable to frequent inundations from the river freshets. The trees, which consist almost entirely of white pine, are laden with a prodigal growth of kiekie ( Freycinetia banksii), which entwines itself around the trunks, throwing out, tier above tier, its waving bunches of flag-leaves till a single tree sometimes supports many tons of this epiphytic growth; it also spreads along the damp ground, forming an almost impenetrable tangle, and shading from the sunlight the deep water-holes left by the subsiding river. Into this secure retreat, where the sportsman and his dog alike are baffled by the very exuberance of the vegetation, the Brown Duck loves to betake itself during the day, coming out in the cool hours of the evening to feed in the creeks and lagoons.
This Duck often wanders to a distance from its usual haunts. It has been met with in a raupo swamp far up the Wangaehu valley, and Captain Mair has found it among the thick undergrowth in a kakikatea swamp, in the remote Urewera country.
In the settlers’ bush-clearings at Eketahuna, in the Forty-mile Bush, I found them long after dark in the drains or watercourses along the sides of the road, diligently hunting for their food and uttering at intervals a soft and rather musical note. They were very tame, allowing me to approach within a few feet of them.
It is a very indifferent flier, but swims well and dives with facility. When shooting on a lake near Tiakitahuna, in the Upper Manawatu, some years ago, I came upon a flock of sixty or more of these birds; instead of taking wing when closely followed, they swam towards the shore, and then forming into a line they hurried forward in a very impetuous manner, keeping close under the banks of the lake, and uttering a low confused twitter.
It nests in places contiguous to its ordinary haunts, always selecting a dry and secluded spot for that purpose. Like many other Ducks, it forms its nest of dry grass, and lines the interior with soft down plucked from its own body. The eggs, which vary in number from five to eight, are very oval, large for the size of the bird, measuring 2·3 inches in length by 1·7 in breadth, and of a dark cream colour, with a slightly greasy surface.
Some years ago I received from Mr. Mr. “1. These mainly partook in type of the Domestic Duck, but were smaller and more plump in shape; colour creamy brown with darker markings, inclining to white on lower part of breast, throat, and cheek; a dark line passing through the eye, as in “No. 2. One of these half-bred Ducks mated with a Grey Duck “No. 3. This Duck, when mated with a drake of “No. 4. A drake, bred “No. 5. This season (1885) there was a brood of six, reared by a hybrid Duck, which might be easily mistaken for a coloured call-duck, and which was mated to “The hybrids lay twice in the season, but few young are reared, owing to want of convenient mates; and numbers are destroyed by dogs, cats, hawks, and rats. The latter are very destructive.” (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. xviii. pp. 134, 135.)Anas gibberifrons and not to Anas superciliosa Anas superciiosa) was trapped in the Wakatipu Lake district, and readily became tame, but was very shy with strangers. In the third spring it paired with a Domestic Duck (A. boschas). A brood of six hybrids was reared.A. superciliosa; beak brownish yellow; legs dull yellow; speculum blue, outer side black, margined with white, as in Domestic Duck. The drakes very similar to English Wild Duck, and having the curled tail-feathers; speculum blue. Could fly fairly well, but with reluctance.(A. superciliosa), and one Duck was reared, which in colour and size was almost identical with A. superciliosa, but had the speculum green, margined with white, and a slight touch of white on some of the secondary feathers of wing. Could fly strongly.Anas superciliosa, produced a brood in type and colour like the latter, some of which have reverted to a wild state. For several seasons the first brood have been all dark-coloured, and the second brood always includes pure white, or albinoes, and white with markings or dark pencillings of rufous; speculum green; dark-coloured bill and legs; curled tail-feathers wanting.inter se, might be described as in foundation-colour like A. superciliosa; slightly tinged on the head with green; light colour on cheeks; dark mark through eyes; breast rufous; speculum green; tail and tail-coverts inclining to black, edged with brown; two small curled feathers in tail.A. superciliosa. The Ducks were slightly larger than the latter; foundation-colour and markings similar, having a washed-out look; sides of breast forward of thigh white-grey, same as lower part of breast of A. boschas. Bill blackish green in some, with legs the same; yellow in others, chequered with black, and legs yellowish black; speculum green, the outer edge black, margined with a white band above and below. The drake was identical in general appearance to Anas boschas; green head, white ring on front of neck, one curled tail-feather only. Colour of speculum green, margined with white. Can fly, but are thoroughly domestic. As in the Mallard, the bright colouring changes with the seasons.
♂. General plumage slaty grey on the upper, and white on the underparts; crown and nape steel-black; throat white mottled with grey. Colours very indeterminate, the plumage of the back being much varied and
♀. General plumage pale brown, with darker shaft-lines; upper parts prettily banded and mottled, partaking more of the appearance of a wild bird than a domestic one; vertex dark brown, with a slight gloss; throat and fore neck prettily stippled with black, just as in A. gibberifrons; speculum distinct, velvety black in its outer portion, and bordered above and below with a well-defined band of white; tail-feathers dark brown, with whitish edges. Bill yellow, with the unguis dark brown, and a broad mark of the same colour across the middle.
In my Introduction (pages xviii to xxxv) I have given an account of the various ancient forms of New-Zealand birds known to us by their fossil remains. To these must be added the extinct Duck, apparently allied to Anas chlorotis, of which a skeleton from the Earnscleugh Caves, in Otago, has been described
Annales de la Soc. Géol. de Belg. vol. ii. p. 123.
Anas (Mareca) gibberifrons, Müller, Nat. Gesch. Land- en Volkenk. p. 159 (1841).
Querquedula gibberifrons, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 650 (1856).
Anas gibberifrons, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Anseres, p. 58 (1866).
Anas gibbifrons, Eyton, Synopsis Anat. p. 94 (1869).
Anas gracilis, Buller, Ibis, 1869, p. 41.
Nettion gibberifrons, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 33 (1871).
Virago castanea, Newton, P. Z. S. 1871, p. 651.
Anas castanea, Hutton, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. xii. p. 272 (1880, nec Gould).
Ad. suprà brunneus, dorsi plumis fulvescente marginatis: pileo saturatiùs brunneo fulvescente longitudinaliter notato, quasi striolato, occipite vix viridi nitente: facie laterali fulvescenti-albidâ, minutè brunneo striolatâ: tectricibus alarum saturatè cinerascenti-brunneis unicoloribus, majoribus ad apicem latissimè albis, fasciam conspicuam alarem exhibentibus: remigibus saturatè brunneis, secundariis extùs lætè velutinis, angustè albo terminatis, pennis duabus mediis extùs nitenti-viridibus, secundariis dorsalibus intùs brunneis dorso concoloribus: caudâ brunneâ, rectricibus obsoletè fulvescente marginatis: gutture toto fulvescenti-albido, unicolore: corpore reliquo subtùs brunnescenti-fulvo, plumis medialiter saturatè brunneis, quasi marmoratis, hypochondriis magis distinctè, pectore medio et abdomine obsoletiùs notatis: rostro pallidè brunneo, versus apicem mandibulæ flavicanti-albo: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
Adult male. Upper surface dusky brown, with greenish reflexions; the feathers of the back and the scapulars narrowly margined with fulvous white; crown and nape blackish brown, minutely marked with fulvous white; throat, fore neck, and sides of the head fulvous white, the latter marked with sagittate spots of brown; underparts light fulvous brown with obscure spots of a darker shade, especially on the breast and sides of the body, each feather having a broad central mark of blackish brown; throat and abdomen more or less tinged with cinnamon; primaries and tail-feathers dark brown; the outer portion of the upper wing-coverts pure white, forming a conspicuous bar across the wing; the secondaries velvety black, narrowly tipped with fulvous, and a speculum of shining green occupying the outer webs of the three middle ones. Irides dark brown; bill pale brown, yellowish white towards the base of lower mandible; feet pale brown. Length 17 inches; extent of wings 25·5; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; tarsus 1·25; middle toe and claw 1·25.
Female. Somewhat smaller than the male, and with the tints of the plumage paler. In other respects the sexes are precisely alike. Length 15·5 inches; extent of wings 23·5; wing, from flexure, 7·5; tail 3·5.
Albinism. My collection contains a specimen (obtained from the Wairarapa in June 1879) adorned with a lovely white head; there is an irregular patch of brown on the vertex between the eyes, and the chin and throat are likewise brown; but around the upper part of the neck there is a patchy white collar, and the upper wings are almost wholly white, as are also the edges of the wings and some of the primaries and secondaries.
Obs. I have examined specimens from Celebes, and although I am not prepared at present to separate our bird, it seems to me that the former are appreciably smaller in size and darker in plumage.
I obtained my first specimens of this somewhat rare Duck (in 1866) on the Oroua stream, near its junction with the Manawatu, in the Province of Wellington. I observed that on being disturbed from the marsh where they were apparently feeding they rose high in the air, and came down suddenly into the creek with a rapid, oblique, and rather awkward flight. On the water they kept near to each other, and I killed both at one shot. They proved, on dissection, to be male and female; I found the skin very tender, and the flesh extremely delicate, with fat of a bright yellow colour.
I afterwards saw a pair on the wing, passing over one of the freshwater lagoons of the Upper Manawatu, the white alar bar being very conspicuous; and, subsequently, I obtained a fine specimen in the flesh from Napier. It is comparatively plentiful in some of the sulphur-springs at Ohinemutu, and was so formerly at Rotomahana, where, as Captain Mair informs me, he once killed as many as eleven at a single shot on the water. It sometimes swims in pairs, but usually associates in small flocks of a dozen or more. It is easily distinguished from all the other species by the conspicuous white bar on the wings. Its form is remarkably slender and graceful, the contour of the body being almost as elongate as that of a Gannet. The stomach of one I dissected contained numerous particles of gravel and comminuted vegetable matter.
Although of rare occurrence in most parts of New Zealand, the species has a wide geographical distribution, examples having been recorded from Timor, Flores, Celebes, Northern Australia, South Australia, and New Caledonia. It bears a close resemblance to Anas punctata of Australia; but it is appreciably smaller, and the male does not exhibit the bright summer plumage of that species. Mr. Gould, in his account of Anas punctata, observes:—“There appear to be two very distinct races of this bird, one of which is much larger than the other; so great, in fact, is the difference in this respect in specimens from various parts of the country, that the idea presents itself of their being really distinct species. The smaller race inhabits Tasmania, the larger the western and southern portions of Australia.” These remarks, no doubt, refer to the present species, inasmuch as I was able to identify a specimen received by the late Sir J. von Haast from Australia with the true A. gibberifrons. This circumstance was noticed by me in a communication to the ‘Ibis’ (1869, p. 42, note); and I have since had an opportunity of further verifying the fact by the examination of several specimens in the Sydney Museum.
An excellent plate of this Duck appeared in the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society’ (1882, pp. 453, 454, pl. xxxiii.), in illustration of a paper by Dr. Sclater, in which he reported that a pair of live ones from Australia, in the Society’s Gardens at Regent’s Park (previously supposed to be Dr. Sclater continues:—“There is no longer any doubt that we have here to deal with a species which, however much it may resemble the female of I happened to be present at the meeting of November 1871, and ventured to express a strong opinion at the time that the specimen exhibited as ♀ A. castanea), had nested in what is termed the “Waders’ Pond,” towards the end of March, and had brought out four nice young birds Anas castanea, is quite distinct, and of which the sexes, as may be proved by the examination of our breeding birds, are very nearly alike, the female being merely slightly smaller in size and duller in plumage. It is, in fact, the species described in the ‘Ibis’ for 1869, by Dr. Buller, from New-Zealand specimens, as Anas gracilis, but subsequently identified by Dr. Finsch (‘Ibis,’ 1869, p. 380) with Anas gibberifrons, S. Müller. As regards the synonyms of this species, after the positive statement of Dr. Finsch and Prof. Schlegel, I think we can hardly accept Prof. Hutton’s unsupported opinion that ‘Anas gracilis is distinct from A. gibberifrons’… . . Having been in error myself as to my first identification of these Ducks, I fear I have also led Prof. Newton into an error upon the same subject. In January 1871 I furnished Prof. Newton with what I believed to be specimens (in the flesh) of a male and female Anas castanea that had recently died in the Society’s Gardens. Prof. Newton, trusting to Mr. Baker’s determination that the presumed female was really of that sex, read a paper upon these birds before this Society in November of that year, in which he pointed out that the presumed female possessed the extraordinary peculiarity of having a bulla ossea, hitherto only known to occur in the male sex of the Anatidæ, and proposed in consequence the new generic term Virago for Anas castanea. But Prof. Newton having been kind enough to send me up the skins of this presumed pair of birds for examination, I think I may say that there is little doubt that Mr. Baker must have made an error in his determination of the sex of the supposed female, and that that bird is in all probability a male of Anas gibberifrons.”Anas castanea was in reality ♂ A. gibberifrons, a view which has proved to be correct.
Nesonetta aucklandica, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, p. 16 (1844).
Ad. brunneus, vix viridi nitens, plumis tergi nonnullis nigro irroratis: alis concoloribus brunneis, secundariis clariore viridi nitentibus: pileo saturatiore brunneo: facie laterali totâ et gutture toto brunneis saturatiore brunneo maculatis: corpore reliquo subtùs rufescenti-brunneo, indistinctè saturatiore brunneo maculato, pectoris lateribus nigro irroratis: subcaudalibus brunneis nigro terminatis: rostro nigricanti-brunneo: pedibus rubescenti-brunneis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
Adult male. Head and neck warm umber-brown, slightly glossed with green on the vertex and nape, largely mottled with white on the chin, and less so on the fore neck; entire upper surface dark umber-brown, the feathers composing the mantle margined with chestnut-brown, and the whole of the plumage glossed in certain lights with metallic green, which is brighter on the upper wing-coverts; upper part of breast, sides of the body, flanks, and under tail-coverts dark chestnut-brown; quills and tail-feathers blackish brown, with a ruddy glow on the former; there is no speculum, but the secondaries are darker on their outer webs and are terminally margined outwardly with fulvous white; lower part of breast and the abdomen fulvous white, varied more or less with brown, especially towards the vent. Irides dark hazel; bill blackish brown; legs and feet reddish brown. Total length 15 inches; wing, from flexure, 5·2; tail 2·5; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; tarsus 1·2; middle toe and claw 2.
Obs. The type of this species in the British Museum (which was brought home by the Antarctic Expedition) is slightly larger, and differs somewhat in its coloration, the plumage of the shoulders and the sides of the body being more or less vermiculated.
The above description and the accompanying figure are taken from the only specimen of this bird in my collection (an adult male), which was brought from the Auckland Islands by Mr. Burton, of the Colonial Museum, in May 1880.
I have never met with this species in New Zealand proper, but there is a specimen in the British Museum, presented by Sir George Grey when Governor of the Colony, without, however, any information as to locality.
Nothing is at present known of its habits, except that, owing to the abbreviated form of its wings, it is quite incapable of flight.
Variegated Goose, Lath. Gen. Hist. iii. pt. 2, p. 441 (1785).
Anas variegata, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 505 (1788, ex Lath.).
Casarka castanea, Eyton, Monogr. Anat. p. 108, pl. 10 (1838).
Casarca variegata, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 198 (1843).
Anas cheneros, Forst. Descr. Anim. p. 92 (1844).
Anser variegata, Ellman, Zool. 1861, p. 7471.
Putangitangi; Putakitaki in the South Island; “Paradise Duck” of the colonists.
♂ pileo undique et cervice virescenti-nigerrimis: collo undique nigricante, ochraceo vermiculatim vario: dorso saturatè cinerascenti-fusco, plumis omnibus albido transvermiculatis, plumis castaneis absentibus: dorso postico nigricante obscurè albido transvermiculato: uropygio et supracaudalibus purpurascenti-nigris: remigibus nigris, minoribus extùs pulcherrimè viridibus, secundariis extùs lætè castaneis, intùs cinereis, versus apicem albo vermiculatis: caudâ nigrâ: corpore subtùs reliquo cinerascenti-fusco, albido transversim vermiculato: abdomine medio castaneo obscurè nigro transfasciato: eubalaribus albis, imis cinera-scentibus, marginalibus paullò nigricante vermiculatis: rostro plumbescenti-nigro: pedibus et iride nigris.
♀ mari dissimilis: suprà fuscus, plumis fulvescente vel albido transversim vermiculatis, quibusdam castaneis aut eodem modo vermiculatis vel omninò unicoloribus: dorso postico nigricante obscurè albido transvermiculato: dorso postico et uropygio, alis et caudâ ut in mari coloratis: pileo undique et cervice purè albis: corporesubtùs castaneo, plumis quibusdam nigricantibus fulvescente aut albido transvermiculatis: abdomine medio saturatè castaneo, nigro transfasciato: subcaudalibus lætiùs castaneis: subalaribus ut in mari coloratis.
Adult male. Head and greater portion of neck black, with bluish-green reflexions; neck below and fore part of breast rich dark brown, minutely spotted or freckled with pale rufous; back and scapulars, as well as the lower part of the breast, sides of the body and flanks black, mottled and marked with wavy lines or vermiculations of white; on the sides and flanks the vermiculation is very distinct, and adds much to the beauty of the plumage; the rest of the underparts dark rufous spotted and barred with black; under tail-coverts bright ferruginous with darker stains; the whole of the wing-coverts pure white; the primaries glossy black, lighter on their under surface; the lesser quills shining green on their exposed webs, dusky and margined with white on their inner, forming a large, bright speculum; the four inner secondaries have their outer webs rufous, becoming paler towards the tips, and their inner webs dark cinereous, freckled more or less with white. The contrast of colours described above gives the upper surface of the wings a very beautiful appearance when partially spread; the under surface or lining of the wings is pure white. Irides and bill black; legs greyish black. Total length 24 inches; extent of wings 47; wing, from flexure, 14·5 tail 6; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2; tarsus 2·75; middle toe and claw 2·75; hind toe and claw ·6.
Obs. In some examples (probably immature birds) the middle tail-feathers are terminally margined with pale brown, and the lateral ones vermiculated at the tips with white.
Adult female. Head and greater portion of neck pure white; lower part of neck, breast, and sides of the body
Young. In the young state the sexes are alike, the plumage resembling more nearly that of the adult male. Head and upper portion of neck sooty black, varied with light brown; lower portion of neck dark brown, with narrow transverse lines of rufous; the whole of the under surface blackish brown, mottled and barred with rufous, each feather narrowly margined with white; shoulders, back, and lower sides of the body black, with white freckles and vermiculations; wings as in the adult; rump and tail black; under tail-coverts pale ferruginous.
Progress towards maturity. Examples exhibit much individual variety in their progress towards maturity; this is especially the case with the female, the first indication of change being the appearance of irregular white feathers on the head and neck, which rapidly increase in number till the plumage of those parts becomes entirely white; and in a more advanced state the underparts are varied with scattered feathers of rufous in such a manner as to impart a very lively effect. Some specimens of the immature male are marked with rufous on the forehead and lores.
Nestling. Covered with soft down, for the most part pure white, but largely varied on the upper surface with brown; the cheeks, throat, fore neck, and all the under surface entirely white; the top and upper sides of the head, in a line with the eyes, the hind neck and shoulders, a broad mark down the back spreading on the tail, the anterior portion and tips of wings, and a broad patch on each flank, continued in a line over the thighs, dull umber-brown; bill and feet pale brown.
Obs. Younger males differ from the perfectly matured ones in having a tinge of brown about the head, and the feathers of the shoulders more or less margined with dull fulvous brown, presenting on the surface wavy lines.
On the west coast it is very scarce. A few are always to be seen on the river-flats near the mouth of the Ohau, and it has been shot on the Wanganni race-course; but its comparative rarity may be inferred from the following paragraph, which appeared, not long ago, in the ‘Rangitikei Advocate’:—“The well-known chief Utiku has a pair of rare curiosities at the Houhou pah, in the shape of a brace of tame Paradise Docks. The creatures are as docile as domestic poultry.” Writing of this species, Darwin says, in his ‘Descent of Man’ (footnote p. 479):—“The New-Zealand Sheldrake offers a quite anomalous case; the head of the female is pure white, and her back is redder than that of the male; the head of the male is of a rich dark hazel colour, and his back is clothed with finely pencilled slate-coloured feathers, so that altogether he may be considered as the more beautiful of the two. He is larger and more pugnacious than, the female, and does not sit on the eggs. So that in all these respects this species comes under our first class of cases; but Mr. Sclater (Proc. Z. S. 1866, p. 150) was much surprised to observe that the young of both sexes, when about three months old, resembled in their dark heads and necks the adult males, instead of the adult females, so that it would appear in this case that the females have been modified, while the males and the young have retained a former state of plumage.”Of the eight species of this tribe inhabiting New Zealand the “Paradise Duck” of the colonists is undoubtedly the finest. It is spread all over the South Island, being extremely abundant in some localities; but in the North Island, although abundant in the Wairarapa and in the Ruataniwha plains, its range does not extend beyond lat. 39° S., or, in other words, it ceases to be met with after passing the Petane district, on the east coastvice versa. At other times they wander about in pairs; and whether reposing on the water or feeding
In districts where it has been much molested it becomes exceedingly shy; and it is then impossible to shoot it except by stratagem. One bird appears to keep watch while its mate is feeding; and on the slightest alarm it sounds its note of warning, to which the other responds; and both then observe the strictest vigilance, taking wing on the first approach of danger. The call-notes of the two sexes differ remarkably: the drake, with his head bent downwards, utters a prolonged guttural note, tuk-o-o-o, tuk-o-o-o; and the duck, elevating her head, responds to her mate with a shrill call, like the high note of a clarionet.
Its habits resemble, in many respects, those of the Common Sheldrake of Europe (Casarca rutila); and, like that species, it subsists to a great extent on tender grasses and other succulent herbage. Its wings are armed at the flexure with a hard round knob, denuded of feathers, the use of which, in the economy of the bird, I have not yet been able to discover. During the moulting-season it is unable to fly, and, being a very indifferent diver, it is readily captured. Even when thus taken in an adult state it is easily domesticated, and it has been successfully introduced into England. It is to be seen, in all its beauty, on the artificial lake at Kew Gardens and on the ornamental waters of several private estates in various parts of the country; and it breeds in the Zoological Society’s Gardens in Regent’s Park. I have kept them in New Zealand, and found them easy to domesticate and very tractable. They require, however, constant access to a stream or pond of water; for if denied this privilege they become subject to attacks of cramp, which in the end prove fatal. On these occasions the bird entirely loses the use of its legs, and, lying flat on its breast, flaps the ground violently with its wings in apparent agony. When stationed years ago at Wanganui, as Resident Magistrate, I kept in my garden several pairs which had become perfectly tame. I ultimately presented them to Sir George Grey, and they were then removed to the island of Kawau, where, in the enjoyment of a larger amount of freedom, they soon commenced to breed.
On one occasion, when I was staying at Omahu, in the Hawke’s Bay district, the natives brought in a Paradise Duck, apparently in perfect health, but having only one wing, the other having been shot away at the junction at some former period, and the wound having then healed over.
The ingenuity with which the old birds decoy intruders away from the nest or young is very remarkable; and I have myself been so completely deceived by a Paradise Duck feigning a disabled wing, that I have followed it for a hundred yards or more, endeavouring to overtake it, before discovering the ruse it had so successfully practised. Mr. Travers refers to this subject, in a communication to the Wellington Philosophical Society Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1871, vol. iv. p. 207.
“The Paradise Duck breeds from October to January, and not unfrequently rears two broods during the season. I have, in fact, more than once seen two broods of different ages running with the same pair of parent birds. The single broods vary in number, the largest I ever saw being ten. Both parents are anxious and watchful about their young, resorting to the ruse of pretending lameness and inability to rise from the ground, in order to draw off any animal which they think
All of our Plovers resort to similar expedients for the protection of their young, but some species appear to develop a greater degree of intelligence than others. For example, the Oyster-catcher, when in danger of molestation, has been known to bury its downy young in the soft sand, thus ensuring absolute concealment. Captain Mair assures me that he has witnessed this himself in the Bay of Plenty, and that, keeping his eye on the spot, he has actually scooped the young birds out with his hands.
Mr.
In selecting a breeding-place it displays some fastidiousness: generally speaking, the nest, rudely formed of dry grass, and deeply lined with feathers and down, is placed among the reeds and tussocks near the water’s edge; sometimes, however, it is situated on rising ground at a distance from its ordinary haunts; and in one instance, in the Upper Manawatu, I found a pair breeding in a small cavern in the face of a sandstone cliff overhanging the river A correspondent (Mr.
In May 1866 Dr. Sclater reported to the Zoological Society that a pair of these birds had bred for the first time in the spring of the previous year in one of the small ponds in the Gardens. Five eggs were laid in one of the breeding-boxes about the second week in April and five young birds were hatched on the 15th May. One of the five died in the first downy plumage; and when about three months old the other four moulted into the first feather-dress, in which stage they were all alike, having the head and neck black. In the autumnal moult three of them threw off the black hood and assumed the characteristic white head of the female.
Leptotarsis eytoni, Gould in Eyton’s Monogr. Anat. p. 111 (1838).
Dendrocygna eytoni, Gray, Cat. Anseres Brit. Mus. p. 132 (1844).
Ad. suprà cinerascenti-brunneus, dorsi plumis paucis griseo lavatis, dorso postico vix pallidiore: supracaudalibus pallidè ochrascentibus saturatè brunneo latè terminatis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus brunneis, secundariis cinerascente lavatis: caudâ saturatè brunneâ, versus apicem pallidiore: pileo summo et collo postico sordidè ochrascentibus: facie laterali pallidiore, fulvescentiore: gutture albo: jugulo et pectore superiore ochrascentibus vix rufescente lavatis: pectore laterali clariùs, rufescente nigro trans-fasciato: plumis hypochondriacis elongatis, lanceolatis, flavicanti-albis, utrinque nigro angustè limbatis: abdomine medio et subcaudalibus albicantibus his purioribus: subalaribus pallidè rufescentibus hrunneo transnotatis: rostro pallidè brunneo, nigro marmorato: pedibus pallidè brunneis: iride saturatè brunneâ.
Adult. Head, neck, and fore part of breast yellowish brown, tinged with ochre-yellow on the crown and nape, and fading to greyish white on the throat; the whole of the back, rump, and upper surface of wings dark cinereous brown; the inferior scapulars and some of the interscapulars margined with greyish white; upper tail-coverts yellowish white, broadly tipped with blackish brown; upper sides of the body and lower part of the breast chestnut-brown, with numerous regular transverse bars of black, broad and conspicuous on the aides, but becoming narrower on the breast; the long acuminate feathers covering the flanks yellowish white, broadly and distinctly margined with black; abdomen and under tail-coverts pure white; quills and tail-feathers coppery brown. Irides dark brown; bill yellowish brown, largely blotched with black, the nail darker brown; legs and feet pale flesh-brown. Length 16 inches; wing, from flexure, 9·5; tail 3; bill, along the ridge 175, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; taraus 2; middle toe and claw 2·4; hind toe and claw ·75.
Cat. Birds of N. Z. 1871, p. 77. Trans. N.-Z. Inat. 1871, vol. iv. p. 213.There are two recorded instances of the recent occurrence of this species in New Zealand: the one at the Thames
Captain Stokes has furnished the following account of its habits:—” When on the wing it makes a peculiar whistling sound that can be heard at a great distance, and which changes as it alights into a sort of chatter. It perches on trees in a very clumsy manner, swinging and pitching to and fro. On the north-west coast it is one of the commonest birds of the country. We subsequently often found it on the rivers of the north coast, but not within some miles of their mouths, or near their upper waters, from which it would appear that it inhabits certain marshes of the river, only we never found it in the swamps. The furthest south it was afterwards met with was on the Albert River, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, in lat. 18° S., which gives it a range of six and a half degrees of latitude over the northern part of the continent. Its nest never came under our notice, consequently we are not acquainted either with the size or colour of the eggs, neither did we see any young birds during the period of our observations, ranging from July to November.”
Mr. White, of Adelaide, informed Mr. Gould that he once found the nest of this species in a hollow log, and, that according to the natives, the usual number of eggs is from eight to ten.
Spatula rhynchotis, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii. App. p. 198 (1843).
Spatula variegata, Gould, P. Z. S. 1856, p. 95.
Anas rhynchotis, Bllman, Zool. 1861, p. 7471.
Rhynchaspis variegata, Finsch, J. f. O. 1870, p. 358.
Spatula variegata, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 252 (1873).
Tete, Pateke, Putaitai, Kuruwhengi, Kuruwhengu, Papaunguungu, Kahoho, and Wetawetangu; “Spoon-bill Duck” of the colonists.
♂ suprà saturatè brunneus, æneo nitens, pilei dorsique postici plumis obscurè fulvescente marginatis: loris et mento nigricanti-brunneis: lineâ faciali latâ ab oculo ahteriore ductâ et infra gulam conjunctâ facie reliquâ laterali et nuchâ sordidè cinereis virescente adumbratis: collo postico sordidè cinereo: interscapulii plumis brunneis, latè fulvescente marginatis: scapularibus albis, fulvescente lavatis, quibusdam omninò brunneis, reliquis æneo-brunneo fasciatis aut maculatis: tectricibus alarum pulchrè cyaneis, majoribus exterioribus albo terminatis, fasciam parvam exhibentibus: remigibus æneo-brunneis, minoribus extùs pulcherrimè viridibus, secundariis elongatis versus apicem medialiter albis, remigibus dorsalibus extùs pulchrè cyaneis: supracaudalibus exterioribus lætè viridibus: caudâ brunneâ, rectricibus albido marginatis et terminatis: gutture imo et collo laterali albis, plumis plus minusve distinctè medialiter nigris: pectore superiore ochrascente, plumis ad basin albis et brunneo crescentim transfasciatis: corpore reliquo subtùs intensè ferrugineo, pectore superiore magis distinctè, pectore imo et abdomine obscuriùs nigro notatis: plagâ crissali utrinque albâ nigro paullulum vermiculatâ: subcaudalibus nigris, lateralibus et longioribus viridibus, quibusdam fulvo transfasciatis et terminatis: subalaribus albis, imis cinerascentibus, marginalibus fulvo maculatis et pallidè cyaneo lavatis: rostro nigro: pedibus aurantiacis: iride lætè flavâ.
♀ mari dissimilis, ubique sordidior: suprâ brunneus, uropygiò virescente, plumis omnibus latè fulvo marginatis: facie et collo lateralibus fulvescentibus brunneo striatis, gutture sordidè fulvescente: corpore reliquo subtùs ochrascenti-fulvo, plumis nigro medialiter notatis: tectricibus alarum cyaneis, angustè fulvo marginatis, majoribus albo terminatis: remigibus æneo-brunneis, secundariis latiùs fulvo marginatis.
Adult male. Crown of the head and space surrounding the base of the bill brownish black, edged with grey; in front of each eye a broad crescent of white, meeting and widening on the chin, where it is more or less speckled with black; cheeks, sides, and anterior portion of hind neck dark grey, with beautiful green reflexions, mixed with steel-blue in certain lights; a streak down the fore neck, and a circular zone bounding the grey portion, fulvous white, largely spotted and mottled with brown; neck below and fore part of breast fulvous white, varied with brown, each feather being pure white at the base, then marked with a broad crescent of blackish brown, and tipped with fulvous; on the sides of the neck, towards the breast, the white is very conspicuous, but higher up, and on the hind neck, it diminishes, till at length the dark colour predominates, each feather being blackish brown, with a lunate spot of white in the centre, and tipped with fulvous. The plumage of the upper surface is very beautiful, the whole of the back and rump being blackish brown, edged with pale brown, and glossed with green, while the scapulars, which are of a peculiar elongated form, are marked and varied in a very effective manner; some of the inferior scapulars are white, spotted and
Obs. The above description is taken from a fine specimen in my collection in the best condition of plumage; but it should be mentioned that examples of the adult male present much diversity in the details of their colouring. In some specimens the white crescents on the cheeks are broken or indistinct, and do not meet on the chin, while in others they are very broad and well defined, and at their junction spread over the throat in a long irregular patch. The extent of the white markings on the upper part of the breast and sides of the neck likewise varies considerably in different individuals, as also do the tints of the plumage generally. In birds that have not reached perfect maturity the dark crescents on the sides of the body are often wanting, being represented merely by a few transverse bars of dark brown. The size is likewise variable, an apparently fully adult male in my collection giving the following measurements:—Length 20 inches; extent of wings 27·5; wing, from flexure, 9·25.
Adult female. Crown of the head, nape, back of neck, and all the upper surface blackish brown, each feather broadly margined with fulvous; all the underparts pale ochre-brown, on the sides of the head and neck thickly studded with linear punctations, on the breast and sides largely blotched, and on the abdomen mottled with blackish brown; on closer examination it is seen that on the brest, where the dark colour predominates, each feather is blackish brown in the centre, with light margins; on the abdomen there is a basal and another, subterminal, spot of brown; and the long overlapping tibials are blackish brown, with a broad irregular V-shaped mark, and margined with fulvous; quills and wing-coverts as in the male, but with a duller speculum and a narrower border of white; scapulars velvet-brown, glossed with green, margined and tipped with fulvous, the shorter ones with a central letter-V mark of the same; under surface of wings and axillary plumes pure white, spotted with dusky brown towards the carpal flexure; tail and its upper coverts velvet-brown, with paler margins. Irides reddish brown, sometimes tinged with yellow; bill dark brown; feet pale brown. Length 18·5 inches; extent of wings 29; wing, from flexure, 9; tail 4; bill, from base to extremity of upper mandible 2·25, width at the base ·5, greatest anterior expansion 1, length along the edge of lower mandible 2·5; tarsus 1·25; middle toe and claw 2.
Young male. Head and neck as in the adult female, except that the punctations on the sides are more conspicuous, owing to the ground-colour being lighter; plumage of the upper parts as in the adult female; but the light margins are narrower, the feathers more strongly glossed with velvet-green, and the scapulars marked with a central longitudinal streak of dull brown; lower sides of the neck and the whole of the breast blackish brown, each feather marked near the centre in a crescent form and broadly margined with pale
Young female. Punctation on the sides of the head and neck more distinct thau in the adult; the whole of the upper surface blackish brown, only faintly glossed with green, the scapulars and upper tail-coverts narrowly margined with paler brown; breast, sides of the body, and the whole of the abdomen dull greyish brown, darker on the former, each feather margined with fulvous brown; under wing-coverts and axillary plumes pure white; the long feathers overlapping the thighs dark brown, with paler edges, but without any markings; upper wing-coverts dull purplish grey; the secondaries merely glossed with green, and their coverts tipped with white.
Nestling. The nestling is covered with thick down, with long produced filaments on the upper parts of the body. The downy feathers composing the tail are rather long and have broad spreading plumelets. The upper surface is bright olive-brown; a broad stripe over the eye, another less distinct immediately below the eye, a conspicuous spot on each side of the back behind the wings, and another on each side of the rump, fulvous yellow, shading into brownish olive on the sides of the body and on the breast. Bill brown, with a yellow nail.
Albino. There is a partial albino in the Canterbury Museum—a fine male specimen. Head and nape very highly glossed; a pure white patch crosses the lower fore neck, where the white line should come, then spreads upwards and entirely covers the shoulders and mantle, with only a broken dividing stripe of greyish brown, and is then continued on the scapulars, where it narrows down to a point; the white thigh-spot is exaggerated, and the lateral tail-feathers are margined with white; but in other respects the colours are as in the normal plumage.
The first recorded specimens of this beautiful Duck were forwarded to Europe by Mr.
The species appears to come very near to Since the above was written I have seen a young male of the Australian bird in the Natural-History Museum at Edinburgh (wrongly labelled Rhynchaspis rhynchotis of the Australian continent; but the late Mr. Gould assured me that, although probably a hundred examples of the latter had passed through his hands, he had never seen one with so much white on the sides of the neck and breast as the New-Zealand bird exhibits, and that he had no doubt whatever about their being specifically distinct. Although more familiar with our own bird than the Australian, my examination and comparison of a great number of specimens has brought me to the same conclusion. Whether the two species present other differences of plumage in their earlier states cannot at present be determined, inasmuch as no sufficiently complete account of the Australian bird has ever yet been given. I carefully examined the specimens in the Australian Museum; but these were all in adult plumage; and Mr. Gould’s own collection, being in Philadelphia, is, unfortunately, not readily accessible. The Australian specimens in the British Museum are all males in full plumage, and therefore do not assist the inquirySpatula clypeata): it very closely resembles our Rhynchaspis variegata in the same stage; but the breast is decidedly darker.
On the wing it is more active than the Grey Duck, but its flight is more irregular. The white thigh-spot in the male is very conspicuous when the bird is swimming.
It is by no means a common species in any part of New Zealand, while in the extreme northern portions of the North Island, so far as I am aware, it has never yet been met with. Up to the time of the recent volcanic eruption, it was comparatively plentiful at Rotomahana and at Waihi, but not in other parts of the Lake district, and I have never heard of more than one pair being seen at Rotorua. It is often met with on the Waikato river.
Mr. Cheeseman writes to me from Auckland:—” Rare with us. I have heard of it on the lakes near the Kaipara heads; Mr. Hobbs has sent me a specimen shot on the Whangamarino creek, near Mercer, and it is occasionally seen on Lakes Whangape and Waikare.”
It frequents the shallow lagoons near the sea-coast, and the quiet bush-creeks overshadowed by trees, usually associating in pairs, but sometimes forming parties of three or more. It flies with rapidity, and often at a considerable elevation, descending to the ground or water in a slanting manner, and with the wings bent in the form of a bow. When disturbed on the water it produces a low whistling note; but it is far less suspicious than the common Grey Duck, and is easily approached and shot. It subsists on minute freshwater mollusks, aquatic insects, tender herbage, and the seeds of the toetoe and other plants; on opening the stomachs of several I have found a mass of comminuted substances of a greenish colour, among which could be distinguished fragments of vegetable matter, seeds, the remains of insects, and numerous small pebbles of white chalcedony. It no doubt extracts much organic matter from the slimy mud and sand in the places it is accustomed to frequent, inasmuch as nature has furnished it with a very remarkable spoon-shaped bill, from which it derives its popular name. The surface of the upper mandible is smooth, but slightly furrowed from the nostrils outwardly, and in its anterior portion is marked with numerous punctures; its nail is almond-shaped, and forms a strong overhanging lip with a hard cutting-edge; in the lower mandible there is a corresponding development, resembling in shape the human finger-nail, which fits into the upper process, forming, so to speak, a strong terminal beak; the lamellæ are highly developed in both mandibles, presenting a comb-like appearance; and in addition to this the lower mandible has a rasped outer edge. The tongue is large, fleshy, and of a very peculiar shape; it is fringed along its upper edges with a series of stiff, closely set bristles; towards the extremity it is deeply concave, and is furnished anteriorly and on each side with a horny semitransparent membrane. In the female the bill is appreciably smaller than in the male, and the spoon-like expansion is not so highly developed.
Mr. Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1870, vol. iii. p. 103.Aciphylla); it was made of fine grass, in which was a fair amount of down, but not so much as is usually seen in the neat of the Grey Duck; it was deep and rather narrow across the top (about 7 inches); the eggs were ten in number, ovoido-conical in form, very smooth and fine in texture, creamy white, with a slight greenish tint, and measuring in length 2 inches 1½ line, with a breadth of 1 inch 5½ lines.” This nest was found on November 7; but as some of the eggs which it contained were hatched out, under a hen, on November 18, it is inferred that the Shoveller commenced her nest about the first week of October. The young bird so hatched greatly resembled those of the Grey Duck (Anas superciliosa) in colour, but could be readily distinguished by the peculiar form of the bill
The number of eggs is no doubt variable; for I have a note of the occurrence of a nest at Kaiapoi (Canterbury) containing no less than thirteen.
New-Zealand Duck, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 543 (1785).
Anas novæ seelandiæ, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 541 (1788, ex Lath.).
Anas novæ zealandiæ, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 870 (1790).
Fuligula novæ zealandiæ, Steph. Gen. Zool. xii. p. 210 (1824).
Anas atricilla, Forster, Descr. Anim. p. 95 (1844).
Fulix novæ seelandiæ, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 86 (1871).
Papango, Tetepango, Matapouri, Titiporangi, and Raipo; “Black Teal” and “Widgeon” of the colonists.
♂ ad. cristatus: suprà nigricans, vix virescente nitens, obsoletè et minutissimè fulvo vermiculatim punctulatus: tectricibus alarum paullò brunnescentioribus viridi nitentibus, haud vermiculatis: remigibus brunneis, extùs et versus apicem nigricantibus, scapis rufescentibus, minimis extùs ad basin albis, fasciam alarem conspicuam formantibus, secundariis intimis sordidè virescente lavatis: caudâ nigricante: capite summo purpureo, faciei et colli lateribus viridi nitentibus: pectore sordidè purpurascenti-brunneo: corpore reliquo subtùs albicante, minutè brunneo transvermiculato, hypochondriis rufescentibus: subcaudalibus nigri-cantibus: subalaribus albidis, exterioribus brunnescentibus: rostro cyanescenti-nigro: pedibus saturatè brunneis: iride lætè flavâ.
♀ magis brunnescens: subtùs pallidior: genis anticis et mento ipso plus minusve albidis.
Adult male. Head and neck black, glossed with purple and green; at the base of the lower mandible a spot of pure white; back and upper surface of wings black strongly glossed with green, the scapulars and upper wing-coverts minutely pricked or dusted with white; breast brownish black, freckled and dusted with white in its lower portion; underparts fulvous white varied with brown; beyond the vent dark glossy brown; sides and long plumage overlapping the thighs dark castaneous brown, with a rich vinous gloss; primaries velvety brown, paler on their inner webs; secondaries velvety brown glossed with green, the outer ones white in their basal portion, presenting, in the closed wing, a narrow white speculum; sometimes the white extends also to the primaries, forming a conspicuous alar bar; tail dark brown. Irides bright yellow; bill bluish black; feet dark brown. Total length 17 inches; extent of wings 26; wing, from flexure, 7·5; tail 2·5; bill, along the ridge 1·5, along the edge of lower mandible 1·9; tarsus 1·25; middle toe and claw 2·25.
Female. A broad band surrounding the base of the upper mandible white; head, neck, breast, and sides of the body blackish brown, changing to castaneous on the lower part of the breast and flanks; on the abdomen lighter brown mottled with fulvous white; darker brown in the ventral region; under tail-coverts blackish brown largely marked with white; shoulders dark brown margined with castaneous; back and upper surface of wings blackish brown, glossed with green; speculum as in the male; tail dark brown.
Obs. An example of the female in my collection differs from ordinary specimens in having no frontal band, the feathers surrounding the bill being light castaneous brown, but with a spot of white at the base of the
There is a smaller form in the Canterbury Museum, several of which were obtained at Lake Ellesmere. It is of a more chestnut hue than ordinary specimens, but on a careful comparison I can find nothing to distinguish it from the present species.
Nestling. Has the down thickset; the upper parts pale clove-brown, the underparts white; a dusky collar round the neck; an obscure white spot on each wing, and a smaller one on each side of the rump; the hair-like filaments on the upper parts rather long, very fine in texture, and perfectly black; irides dark brown; bill reddish brown, the under mandible yellow, with a brownish tip; feet light brown, both these and the bill having a fine polish.
This small Duck has all the habits of a true Scaup, although it is generally called by other names. It is freely distributed over the country, frequenting most of the rivers and lagoons, but seldom being met with in the bush-creeks, and never on the open sea-shore. In winter it associates in large flocks, mingling freely with the Grey Duck and other species; but at other times it is more generally met with in pairs or in parties of four or five together. Its powers of flight are very feeble; it takes wing with reluctance, and never rises high in the air, generally only skimming the surface; but it is a very expert diver, and usually trusts to this faculty for eluding pursuit. Even when mortally wounded it will often escape by this means, and take refuge in the dense sedge, whence it can only be dislodged by a retriever well trained to the work.
It is interesting to watch a flock of these birds disporting together in the water—standing up on their feet and flapping their wings, splashing the water as they chase one another, swimming under the surface, and performing other playful antics, accompanying them with a soft sibilant note and, at intervals, a feeble quack-quack.
This Duck is semi-nocturnal in its habits, and when the eel-fishing parties light their fires on the banks of the stream this inquisitive bird swims close up to the spot, and manifests the utmost curiosity in what is going on.
It is naturally a fearless bird, and in waters where it is protected it becomes very tame. I have never heard of any attempt to domesticate it; but this might, I think, be very easily accomplished, and there can be no doubt that it would be a very acceptable addition to the English duck-ponds.
It builds its nest of grass and lines the interior with soft down from its own body, placing it among the swamp-vegetation in situations contiguous to its haunts, or in the centre of a “negro-head” just above the level of the water. The eggs vary in number from five to seven, or even more, and are of a rather large size for such a bird, measuring 2·5 inches in length by 1·75 in breadth; they are of a rich dark cream-colour.
Mr. Travers informs me that he found a nest of this species containing seven eggs as late as the 17th of March Since writing the above I have met with several instances of unhatched clutches as late as the last week in March.
Nyroca australis, Gould in Eyton’s Monogr. Anat. p. 160 (1838).
Aythya australis, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 86 (1871).
Ad. suprà brunneus, tectricibus alarum magis cinerascentibus: remigibus brunneis, extùs et versus apicem nigricantibus, minimis extùs albis nigro terminatis, fasciam alarem conspicuam formantibus: caudâ brunneâ: pileo et collo undique cum pectore superiore saturatè castaneis: corpore reliquo subtùs albo, hypochondriis cum abdomine imo et crisso sordidè castaneis: subcaudalibus et subalaribus albis: rostro nigro, versus apicem cinereo transfasciato: pedibus saturatè brunneis: iride albâ.
Adult male. The general plumage is dark chestnut-brown, paler on the flanks, and deepening to castaneous on the head and nape, where the feathers have a beautiful silky lustre; a broad band of brownish white crosses the underparts; the under tail-coverts, likewise, are white, and on the sides of the rump there are faint spots of greyish white, speckled with brown; quills dark brown; primaries in their middle portion, and the secondaries towards the base, pure white, forming together, in the opened wing, a conspicuous bar, and exhibiting in the closed wing a diagonal triangular spot. Irides white; bill black, with a band of bluish grey near the tip, not including the nail, however, which is black, prominent, and of the shape of the human finger-nail; feet dark leaden brown. Length 19 inches; wing, from flexure, 8; tail 3; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·25; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2·4; hind toe and claw ·6.
Female. Rather smaller than the male and with the plumage duller.
Young male. Has the chestnut-brown plumage much lighter, and the feathers of the back margined with pale-brown; it has also less gloss on the head, and the brownish white of the underparts mottled with brown.
The existence of this well-known Australian Duck in our country was first ascertained by Captain Hutton, who, in 1869, sent me a specimen for determination. He furnished at the same time the following notes:—“I first noticed this bird about two years ago, on the Whangape lake, Lower Waikato, and since on the Waikare lake, where it was abundant in March 1868. On the lakes of the Lower Waikato it is not uncommon, but is so wary that, as yet, I have only been able to obtain three specimens, the first of which was kindly procured for me by Mr.
It has since been found on Lake Ellesmere, in the South Island; and the Canterbury Museum contains several fine specimens from that locality.
In Australia and Tasmania it appears to be thinly distributed, frequenting quiet reaches of rivers (where the water runs slowly), bays and inlets of the sea, and freshwater lagoons.
Shortly before leaving the Colony I observed one, on the wing, in Te Aute Lake in the Hawke’s Bay district.
Soft-billed Duck, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 522 (1785).
Anas malacorhynchus, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 526 (1788, ex Lath.).
Malacorhynchus forsterorum, Wagler, Isis, 1832, p. 1235.
Hymenolaimus malacorhynchus, Gray, Ann. Nat. Hist. 1843, vol. xi. p. 370.
Anas malacorhynchus, Forster, Descr. Anim. p. 94 (1844).
Ad. ubique clarè plumbescens, pileo saturatiore, paullò brunnescente: interscapulii plumis medialiter nigricantibus, gutture vix brunnescente: pectoris superioris et lateralis plumis pallidè castaneo medialiter notatis: subalaribus et subcaudalibus pallidè castaneo lavatis: rostro albicanti-corneo, ad apicem nigro: pedibus saturatè brunneis: iride latè flavâ.
Adult male. General plumage pale slate-blue, darker on the upper parts; the crown of the head and nape, as well as the scapulars and upper wing-coverts, olivaceous, with a slight metallic gloss; the secondaries with a narrow exterior margin of velvety black; the breast thickly spotted with dark chestnut, of which colour there are also a few obscure spots on the under tail-coverts. Irides bright yellow; bill white horn-colour, the tip and the lateral membrane black; legs and feet dark brown. Length 22 inches; extent of wings 29; wing, from flexure, 9·5; tail 4·5; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 1·75; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 2·75.
Obs. I have observed that, as a rule, the specimens from the South Island have the pectoral markings more numerous and conspicuous, and the velvety margins on the secondaries more distinct.
Female. Slightly smaller than the male, but similar in plumage, excepting that there is little or no metallic gloss on the head and upper surface, less chestnut on the breast, and more on the under tail-coverts.
Young. General plumage lighter, and the underparts whitish; the green gloss which pervades the plumage of the upper parts in the adult almost entirely absent; hind head and nape dull cinereous brown; breast obscurely spotted with dusky and brown, sometimes barred with chestnut at the insertion of the wings; under tail-coverts dull rufous brown.
Nestling. “Bill horn-colour, lightest on the lower mandible, unguis rosy at the point, membraneous appendage slaty black, well overlapping the lower mandible, furnished with lamellæ along its basal half, which work against the finely serrated sides of the compressed basal half of the lower mandible; body covered with thick down, longest on the back; upper surface dull green, brightest on the back; over and behind the eye irregular streaks of white; under surface white; wings and upper part of thighs brownish; tail green above, at each side a patch of chestnut; under surface of the tail chestnut; legs and feet yellowish flesh-colour.”—Potts.
Far up the mountain-gorge, where the foaming torrent, walled in on both sides, rushes impetuously over its shingle-bed, surging around the huge waterworn boulders that obstruct its course, and forming alternately shallow rapids and pools of deep water, there the Blue Duck is perfectly at home,
It is somewhat nocturnal in its habits, and seems to become more active in its movements towards nightfall, when it sometimes makes a comparatively long flight in its passage from one mountain-torrent to another.
Some five-and-twenty years ago, in consequence of the death by drowning of the well-known botanist, Dr. Sinclair, I paid a visit with his nephew to the scene of this unfortunate accident, near the head-waters of the Rangitata, and in this secluded country I found these birds at that time so tame that I could almost catch them with my hand.
I believe this Duck is to be found at the sources of all mountain-streams, for although I never succeeded in getting a specimen at the far north, its name was perfectly familiar to the natives of that part of the country. Mr. Cheeseman, however, writes to me:—“I have never heard of a specimen being obtained north of Auckland. Mr. Spencer has shot it at the head of the Kaueranga, Thames. Mr.
Captain Mair informs me that the Wio is plentiful in all the mountain-streams in the Urewera country. When marching with the native contingent in pursuit of
My son met with a pair at the Pokaiwhenua falls, in the Upper Waikato, in the early part of February. He observed that they ascended the rapids by diving under the surface. They were very tame, and by imitating the whistling note of the duck, or the whirring call of the drake, he was able to bring them within a few paces of where he stood. He met with this Duck again at Owhaoko, in the upper waters of the Rangitikei and Moawhango rivers.
In the month of March I met with a pair in the turbulent rapids of the Kurupapango, in the Hawke’s Bay district. They appeared to fly well on being disturbed, and produced almost constantly a soft whistling cry, hardly distinguishable from that of the Harrier (Circus gouldi). Their ivory-white bills were a very conspicuous feature, even at a distance of a hundred yards.
Mr. Reischek met with it in the West-Coast sounds, and shot several at night far out on the water, thus proving that this Duck is sometimes marine in its habits. He likewise obtained
Its range may therefore be described as pretty general, although it is not very plentiful in any part of the country. It does not, however, occur out of New Zealand, nor has it any known ally.
In the autumn of 1863, I visited the upper gorges of the Manawatu river, and obtained a fine series of specimens in the various states of plumage. The crops of those which I opened were filled with a species of “caddis-worm;” and on turning out the contents I discovered the nest of this insect, consisting of a tough integument shielded by small angular stones firmly glued over the entire surface. The caddis-worms were of different sizes (none, however, exceeding an inch in length), light brown in colour, with a dark head armed with three nuchal plates, and furnished with six legs. This insect appears to exist abundantly in all our shingle-rivers, and as we may assume that it forms the chief, if not the only food of the Blue Duck, the troublesome task of dislodging the animal from its stone-covered cell appears to explain at once the use of the fleshy membrane which fringes the bill of this bird. That it is, at any rate, an expert, may be inferred from the fact that out of several hundred specimens taken from the crops of my birds, only one of these insects was invested with the case or integument, this having probably been swallowed by accident among the rest.
Several pairs of this Duck were kept for some months in the Acclimatization Gardens at Christ-church and became perfectly tame. They were ultimately shipped home to the Zoological Society.
Mr. Potts states that on examining an embryo of three weeks he found the form of the bill well developed, showing on the sides, near the end of the upper mandible, the peculiar membranous appendage of a darker colour than the rest of the bill, but that he was unable to discern the presence of lamellæ; the caudal down was produced to a remarked degree. The same accurate observer has furnished the following interesting account of the breeding-habits of this species:—“Sometimes it is a burrower, and its nest may then be found in a hole in a bank. I have found it concealed from view by overhanging sprays of those various Alpine veronicas which sometimes make the mountain-creeks in the back country perfect gems of beauty. The nest, like that of other ducks, thickly lined with down, generally contains five eggs of a deep cream-colour, elliptical in form, measuring 2 inches 8½ lines in length, with a diameter of 1 inch 9 lines. I have seen nests of eggs in October and November, but I have known the young brood to be swimming about by the end of September. We may therefore consider it one of our early breeders. As I have mentioned that it breeds in holes of banks, it is worth recording, perhaps, that I have found the nest in situations that did not afford any great amount of shelter; one such instance was met with on a spit in the Upper Ashburton river, about three miles below the glacier from which that river derives its source: the nest was placed in a solitary snow-grass tussock of moderate size, within two or three yards of the stream; it was made of grasses, the interior composed of cut grass like chaff, down, and a few feathers.”
Mr. Hill, school inspector, was up in the Ruahine ranges (Hawke’s Bay side) towards the end of November, and caught some young Wio there. They were very active in the water, diving persistently, and when hard pressed they took to the bank and endeavoured to secrete themselves.
The old birds remained on the water within sight and made no sign; but before the discovery of the young, they had tried to divert attention by feigning disability on the water, as if inviting pursuit.
There are several specimens of the egg of this bird in the Canterbury Museum. They are narrower or more elliptical in form than those of most other Ducks, measuring 2·6 inches in length by 1·7 in breadth; they are of a pale cream-colour, slightly tinged with green, and some of them much stained on the surface probably from contact with the bird’s feet during the process of incubation.
Mergus australis, Hombr. & Jacq. Ann. des Sci. Nat. 1841, p. 320.
Ad. brunneus, plumis dorsalibus cinereo lavatis: alis caudâque brunneis, tectricibus alarum majoribus nonnullis albo maculatis: secundariis quoque interioribus extùs albo notatis: pileo cristato colloque undique rufe-scenti-brunneis, gutture clariore rufescente: pectore et ábdomine medio albis, schistaceo variis, corporis lateribus saturatè schistaceis, plumis singulis cinereo limbatis: plumis axillaribus purè albis: rostro nigri-canti-brunneo, versus apicem saturatiore: pedibus rufescenti-brunneis.
Adult male. Head, crest (which is two inches long), and the entire neck reddish brown, paler on the throat and lower part of fore neck; entire upper surface dull brownish black, the feathers more or less edged with slaty grey, especially on the shoulders; in place of the speculum there is a broad angular patch of pure white on the secondaries, and a few rounded spots of white on their coverts; breast and middle of abdomen fulvous white varied with grey; sides of body, flanks, and under tail-coverts dark slaty grey, with paler tips, and the long feathers overlapping the thighs slightly mottled with white; axillary plumes pure white; primaries and tail-feathers blackish brown. Bill reddish brown, changing to black on the culmen and at the tips of both mandibles; legs and feet reddish brown. Total length 20·5 inches; wing, from flexure, 7·5; tail 3·5; bill, along the ridge 2·3, along the edge of lower mandible 2·7; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 2·75.
Female. Differs from the male in having no crest, and in the greyer colour of the head and neck.
Of this species, Baron von Hügel writes (Ibis, 1875, p. 392):—“I procured a pair of Mergansers with a few other skins in Invercargill, from a man who had just returned from a surveying trip to the Auckland Islands. He had not even turned the skin after taking it off the body; but as soon as I saw the back through the opening, and felt the beak through the skin of the neck, I knew what I had … . . I have compared this Mergus with the original description of Mergus australis in the ‘Voyage of the Astrolabe’; from it I judge that either the description is a very poor one, or my two birds must belong to a new species. But what agrees well, and made me first think they were an immature pair of birds, is the lower surface of the body, which, instead of being white, as in
My collection contains a single example (a female), and there is another, of the same sex, in the British Museum. My description of the adult male is taken from the Baron’s specimen in the Cambridge University Museum, which was courteously lent to me by Professor Newton.
Podiceps (Poliocephalus) rufipectus, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 198 (1843).
Podiceps rufipectus, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 17, pl. 16 (1844).
Weweia, Totokipio, Taihoropi (Hokianga), and Taratimoho (Waikato).
Ad. suprà nigricans vix viridi nitens, interscapulii plumis scapularibusque pallidè brunneo marginatis: pileo nuchâque sordidè chalybeo-nigris, facie et collo lateralibus brunneis, genis et pilei lateribus filamentis pilosis albidis ornatis: tectricibus alarum dorso concoloribus: remigibus cinerascenti-brunneis, secundariis conspicuè ad basin albis: gulâ brunneâ: jugulo et pectore anteriore rufescenti-brunneis: corpore reliquo subtùs argentescenti-albo, plus minusve brunneo lavato, corporis lateribus brunneis: rostro cyanescenti-cinereo, culmine nigricante: pedibus pallidè olivascentibus, suprà flavicante lavatis, unguibus cyanescentibus iride argentescenti-canâ.
Adult male. Crown and upper sides of the head black, with numerous white hair-like filaments having the appearance of pencilled markings; hind neck and all the upper parts dark olivaceous brown, margined on the back with paler brown, and glossed with green; lower sides of head, throat, and fore neck dusky brown; the cheeks pencilled with white, but not so thickly as on the crown; upper part of breast dark rufous brown; underparts of the body silvery white, stained on the sides and flanks with dusky brown; soft downy plumage at the lower extremities dull sooty brown. Irides silvery grey; bill bluish grey, shading to black on the ridge; feet light olive, marked with yellow on their upper surface, olive-brown below, the claws pale blue. Total length 12 inches; extent of wings 19; wing, from flexure, 5; bill, along the ridge 1, along the edge of lower mandible 1·25; tarsus 1·5; longest toe and claw 2·1; hind toe and claw ·5.
Female. In the female the pencilled markings on the head are not quite so distinct, and the rufous colouring on the breast is somewhat paler; but in other respects the sexes are alike.
Young. The following is the description of a young Dabchick in a transitional condition—that is to say, after it has ceased to be a nestling, but before it is fully fledged. On close examination a beautiful development exhibits itself: the body is covered with real feathers; but they are largely fringed with fine down, for the purpose of imparting greater warmth, and the whole of the plumage is soft and silky to the touch. The head is handsomely marked, the crown being blackish brown varied with rufous; sides of the head and throat fulvous white traversed with marbled veins of dusky black; hind part of neck varied with dull rufous; upper surface and sides of the body dusky brown; breast pale buff; abdomen yellowish white; bill dark brown; feet olivaceous yellow, with grey margins.
First year’s plumage. Head black, variegated on the crown with bright ferruginous, and marked on the sides with two broad streaks of buffy white, one commencing above the eye and passing round to the occiput, the other extending from the angle of the mouth down the side of the neck; throat and neck yellowish buff streaked with black; upper parts and sides of the body dusky black, indistinctly mottled with fulvous; breast and abdomen buffy white. Bill dark brown, crossed in the middle and near the tip with dull black bars.
Progress towards maturity. The head becomes dark brown, the facial streaks described above gradually disappearing,
Varieties. The following is a description of an albino presented to the Canterbury Museum by Mr.
Remarks. In this species there is no true crest, but the plumage of the crown and upper sides of the head is very soft, and the shafts are produced into hair-like filaments, the whiteness of which renders them more conspicuous. In place of a tail there is a tuft of black silky feathers about an inch in length. The toes are armed with flattened claws, resembling the human finger-nail; and that of the middle toe has a pectinate edge. The tongue is large and fleshy, filling the cavity of the lower mandible; and the palate is armed with two convergent rows of papillæ directed backwards.
Every country appears to possess at least one species of Dabchick; and the group does not admit of very much variety. The form inhabiting New Zealand, although readily distinguishable as a species, is very similar to Podiceps nestor of Australia; and its habits of life are precisely the same. It is very abundant in all the freshwater lakes and lagoons of the South Island, and equally so in the southern portions of the North Island. Strange to say, however, although the physical conditions of the country are the same, till late years it was rarely or never met with in the far north; indeed the only instance that had come to my knowledge of its occurrence in the district north of Auckland before 1869 was that of a pair shot by Major Mair in the Hurupaki lake (Whangarei) as far back as 1852. One of these was sent to Europe; and the other is in my old type collection in the Colonial Museum. Its rarity in that part of the country may be inferred from the fact that the Ketenikau and other neighbouring natives had never seen or heard of the bird before. In 1869, however, Major Mair on visiting Rotokawau, a very pretty lake at the far north, between Te Awanui and Doubtless Bay, found the Dabchick comparatively plentiful there; of late years it appears to have become even more so. The following is another interesting fact in connection with its local range:—Mount Edgecumbe is a high volcanic cone on the banks of the Rangitaiki river some fifteen miles from the sea. At the bottom of the now extinct crater there is a small pool of water about thirty yards across. In this pool Captain
Like the other members of the group, it dives with amazing agility, and unless taken by surprise will effectually dodge the gun by disappearing under the surface at the first flash, and before the charge of shot has reached it. It is capable of remaining under water a considerable time; and when wounded, it hides by submerging the body and leaving only its bill and nostrils exposed. When hunting for its food, which consists of small mollusca, among the aquatic plants at the bottom of the
Weweia. Although generally found in pairs it is gregarious also, and I have counted as many as twenty consorting together on a small sheet of water at Manawatu. Its natural element is the water, which it seldom quits; but when resting, as it sometimes does, on a bank, at the water’s edge, it assumes a very upright position with the neck stretched up to its full length.
It is naturally a very curious or inquisitive bird, and if an object is kept moving within sight, or something is done to arrest attention, the Dabchicks, after swimming about for a time, will approach nearer and nearer, jerking the head forward in the manner already described as they advance. Sometimes they swim so low that the back is scarcely visible above the water; at other times the whole body seems to rise above the surface. They indulge, too, in a habit of standing bolt upright in the water and flapping their wings, apparently for the purpose of shaking the water out of them. Recently, three were shot in a deep freshwater lake not far from Hokianga Point; these had their stomachs crammed with a species of leech, about an inch in length and of a pale yellow colour.
Captain Mair states that this bird is very plentiful in the Hot Springs district, and especially in Kaiteriria and Rotorua lakes. On its habits he has furnished me with the following note:—“In 1869 I was riding along the shores of Tikitapu lake with H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, when our attention was arrested by a pair of Dabchicks with their young. We drew up and watched them for some time. Taking alarm at our approach, the female took her five young ones on her back and made several dives with them, coming up after each submersion at distances of ten yards or more. The young birds appeared to nestle under the feathers of the parent’s back, and to hold on with their bills. In this manner they continued to dive till they were entirely out of sight, and H.R.H. appeared to be much interested in this singular performance.”
The Dabchick is very properly included in the schedule to ‘The Wild Birds Protection Act,’ and the wanton killing of the bird is punishable by fine. Notwithstanding this, however, a few find their way into the market; and it was the sight of one of these birds hanging in a poulterer’s shop at Wellington that drew from the vigorous pen of Mr. Edward Wakefield, in the ‘Evening Press,’ a very pathetic appeal concluding thus:—“Anyone who deliberately slaughters a Dabchick, must surely be of that ruthless quality which would have achieved for him a distinguished position in the service of Herod the King. But to all sportsmen, and to all colonists, whether sportsmen or not, we would say, Spare the poor little, defenceless, inoffensive Dabchicks! Have the manliness to deny yourself a moment’s selfish excitement, for the sake of helping to prolong the existence of any of those few races of God’s dear creatures which we found in possession of New Zealand when first we intruded ourselves upon its solitudes.”
The nest of this species is a large and somewhat clumsy structure, formed of the roots and leaves of various aquatic plants, but always well concealed. The eggs of the Dabchick, usually two in number, are of a perfect elliptical form, and greenish white when first laid, with a granulate surface, and often presenting round warty excrescences. Examples vary slightly as to size; but an average specimen measures 1·7 inch in length by 1 in breadth. After long incubation the surface of the shell becomes smeared and stained to a yellowish-brown colour.
Colymbus cristatus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 222 (1766).
Colymbus urinator, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 223 (1766).
Podiceps cristatus, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 780 (1790).
Colymbus cornutus, Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat. ii. p. 353 (1811).
Lophaithyia cristata, Kaup, Natürl. Syst. p. 72 (1829).
Podiceps mitratus, Brehm, Vög. Deutschl. p. 953 (1831).
Podiceps patagiatus, Brehm, Vög. Deutschl. p. 955 (1831).
Podiceps longirostris, Bonap, Faun. Ital., Ucc. p. 18 (1832–41).
Podiceps australis, Gould, P. Z. S. 1844, p. 135.
Podiceps hectori (var.), Buller, Essay on N.-Z. Orn. p. 19 (1865).
Ad. suprà nigricans, remigibus brunnescentibus, minimis albis: pilei plumis utrinque elongatis, fascias duas erectas-formantibus: loris et lineâ superciliari augustâ cum facie laterali gulâque albis: regione oculari, collo laterali guttureque cristatis, ferrugineis, nigro marginatis: corpore subtùs argentescenti-albo, lateribus brunneis: rostro cinerascenti-brunneo, versus apicem pallidiore: pedibus olivascenti-nigris: iride coccineâ.
Adult male. Crown, hind neck, and general upper surface, as well as the sides of the body, blackish brown, slightly glossed with green; a streak in front of the eyes, the throat, sides of the head and lower part of fore neck fulvous white; underparts of the body silvery white, stained deeply on the sides of the breast and slightly in front with chestnut. The feathers of the nape are produced in soft filamentous plumes, forming two black occipital crests, nearly 2 inches in length; the corresponding plumage of the neck is developed in a similar manner, forming a thick ruff of a beautiful silky texture, bright chestnut in its anterior portion and then jet-black; on the neck below there is a wash of the same bright chestnut. The primary quills are greyish brown, with black shafts, the webs stained more or less and tipped with pale rufous; secondaries pure white, excepting the outermost ones, which are black on their exposed webs and are largely marked with rufous; bastard quills pure white; outer wing-coverts greyish brown; secondary coverts much produced and almost black; edges and lining of wings white, with rufous stains. Irides red; bill dark brown, yellowish along the lower edge and at the tip of the lower mandible; legs and feet olivaceous black tinged with green on the edges and near the joints; claws greenish black, with a pectinate edge of transparent horn-colour. Total length 22 inches; wing, from flexure, 7·5; bill, along the ridge 2·4, along the edge of lower mandible 3; tarsus 2·75; longest toe and claw 3·25.
Female. Similar to the male in plumage, and adorned in the same manner with ruff and crest, but having the breast more or less stained with pale rufous and brown.
Young. Crown of the head and nape black, with dull steel reflexions; the feathers of the forehead and those immediately over the eyes tipped with white; hind part of neck, back, and general upper surface blackish brown; throat, fore neck, breast, and underparts of the body silvery white. The occipital feathers on both sides are lengthened, forming an inconspicuous crest: there is no ruff; but the plumage of that portion of the neck is somewhat longer than on the surrounding parts, and is lightly washed with chestnut and marked on the sides with black: there is an absence of the chestnut colouring on the breast, which is pure white;
Younger state. No appearance whatever of crest or ruff, but the position of the future growth is indicated by a pale wash of rufous on the sides of the neck.
Obs. The above descriptions are taken from fine examples of this bird in the Colonial Museum; but it should be mentioned that individuals exhibit slight differences of plumage, especially in the amount of chestnut and rufous colouring. A fine adult male in my collection has the sides of the neck and shoulders, as well as the sides of the body and thighs, pale rufous, whilst the rest of the underparts are silky white.
Nestling. Covered with soft down; the head, neck, and upper parts generally, pale buff, with numerous longitudinal stripes of black, which are broadest on the back; the underparts yellowish white. Bill yellow, crossed at the base and in the middle with black, changing to white near the tips of both mandibles; legs and feet light olive-brown. (Obtained by Sir
A down-covered chick killed by Mr. Cheeseman (out of a brood of seven) on Rotoiti lake, South Island, in January 1881, is preserved in the Auckland Museum:—Upper parts buffy white with longitudinal stripes of brownish black running the whole length of the body; on the hind neck these stripes become darker, but narrower, and somewhat broken or irregular; on the sides of the crown they spread out into broad patches, meeting again acuminately at the base of the upper mandible, and enclosing a small triangular spot of bare skin; on the wings a narrow irregular stripe of black; throat, fore neck, and underparts white. Bill blackish brown, with a white horny tip; feet apparently greenish black, but faded in the dried specimen.
More advanced stage. Little or no occipital crest, but a perceptible ruff which is white clouded with chestnut-red; throat marked with interrupted streaks of brown. (From a specimen in my own collection.)
Progressive state. An immature bird in the Otago Museum has the occipital crests only about half an inch long; there is scarcely any ruff, and what there is of it is white with faint reddish blotches; and in the wings, which are open, the white on the secondaries is very distinct.
The species described above is no doubt identical with that inhabiting Australia, and named Podiceps australis by Mr. Gould. On a careful comparison of specimens, however, I can see no reason for separating it from the well-known Podiceps cristatus of Europe; and I therefore agree with Dr. Finsch in the adoption of that name.
The specimen on which I founded my original description of Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1869, vol. ii. p. 388.Podiceps hectori was in an imperfect condition, and the supposed absence of white on the secondaries proved afterwards to be merely accidental; but, as I have already pointed out in a published paper
On a comparison of the two forms, I find that the Whakatipu bird (of which there are several examples) is rather larger than ordinary specimens of P. cristatus, has the upper parts perfectly black, and the fore neck and underparts greyish brown tinged with rufous; the lores, moreover, are black, the rufous white commencing at the angle of the mouth and passing under the eyes to the ear-coverts. It will, of course, be necessary to obtain a larger series of specimens, establishing the
Podiceps hectori.
The Crested Grebe is, generally speaking, a rare bird in both Islands, but is more commonly met with in the southern portions of the Otago country than elsewhere. The late Mr. Wilmer informed me that during an expedition with Major Goring to Waikareiti, in the spring of 1879, he shot seven or eight of them on that lake, and he sent me the skin of one he had preserved. This is a curious fact in the distribution of this bird, seeing that Waikareiti is at a much higher elevation than Waikaremoana, where this Grebe has never yet been found. Like the Dabchick its local distribution is quite unaccountable. I have already mentioned (on p. 281) a singular instance in the case of the latter species. Hurupaki is one of those deep, wood-fringed lakelets which lend such a charm to the bush-scenery of the North Island. I have before me now a large photograph of this picturesque spot, displaying through a gap in the forest a placid sheet of water, hemmed in to the very edge by a growth of underwood in rank profusion and reflecting on its mirror-like surface the sylvan beauty that surrounds it—a view of transcendent beauty and not to be excelled by any lake-scenery of its kind in the world. In this sequestered place, surrounded by woods and far removed from any other sheet of water, a solitary pair of Dabchicks had taken up their abode; and, as with the fly in the piece of amber, the marvel was how they ever got there. In the case of strong-winged birds no surprise is occasioned by the occurrence of stragglers in places remote from their ordinary range; but it is quite impossible to account for the appearance in such a locality of this little Grebe, which is altogether incapable of any prolonged flight, and is, moreover, from the position of its legs, very helpless on land.
Unlike the Dabchick, which is more or less gregarious, the Crested Grebe seems to love seclusion, being generally met with singly or in pairs. It is a striking object on the water and swims with much grace; and when two of them are associated or feeding together they have a pretty habit of meeting each other after each dive, and “touching bills” as if in token of their mutual confidence.
Mr. Travers has so well described the habits of the Crested Grebe from personal observation, that I cannot do better than transcribe a portion of his paper, merely adding that, although I have had less favourable opportunities of studying the bird in its natural haunts, I can myself verify much of what he has written:—
“Podiceps cristatus is found at all seasons of the year upon Lake Guyon, a small lake in the Nelson Province, lying close under the Spencer mountain-range, and upon the borders of which the station buildings connected with a run occupied by me are situated. The water of this lake is generally very warm, and even in severe seasons has never been frozen over. To this fact I attribute the circumstance that some of these birds are to be found upon it throughout the year. There are several apparently permanent nests on the borders of the lake, which have been occupied by pairs of birds for many years in succession, from which I am led to infer that, as in the case of some of the Anatidæ, these birds pair for life. These nests are built amongst the twiggy branches of trees which have fallen from the banks of the lake, and now lie half floating in its waters, and are formed of irregularly laid masses of various species of pond-weeds, chiefly Potamogeton, found growing in the lake, and which the birds obtain by diving. They are but little raised above the surface of the water; for, in consequence of the position and structure of its feet, and the general form of its body, the Grebe is unable to raise itself upon the former unless the body be in great measure supported by water.
“Both the male and female Grebe assist in the labour of incubation, although I believe that the chief part of this task devolves upon the female, and that she is only relieved by her partner for the purpose of enabling her to feed. Before the actual work of incubation commences, the eggs are
“The New-Zealand bird, as might be expected from its more recent contact with civilized man, is far less shy than the European one, and easily discriminates between persons who may be dangerous and those who are not. The children of my manager frequently visit the nests during the progress of incubation, and as they have never injured the nests or eggs, or interfered mischievously with the birds themselves, they are allowed to approach quite close without the latter thinking it necessary to quit the nest. When they do so, they glide into the water with a quick but stealthy motion, diving at once and rising at a considerable distance from the nest.
“The eggs do not appear to suffer from immersion in water, even for a considerable time; for, on one occasion three eggs which by some means had been thrown out of a nest, and had sunk below it to a depth of several feet, and which must have been immersed in the water for twenty-four hours at least, were replaced by one of the children, and the parent birds having sat upon them, two out of the three produced chicks … . .
“When the water of the lake is rising in consequence of heavy rain the birds are seen busily engaged in procuring material and building up the nest so as to raise the eggs above the reach of the flood. This added material is afterwards spread out after the water subsides; but on some rare occasions the rise of the lake has been so great and so rapid that, the birds having been unable to meet it, the eggs have become addled. In such case no chicks have been produced that season.
“The young birds are of a greyish colour, striped with black, and, particularly when of a small size, are not easily detected whilst floating on the water. They take to the water immediately after being excluded from the egg, and both parents exhibit the greatest solicitude in tending and feeding them. When fatigued they are carried on the backs of the old birds, taking their station immediately behind the insertion of the wings, for which purpose the parent bird immerses itself deeper in the water.
“Mr. Yarrell, in his description of the Crested Grebe of Europe, says:—‘The parent birds are very careful of their young, taking them down with them for security under their wings when they dive.’ This is certainly not the case with the New-Zealand birds, for I have frequently observed the parents, both when engaged undisturbed in feeding the young ones, and when pursued by a boat for the express purpose of noting their habits. In no instance did I see the young ones being taken down by the parent when diving. It dives itself with great ease, and travels a considerable distance under water. From its inconspicuous colour and small size it easily eludes observation, more particularly if there be the slightest ripple on the water; and this is quite sufficient protection for it. When engaged in feeding their young, each parent bird dives in succession, the young ones remaining on the surface, but with the body fully immersed, so as to leave nothing but the small head and neck visible. The habit of carrying the young on their backs and of diving in order to shake them off when the young birds exhibit a determined disinclination to leave their snug station, has probably led to the error referred to.”
According to my experience the eggs of this species are very elliptical in form, measuring 2·25 inches in length by 1·45 in breadth; a small example in my son’s collection from Rotoiti in the South Island measures 2 inches in length by 1·4 in breadth. They are usually three in number, but sometimes more. When first deposited in the nest they are of a greenish-white colour, with a chalky surface, but they rapidly become discoloured and smudged, owing probably to some staining quality in the materials composing the nest. I have seen one so deeply discoloured as to be of a uniform reddish-brown colour. Whatever the cause may be, they are always found thickly smeared and stained with yellowish brown, and often presenting a very dirty appearance.
Eudyptes pachyrhynchus, Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terr., Birds, p. 17 (1844).
Chrysocoma pachyrhynchus, Bonap. C. R. xliii. p. 775 (1856).
Eudyptes pachyrhyncha, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 98 (1871).
Eudyptes chrysocomus, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 344 (1873).
Eudyptes chrysocoma, Sharpe, App. Voy. Ereb. and Terr. p. 35 (1875).
Eudyptes pachyrhynchus, Buller, Man. Birds of N. Z. p. 100 (1882).
Ad. suprà nigricans, sordidè cyanescente nitens: subtùs albus, pectore laterali dorso concolore: alâ quoque dorso concolore, secundariis angustè albido terminatis: supercilio distincto a naribus ducto et pileum marginante, posticè cristato, dilutè sulphureo: facie laterali gulâque nigricantibus vix brunnescenti-albo variis: rostro rubescenti-brunneo ad basin nigricante: pedibus flavicanti-albidis, subtùs nigricanti-brunneis: iride flavicanti-brunneâ.
Adult. Crown, sides of the head, throat, and hind part of neck black; the rest of the upper surface bluish black, each feather having a narrow central streak of pale blue; from the base of the upper mandible, on each side, a broad line of pale golden yellow passes over the eyes, and is continued beyond in a crest of fine pointed feathers, extending nearly two inches beyond the head; the black feathers of the crown between these side crests are lengthened, acuminate, and slightly rigid; upper surface of flippers glossy bluish black, the feathers, which are lanceolate and closely imbricated, being margined and tipped with pale blue; along the inner edges a narrow band of white. The underparts of the body are silvery white, contrasting sharply on the sides with the dark plumage of the upper surface, and tapering upwards on the fore neck to a point about three inches below the angle of the lower jaw; under surface of flippers bluish grey, with the central portion outwardly, and a continuation towards the root, silvery white; tail-feathers long, narrow, very rigid, and perfectly black; the coverts greyish white, with black shafts, and tipped with blue. Irides brick-red; bill from rich nut-brown to pale orange-brown, darker on the lower mandible, blackish at the base, and horn-coloured at the tip; feet pinkish or yellowish white, with darker webs; claws dark brown, with black points, the soles blackish brown. Total length 27 inches; length of flipper 8·5; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 2·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2·75; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 3·5; hind toe and claw ·75.
Young. Has the crests very inconspicuous, the line over the eye being narrow, and the posterior feathers scarcely produced beyond the head; the crown and nape dull black, and the sides of the hind neck below strongly tinged with brown; the peculiar sharply defined black throat which distinguishes the adult bird is absent, the chin and the sides of the face being mottled with dusky black on a lighter ground, shading away insensibly on the throat; the plumage of the upper parts duller than in the fully matured bird. Bill dark brown.
More advanced state. Crown of the head bluish black, the feathers somewhat lengthened, with polished shafts; from the base of the mandible, in a line with the nostrils, a streak of pale yellow with points of black passes over the eyes, widening backwards and extending to the hind head, where the feathers are lengthened, but scarcely to a degree deserving the name of a crest; the throat and for nearly three inches down the neck sooty black, freckled and mottled with fulvous white; the whole of the upper surface dull bluish black, the centre of each feather having a touch of colour; along the lower edge of flippers a narrow line of white; tail-feathers sooty black; the whole of the underparts pure white. Bill clear reddish brown; feet flesh-white; the claws black.
Nestling. Head and throat, hind neck and entire upper surface covered with short, thick, woolly down of a sooty brown colour; the rest of the body covered with yellowish-white down, but so thinly that the white skin is visible underneath. From the crop to the abdomen, down the centre, there is a perfectly bare strip; the flippers also are bare. Bill brownish black, changing to dull white at the tip; feet flesh-white.
Obs. A specimen caught in the castaway wreck of a brig near the Wellington heads, in 1856, was brought to me in a moulting condition, and presented a very singular appearance—the plumage peeling off as it were in large patches, and disclosing to view a short undergrowth of new feathers: the whole process was completed in two or three days.
The eyes are not as depicted in my former edition. They are of a dark brick-red, with a very small pupil, which in the strong sunlight becomes reduced to a mere black point, situated above the middle line. The eye has a very peculiar appearance, being more like a flat button than a bird’s eye, and it is large for the size of the Penguin. It reminds one in its general character of a seal’s eye, and on watching the bird in the sunlight it will be seen that the nictitating membrane, which is extremely thin and transparent, is being continually drawn over it, having the appearance, owing to its delicacy, of a mere line crossing the vision, there being no movement whatever of the eyelids. The feet are of a pinky flesh-colour, not dark as in my former Plate, which was drawn from a preserved specimen. The bill is of a uniform rich pale orange-brown, not dark brown as in the old figure. I examined on one occasion six or seven of these birds on board the ‘Hinemoa,’ and all had bills of the same colour. Both sexes are crested, and I can distinguish no difference in the plumage.
This fine Penguin is more or less distributed, in suitable localities, all around our coast-line. In the North Island it is a comparatively rare bird, but it becomes more numerous as we proceed south; and in the West Coast sounds large colonies of them are to be found breeding together among the rocks or in the caverns scooped out of the cliffs by the erosive action of the sea. Reischek found as many as twenty-four pairs associated together in Supper Cove, and nearly as many on Cooper’s Island. In the vicinity of these breeding-places the birds may often be seen swimming in companies, cleaving the water like a school of small porpoises. On the Snares, he “saw thousands of them jumping over the rocks, and fishing in the sea to feed their young ones, which were nearly full-grown.” This was about the last week in January.
On Bounty Island they congregate in large numbers during the breeding-season, sharing the domain with Diomedea melanophrys and other sea-birds having a community of interest. (See woodcut on page 293.)
Major Mair informs me that he saw a perfectly tame one, which had been captured by the natives half a mile up the Opotiki river, in 1868. It is not often that this Penguin wanders so far up the coast, although I have a record of one taken at the mouth of the Waiotahi, five miles further north.
It is occasionally found nesting on the Island of Kapiti, but not in communities.
The eggs, as a rule, are of a very rounded form, measuring 2·9 inches in length by 2·3 in breadth. The largest and most rounded specimen in my son’s collection gives the above measurements; the smallest, which is more ovoido-conical in form, measures 2·75 inches by 2·05; and one of intermediate size 2·9 inches by 2·1. I have seen one, however, of a broadly elliptical form, measuring 2·9 by 1·9, and with its smaller pole much flattened. The colour of the shell when fresh is a pale bluish green, the tint being brighter in some than in others, but this is in a great measure due to the presence in some of a chalky film of yellowish white; after being incubated they become much soiled and stained. In some specimens the surface exhibits minute pimples or chalky excrescences.
Eudyptes chrysocome, Sclater, Zool. Soc. Register (1888, nec Forst.).
Ad. similis E. pachyrhyncho, sed major et fasciâ superciliari a rictu oris minimè a basi narium oriente: alis subtùs magis extensè nigricantibus.
Adult. Similar in plumage to Eudyptes pachyrhynchus, but appreciably larger in all its dimensions. It has a similar superciliary streak of golden yellow which develops into an erectile crest on each side of the head; but this streak, instead of commencing in a line with the nostrils as in the former species, springs from the base of the upper mandible immediately above the angle of the mouth. The posterior edge of the flippers in its middle portion has a border of white nearly ·25 of an inch in width running off on both sides to a point; the under surface in its basal and apical portions with a broad connecting band along the anterior edge, jet-black. Bill uniform reddish brown, with a line of white along the base of the lower mandible, which is more conspicuous in the live bird than in the dried specimen, being somewhat concealed in the latter by the overlapping feathers; feet yellowish white; claws reddish brown, changing to black at the tips. Total length 28 inches; length of flipper 8; tail 3·5; bill, along the ridge 2·4, along the edge of lower mandible 2·75; tarsus 1·25; middle toe and claw 3·6.
In April last I received a note from Dr. Sclater calling my attention to two Penguins recently added to the menagerie of the Zoological Society at Regent’s Park, and observing:—“The bird just received from the Aucklands seems quite distinct from the New-Zealand species.” I accordingly repaired to the “Fish-house,” and the inspection which I then made satisfied me that, notwithstanding a general outward resemblance between the two birds, there was considerable difference both as to size and in the details of the plumage.
The Auckland-Island bird having since died it was courteously forwarded to me by Mr. Bartlett, the Superintendent of the Gardens, for more critical examination. I received, about the same time, from Sir Eudyptes pachyrhynchus in my own collection, I have no hesitation in pronouncing the Auckland-Island bird a new species, distinguishable from the former by its larger size, by the peculiar character of its superciliary streak, and by the different coloration of its flippers.
It becomes necessary, therefore, to select a distinguishing name for this species, and I have much pleasure in connecting with it that of the accomplished Secretary of the Zoological Society of London, Dr.
Aptenodytes chrysocome, Forst. Comm. Soc. Reg. Sc. Gott. iii. p. 135, pl. 1 (1781).
Chrysocoma saltator, Steph. Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 58, pl. 8 (1826).
Catarractes chrysocome; Brandt, Bull. Ac. Pét. ii. p. 314 (1837).
Eudyptes chrysocome, Gould, B. of Austr. fol. vii. pl. 83 (1848).
With regard to Eudyptes nigrivestis, Gould, P. Z. S. 1860, p. 418E. nigrivestis, I think I am right in stating that Mr. Gould, who distinguished the species, agreed with me that it could not stand.
Eudyptes chrysocome, Scl. P. Z. S. 1860, p. 390.
Spheniscus chrysocome, Schl. Mus. Pays-Bas, Urinat. p. 6 (1866).
Eudyptes nigriventris, Gray, Hand-l. of B. iii. p. 98 (1871, err.).
Eudyptes saltator, Sharpe, Zool. Kerg., Phil. Trans. R. S. vol. 168. p. 158 (1879).
Eudyptes filholi, Hutton, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. W. vol. iii. p. 334 (1879).
Ad. suprà sordidè cinereus, pilei plumis rigidis, elongatis, cristam frontalem exhibentibus, verticis lateralis plumis quoque elongatis, cum fasciâ latâ superciliari cristam duplicem formantibus: facie laterali cum colli lateribus gulâque totâ brunnescenti-cinereis: corpore reliquo purè albo: pectore laterali, hypochondriis, imis et tibiis posticè cinereis: alâ suprà saturatè cinereâ, margine alari summâ. vix albidâ, secundariis etiam albo terminatis: caudâ rigidâ dorso concolore; alâ subtùs albâ, ad basin et juxta marginem alarum summarum cinereâ; remigibus primariis versus apicem cinereo-nigricantibus: rostro aurantiaco; pedibus albicantibus: iride coccineâ.
Adult. Similar in plumage to Eudyptes pachyrhynchus, but with a narrower bill and much more abundant crest; besides which the throat is dark slaty instead of black, and the flippers have a more conspicuous white outer margin; a streak of golden yellow commencing at the base of the upper mandible, in a line with the nostrils, passes over the eyes and spreads out in a tuft behind to the length of three inches or more, the plumes being narrow and of soft texture; the feathers on the sides of the head are also lengthened and mingle with the yellow plumes, forming together a fine erectile crest. Total length 26·5 inches; length of flipper 6·75; tail 3·75; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·3; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw 2·75.
Young. Has the plumage generally duller, and the throat largely mottled with fulvous white; with little or no crest, and a very inconspicuous streak of yellow over the eyes.
Var. An example from Campbell Island, in the Otago Museum, presents the following appearances:— Head, throat, hind neck, and all the upper surface sooty brown, darkest on the crown and nape; fore neck, breast, and underparts yellowish white, the brown of the upper parts fading into this on the sides of the body. Bill black at the base, bright yellow in its outer portion; feet brown, with yellow claws.
Obs. In some examples the coronal feathers are also produced, but not to the same extent as the lateral crests.
Note. Professor Hutton, who described this form under the name of Eudyptes filholi, remarks :—“In colour and in length of crest, this species is intermediate between E. chrysocome Eudyptes pachyrhynchus of the present edition.
Professor Hutton’s bird, which came from Campbell Island, was placed in the Otago Museum. In an example received there afterwards from Macquarie Island the upper parts are of a brighter blue, and the crest is pale golden yellow, scanty in character but fully three inches in length; the dark plumage does not advance upon the neck in the manner described above; the bill is reddish brown in colour, and comparatively slender in form, measuring along the ridge 1·75 inch, and along the edge of lower mandible 2.
There are two specimens in the Canterbury Museum. One of these (obtained in Akaroa harbour) has a small, narrow, pale yellow crest, which commences at the base of the upper mandible and curls over behind the ear-coverts; the bill is very dark brown, paler towards the tip. The other (which was picked up on the Nine-mile Beach) presents only a narrow supraciliary line of yellow, with a very inconspicuous crest, and is presumably a younger bird.
After a careful comparison of the fine series of specimens in the British Museum, as well as those in the Natural-History Museum at the Jardin des Plantes, I have come to the conclusion that Prof. Hutton’s Eudyptes filholi (from Campbell Island) is the same as Mr. Sharpe’s E. saltator from Kerguelen Island, and that the latter again is identical with the true E. chrysocome of the Falkland Islands. The more common New-Zealand bird, which I described in my former edition under the name of Eudyptes chrysocomus, is undoubtedly distinct; and to this species I have accordingly restored Mr. E. pachyrhynchus.
In their account of the birds collected by the ‘Challenger’ Expedition, Messrs. Sclater and Salvin say:—“Why Mr. Sharpe should have referred Eudyptes chrysolophus (Sclater and Abbott) of the Falklands to Eudyptes saltator we cannot understand, nor can we appreciate the characters by which he separates his Eudyptes saltator and Eudyptes chrysocome. The type-specimen of Eudyptes diadematus, Gould, for which we have made every enquiry, is unfortunately no longer to be found. Mr. Gould has parted with it, he knows not whither. It was probably only an individual variety of this species.”
Sir Eudyptes), when in a number in the water, have a constant habit of closing together, the legs and tail straight out, laying the wings flat to the sides, arching forward the neck, and apparently by an action of the muscles of the back, springing forwards clear out of the water, showing a steel-grey back and a silvery belly like a grilse. They rise in this way in lines like a school of porpoises, seemingly in play, and when they are thus disporting themselves it is really very difficult to believe that one is not watching a shoal of fish pursued by enemies.
“In the water Penguins are usually silent, but now and then one raises its head and emits a curious prolonged croak, startlingly like one of the deeper tones of the human voice. One rarely
And again (at p. 179):—“Beyond the garden the tussock grass of the Tristan group (Spartina arundinacea) forms a dense jungle. The root-clumps or ‘tussocks’ are two or three feet in width and about a foot high, and the spaces between them one or two feet wide. The tuft of thick grass-stems (seven or eight feet in height) rises strong and straight for a yard or so, and then the culms separate from one another and mingle with those of the neighbouring tussocks. This makes a bush very difficult to make one’s way through, for the heads of grass are closely entangled together on a level with the face and chest. In this scrub one of the Crested Penguins, probably Eudyptes chrysocome, called by the natives in common with other species of the genus Eudyptes ‘Rock Hoppers,’ has established a rookery. From a great distance, even so far as the hut, or the ship, one could hear an incessant noise like the barking of a myriad of dogs in all possible keys, and as we came near the place bands of Penguins were seen constantly going and returning between the rookery and the sea. All at once, out at sea, a hundred yards or so from the shore, the water in seen in motion, a dark red beak and sometimes a pair of eyes appearing now and then for a moment above the surface. The moving water approaches the shore in a wedge-shape, and with great rapidity a band of perhaps from three to four hundred Penguins scramble out upon the stones, again exchanging the vigorous and graceful movements and attitudes for which they are so remarkable while in the water, for helpless and ungainly ones, tumbling over the stones, and apparently with difficulty assuming their normal position, upright on their feet, which are set far back, and with their fin-like wings hanging in a useless kind of way at their sides. When they have got fairly out of the water, beyond the reach of the surf, they stand together for a few minutes, drying and dressing themselves and talking loudly, apparently congratulating themselves on their safe landing, and then they scramble in a body over the stony beach, many falling and pulling themselves up again with the help of their flippers on the way, and make straight for one particular gangway into the scrub, along which they waddle in regular order up to the rookery. In the meantime a group of about equal number appear from the rookery at the end of another of the paths. When they get out of the grass on to the beach they all stop and talk and look about them, sometimes for three or four minutes. They then with one consent scuttle down over the stones into the water and long lines of ripple, radiating rapidly from their place of departure, are the only indications that the birds are speeding out to sea. The tussock-brake, which in Inaccessible Island is perhaps four or five acres in extent, was alive with Penguins breeding. [This was in the latter part of October.] The nests are built of the stems and leaves of the Spartina in the spaces between the tussocks. They are two or three inches high, with a slight depression for the eggs, and about a foot in diameter. The gangways between the tussocks, along which Penguins are constantly passing, are wet and slushy, and the tangled grass, the strong ammoniacal smell, and the deafening noise, continually penetrated by loud separate sounds which have a startling resemblance to the human voice, make a walk through the rookery neither easy nor pleasant.
“The Penguin is thickly covered with the closest felting of down and feathers, except a longitudinal band, which in the female extends along the middle line of the lower part of the abdomen, and which, at all events in the breeding-season, is without feathers. The bird seats herself almost upright upon the eggs, supported by the feet and the stiff feathers of the tail, the feathers of the abdomen drawn apart, and the naked band directly applied to the eggs, doubtless with the object of bringing them into immediate contact with the source of warmth. The female and the male sit by turns; but the featherless space, if present, is not nearly so marked in the male. When they shift quarters they sidle-up close together, and the change is made so rapidly that the eggs are scarcely uncovered for a
Mr.
Catarrhactes antipodes, Hombr. & Jacq. Ann. Sci. Nat. xvi. p. 520 (1841).
Eudyptes antipodes, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 199 (1843).
Aptenodytes flavilarvata, Peale, U.S. Expl. Exp. p. 260 (1848).
Pygoscelis antipodes, Hombr. & Jacq. Voy. Pôle Sud, Zool. iii. p. 156, pl. 33. fig. 2 (1853).
Pygoscelis antipoda, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 775 (1856).
Eudyptes antipoda, Cass. U.S. Expl. Exp. p. 351 (1858).
Spheniscus antipoda, Schleg. Mus. Pays-Bas, Urinatores, p. 9 (1866).
Ad. suprà obscurè cyanescens, nigro minutè varius: alâ saturatiore, margine carpali angustè, margine apicali latiùla flavicante: subtùs argentescenti-albus, pectoris lateribus dorso concoloribus: pilei plumis rigidis, pilosis, pallidè sulphureis, nigro medialiter lineatis: supercilio lato nucham cingente pallidè sulphureo: genis anticis pallidè sulphureis nigro lineatis: facie reliquâ et collo superiore laterali gulâque brunneis, hâc multò pallidiore: rostro obscurè brunnescenti-aurantiaco: pedibus saturatè brunneis.
Adult male. Top and sides of the head, cheeks, and towards the base of lower mandible pale sulphur-yellow, the feathers of the forehead and crown lengthened, and having a shaft-streak of glossy black; general upper surface of the body, as well as the sides of the breast and thighs, dull blue, with a streak of black down the centre of each feather; upper surface of flippers bluish black, the outer edges yellowish white; region of the ears, throat, and upper sides of neck pale fulvous brown; fore neck, breast, and the rest of the under-parts yellowish white; tail-feathers bluish black. Bill dull brownish orange; legs and feet dark brown. Total length 32 inches; length of flipper 7·5; tail 3; bill, along the ridge 2·5, along the edge of lower mandible 3; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 3·5.
Obs. A specimen of the male bird in my collection from Campbell Island, and now figured, has the black shaft-lines on the vertex broader, the dark colour predominating, with an outer and well-defined band of pale yellow, which is continued, although in a narrower form, through the eyes to the angles of the mouth, forming a sort of coronal hood, the feathers composing which are glossy and of a silky texture. The yellow on the lower sides of the cheek is marked with minute black shaft-lines; and the fulvous brown of the throat and sides of the upper fore neck has a darker edge separating it from the white, the latter forming a rounded apex in front about three inches below the angle of the lower mandible. The underparts are white, with a very decided gloss.
Another adult male from Campbell Island, which I had an opportunity of examining in the Otago Museum, has a beautiful head, the coronal region being pale lemon-yellow, pencilled on the vertex and crown with black; cheeks washed with yellow; chin and sides of the neck pale brown, shading into the light blue which covers the nape and lower sides of the neck; hind neck, back, and general upper surface bright blue with thick black shaft-lines; inner margin of flippers and the whole of the under surface satiny white. The white of the fore neck extends upwards to within an inch and a half of the bill, where it meets the pale brown colour and forms a rounded outline. Irides said to have been bright yellow.
Adult female. As large as the male, but with the entire plumage less conspicuous. The vertex and crown are only slightly washed with yellow, the dark shaft-lines being less pronounced on that account, but extending further back and covering the whole crown, there being no indication of the coronal circlet described above. The plumage of the upper parts is chiefly a dingy brown with a faint wash of blue on the outer edges of the feathers, this colour being of a much lighter tint than in the other sex. Upper surface of flippers dull bluish
Obs. The bird from which the above description is taken has the claws much blunted and worn, indicating maturity,* and the tail-feathers abraded to mere shafts, like strips of elastic whalebone (the middle ones to the length of three inches), denoting, as I think, an adult female at the close of the breeding-season. In both sexes the bill appears to have been originally of a dull brownish orange, darker on the ridge and in the terminal part of the lower mandible.
Young. The white of the fore neck extends right up to the bill and spreads on to the face; there is a broad mark of brown behind the eyes and on the sides of the upper neck; the coronal band is absent, but there is a tinge of yellow on the vertex, with some indistinct pencilled markings of brown.
The above description of the adult male, which appeared in my first edition, was taken from a fine specimen in the British Museum. At that period there was only a single example known in the Colony—an immature specimen obtained at Oamaru on the east coast of the South Island. Numerous individuals have since been taken, but in every instance further south. The description of the female is from one obtained at Cape Campbell and presented to me by Mr. Robson, who also forwarded a pair to the Colonial Museum. There is an example from Akaroa in the Canterbury Museum; and the young bird described above was captured near Dunedin in December 1873, and is now preserved in the Otago Museum.
The egg is broadly ovoido-conical, measuring 2·85 inches in length by 1·15 in breadth, creamy-white and having a roughish surface with a thin chalky covering. I have two before me, and in one the outline is slightly pyriform; in other respects they are alike. Both specimens were collected on Campbell Island.
Mr.
“At Otago Peninsula, on the 9th November, I found a nest of this species containing two eggs, on which the female bird was sitting. The eggs were white, and uniform in shape and size, measuring 2·95 inches by 2·15. The nest consisted of a mere platform of sticks, about 18 inches in diameter, and was situated at the foot of a leaning tree in thick bush, on a steep ascent from a sandy beach. The birds in their journeys to and from the beach had made a beaten track up the hill, on which the marks of their claws were plainly perceptible in the soft clay. Two other nests, found on the same occasion, also contained two eggs each, resembling in appearance and size those described above, but I did not get an opportunity to measure them. The nests were constructed principally of coarse grass, on a ledge at the foot of a small cliff near the water.
“Another nest had been found on the 26th of October in the same locality under a log. It contained two fresh eggs, measuring 2·75 inches by 2·1.
“I visited the beach again on the 9th of August in the year following, and found, near an old nest, two young birds, both males. They were fully feathered, but still had a little down about their plumage. There were plenty of footprints of the birds on the track leading up the hill, but all the tracks on the sandy beach below high-water mark pointed seawards, showing that the birds, at that time of the year, came ashore only at night and left again in the morning.”
Eudyptes atrata, Hutton, Ibis, 1875, p. 114.
Ad. omninò nigricans: dorsi plumis cyanescente medialiter lineatis: subtùs pallidior, plumis eyanescenti-griseo medialiter obscurè lineatis: supercilio distincto a naribus ducto et pileum marginante, posticè conspicuè brunneo: rostro rufescenti-brunneo: pedibus nigris.
Adult. General plumage black, but a different shade of colour observable on the upper and lower surfaces, and this is produced in the following manner: on the upper parts each feather has a central stripe of dark blue, which deepens almost to black on the head; on the underparts each feather has the centre bluish grey; over the entire surface of the body the feathers are black save as to this narrow median stripe; an obscure patch of yellow commencing at the angle of the upper mandible passes over the eyes, and then widening develops into a crest immediately beyond, the occipital plumes being pale golden yellow and two inches in length; flippers black, with obscure bluish points on the feathers; tail entirely black; bill uniform reddish brown; legs and feet black; claws dark brown. Total length (approximate measurement) 27 inches; wing or flipper 6·5; tail 4·5; bill, along the ridge 2·5, along the edge of lower mandible to gape 3; expanse of foot 2; middle toe and claw 3.
This remarkable Penguin, so conspicuously different in its coloration from all other known members of the genus, was obtained from the Snares, a group of sea-girt rocks lying about sixty miles to the south-west of Stewart’s Island.
Apart from its black plumage it may be distinguished by its powerful bill, the peculiar form of its crests, and the long, stiff tail-feathers.
There is only one known example, and this belongs to the fine collection of birds in the Otago Museum. I have to thank Prof. Parker for allowing me to bring this unique specimen to England, in order to figure it in the present work.
The black coloration of its under surface separates this form from all the other known species, and its massive deep bill, its very small hind toe, and long tail afford other distinguishing characters. In size it somewhat exceeds the well-known Crested Penguin ( Eudyptes pachyrhynchus).
Eudyptes chrysolophus, Brandt, Bull. Acad. Sc. Pét. ii. p. 314 (1837).
Eudyptes chrysocome, Abbott, Ibis, 1860, p. 337 (nec Forst.).
Eudyptes chrysolophus, Sclater, Ibis, 1860, pp. 338, 432.
Eudyptes diadematus, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1860, p. 419.
“On comparison of the Kerguelen specimens of this Penguin with others from the Falklands we find no reason for considering them otherwise than of the same species. There is, however, less appearance of the white upper tail-coverts in the Falklands specimen.” (Scl. & Salv. Voy. Chall., Zool. Birds, p. 127.)Eudyptes chrysolophus, Scl. & Salv. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, p. 654
Ad. suprà nigricans cinereo lavatus, alis cinereo nigricantibus, margine alari summâ vix albicante, margine remigiali medialiter albo: caudâ rigidâ, dorso concolore: facie laterali gulâque dorso concoloribus: pilei plumis nitidis nigris elongatis cristam formantibus, frontis plumis basaliter aurantiacis: fasciâ superciliari cristali a loris supra oculum per latera capitis ductâ: corpore reliquo subtùs purè albo, pectoris lateribus dorso concoloribus: alâ subtùs albâ, margine alari nigricante, plagâ nigricante etiam propè ortum alæ et ad apicem remigialem positâ: rostro rufescenti-brunneo: pedibus albicanti-carneis, unguibus nigricantibus.
Adult. Forehead and crown blue-black; across the vertex an inconspicuous band of yellow, the base of each feather being of that colour and the apical portion bluish black; over the eyes the yellow increases and develops into a supraorbital crest of extremely narrow feathers of bright canary-yellow, about an inch and a half in length; nape, hind neck, and general upper surface bluish black, each feather having a median stripe of dark blue; sides of face, throat, and upper part of fore neck bluish grey, becoming paler downwards, and terminating in a tapering projection, both flanks of which as well as all the underparts of the body are pure white; under surface of flippers white, with a band of slaty black along the exterior edge, and a mark of the same colour near the tip. Bill dark reddish brown; feet paler brown (probably flesh-colour in the fresh bird); claws pale brown. Total length (approximately) 26 inches; length of flipper 7·75; bill, along the ridge 2·5, along the edge of lower mandible 2·75; maximum depth of bill 1; tail too much broken for reliable measurement; tarsus 1·50; middle toe and claw 3·25 (the claw being 1).
Obs. The extent of the crest and the richness of its colouring vary in different individuals. In most examples I have seen from other localities there is a small white patch over the tail; but this is absent in the two New-Zealand specimens mentioned below.
Note. Eudyptes chrysolophus was first included in the New-Zealand avifauna by Dr.
Of this fine Penguin I have seen only two examples in New Zealand. One of these is in the Otago Museum, having been obtained somewhere on the east coast; the other was caught in a fishing-net at the Spit, near Napier, in the summer of 1880–81. It was brought ashore alive, and having afterwards died was very successfully mounted by the local taxidermist, Mr. Hooper. I believe it is now in the possession of Messrs. Nelson Brothers of Tomoana.
Spheniscus diadematus, Schl. indiv. No. 3 in Mus. P.-B. Urinatores, p. 9 (1867, nec Gould).
Eudyptes schlegeli, Finsch, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. viii. p. 204 (1876).
Eudyptes schlegeli, Buller, Man. Birds of N. Z. p. 100 (1882).
Ad. similis E. chrysolopho, sed major et cristâ pilei majore et splendidiore aureâ; facie laterali gutture et præpectore albis.
Adult. Similar in plumage to Eudyptes chrysolophus, except in having a rich frontal band of yellow, and the cheeks, sides of the head, and throat white, instead of being slaty black. The crest springs from the forehead and spreads outwards, the colour being bright golden or canary-yellow, mixed with black; the long plumes measure two inches and are entirely yellow, the shorter ones are black towards the tips; surrounding the upper mandible there is a narrow band of sulphur-yellow which extends to and fills the lores; and on the fore neck there is a slight wash of grey. The bill, which is even more robust than in E. chrysolophus, is of a uniform reddish-brown colour. Total length 29 inches; length of flipper 6·5; tail 5; bill, along the ridge 2·4, along the edge of lower mandible 2·75; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 3.
Obs. There is a somewhat interesting specimen in the Otago Museum. It is in a moulting state, and the old plumage is peeling off the body like a reversed glove; the wing-plumage, which is thick-set, is coming off in flakes, disclosing an imbricated surface beneath. Although marked ♂, it is probably a female bird, as there is far less yellow on the coronal region, the vertex being almost entirely black, the brighter colour showing itself only in narrow streaks on both sides of the crest. There is an ashy wash on the face, and the bill is almost black.
There are two examples of this fine Penguin from Macquarie Island in the Otago Museum; and at a meeting of the Otago Institute in October 1877, Professor Hutton exhibited a specimen which had been obtained by the late Mr. Robert Gillies at Brighton, near Dunedin, in March of that year.
Prof. Schlegel’s bird is said to have come from New Zealand, but only on the authority of a dealer (Parzudaky); but Dr. Finsch’s type, in the Leyden Museum, is from Macquarie Island.
There are two eggs of this species in the Otago Museum, also from Macquarie Island. One of these is ovoido-conical, whilst the other is more pyriform; the former measures 3·25 inches in length by 2·4 in breadth, and the latter with a similar length has a greater width by one eighth of an inch. Originally white they are now more or less discoloured, and the surface of the shell is somewhat granulated but without any papillæ.
? Aptenodytes papua, Vieill. (nec Forst. nec Gmel.), Gal. Ois. ii. p. 246 (nec diagn.), tab. 299 (1834).
Eudyptes vittata, Finsch, Ibis, 1875, p. 112.
Ad. suprà obscurè cyanescenti-niger, alâ saturatiùs brunnescente: subtùs omninò albus: facie laterali et præpectore brunnescentibus: supercilio distincto lato occiput eingente albido: rostro rufescenti-brunneo: pedibus rufescentibus, membranis interdigitalibus nigricantibus.
Adult. Crown, sides of the head, face, chin, hind neck, and the rest of the upper surface dark brown, inclining more or less to blue; from the base of the upper mandible, in a line with the nostrils, a streak of yellowish white passes over the eyes, and widening in its course encircles the crown; but there is no elongation of the feathers or any appearance of a crest; the flippers are dull blackish brown on their upper surface, and white underneath, with similar dark markings to those which distinguish Eudyptes pachyrhynchus. Bill reddish brown; legs and feet pale brown, the claws darker. Total length 26 inches; length of flipper 6; tail 1·5; bill, along the ridge 2, along the edge of lower mandible 2·2; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 3.
Note. Of this species Dr. Finsch writes (Ibis, 1875, pp. 113, 114):— “Captain Hutton suggests that this may be Latham’s ‘Red-footed Penguin’ (Gen. Syn. iii. p. 572), but without reason, as a careful examination of the synonymy shows that Latham’s description is based on ‘the Penguin’ of Edwards (t. 49 et t. 94, head on right hand), as is also ‘Aptenodytes catarractes’ of Forster (Comm. Soc. Reg. Gotting. iii. 1781, p. 145) and Gmelin (Linn. Syst. Nat. ii. p. 558), and ‘Phaëton demersus’ of Linné (S. N. p. 219), and Brisson’s ‘Catarractes’ (Ornith, iv. p. 102). All these descriptions are simply derived from Edwards’s figure, which represents a bird the existence of which, in my opinion, will ever remain doubtful, being very likely based on a made-up bird. I do not understand how E. chrysocoma, Forst. and Gmelin (Pinguinaria cristata, Shaw), even supposing it to be the young bird, without tuft— as Edwards’s figure, besides other inaccuracies, shows a bird with Mergus-like legs, the tarsus being longer than the middle toe. E. vittatus, if indeed a true Eudyptes, is easily distinguished from all other members of the Penguin group by its broad white superciliary streak, which runs from the base of bill to the back of head, but which does not consist of elongated feathers. A close examination of all the existing representatives of Penguins leads me to the belief that very probably to this new species belongs the figure of a Penguin which Vieillot erroneously published under the name of ‘Aptenodytes papua’ (l. c.), but which is not the well-known species of Sonnerat, Forster, and Gmelin, which Mr. Sclater, from the unfitness of the name, proposed to call Pygoscelis wagleri (P. Z. S. 1861, p. 47). To judge from Vieillot’s figure and the French description (not the Latin diagnosis, which relates to the true papua), the bird very much resembles our E. vittatus, especially in having the white superciliary streak, which runs to the occiput.”
The type specimen of this Penguin is in the Otago Museum; but there is a much finer example in the Canterbury Museum, in which the colours are brighter, the coronal band more conspicuous, and the bill appreciably thicker.
I take it that this is a male bird, and that the one described above (which has been courteously forwarded to England by Professor Parker, for my examination) is a female in old and faded breeding-plumage.
Little Penguin, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 572, pl. ciii. (1785).
Aptenodyta minor, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 558 (1788, ex Lath.).
Catarrhactes minor, Cuv. Règn. An. i. p. 513 (1817).
Chrysocoma minor, Steph. Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 61 (1825).
Spheniscus minor, Gray, in Dieff. Trav. ii., App. p. 199 (1843).
Aptenodytes minor, Forst. Descr. An. p. 101 (1844).
Eudyptula minor, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 775 (1856).
Eudyptila minor, Gray, Hand-1. of B. iii. p. 99 (1871).
Eudyptula albosignata, Finsch, P. Z. S. 1874, p. 207.
Ad. suprà obscurè cyanescens: subtùs argentescenti-albus: facie laterali brunnescente lavatâ: alâ sordidè cinereâ, albo marginatâ et latiùs apicatâ; rostro cyanescenti-cano, culmine saturatiore: pedibus carneo-albidis, membranis interdigitalibus brunnescenti-nigris: iride flavicanti-canâ.
Adult. Crown of the head, hind part of neck, and all the upper surface, as well as the thighs, light blue, with a black line down the centre of each feather; sides of the head dark grey; throat, fore neck, and all the under-parts slivery white; upper surface of flippers black, tinged with blue, and margined with white along the inner edges; under surface yellowish white, with a dark grey spot near the extremity. Irides yellowish grey, with a brownish margin; bill bluish grey, darker on the ridge; feet flesh-white, the soles, webs, and claws brownish black. Total length 19 inches; extent of flippers 14; length of flipper 5; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 2·5.
Nestling. In the downy condition the young are blackish brown on the upper and white on the under surface; but they assume the adult colours before leaving the nest.
Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 210.Remarks. I have already stated Eudyptula albosignata a mere variety of
This species occurs all round our coasts, and resorts in large numbers to the Island of Kapiti, in Cook’s Strait, and probably to other islands of similar character, to breed and rear its young. It is abundant also in the seas surrounding Tasmania, in Bass’s Strait, and on the south coast of Australia generally. Mr. Gould found it breeding on the low islands in Bass’s Strait from September to January, and states that in these localities the ground is “completely intersected by paths and avenues; and so much care is expended by the birds in the formation of these little walks, that every stick and stone is removed, and in some instances even the herbage, by which the surface is rendered so neat and smooth as to appear more like the work of the human hand than the labour of one of the lower animals… . . A considerable portion of the year is occupied in the process of breeding and rearing the young, in consequence of its being necessary that their progeny should acquire sufficient vigour to resist the raging of that element on which they are destined to dwell, and which I believe they never again leave until, by the impulse of nature, they in their turn seek the land for the purpose of reproduction. Notwithstanding this care for the preservation of the young, heavy gales of wind destroy them in great numbers, hundreds being occasionally found dead on the beach after a storm; and when the sudden transition from the quiet of their breeding-place to the turbulence of the ocean, and the great activity and muscular exerrtion then required, are taken into consideration, an occurrence of this kind will not appear at all surprising… . Its powers of progression in the deep are truly astonishing; it bounds through this element like the porpoise, and uses its short fin-like wings as well as its feet to assist it in its progress; its swimming-powers are in fact so great that it stems the waves of the most turbulent seas with the utmost facility, and during the severest gale descends to the bottom, where, among beautiful beds of coral and forests of sea-weed, it paddles about in search of crustaceans, small fish, and marine vegetables, all of which kinds of food were found in the stomachs of those I dissected.”
I once had a live one in my possession for a considerable time; and although very savage when first taken, severely punishing the captor’s hands with its beak, it soon became quite tame, and exhibited, for such a bird, a remarkable degree of intelligence.
On land its mode of progression is very ungainly, and it frequently topples over when attempting to run. Its usual attitude is an upright one, but it sometimes crouches low, with its breast nearly touching the ground. The sea, however, is its natural abode; and on observing its movements there it is at once manifest that the flippers are intended to perform the office of fins, or paddles, for propelling the body through the water. On the surface it swims low and in a rather clumsy fashion; but the moment it dives under it trails its legs behind like a bird on the wing, and using its flippers in the manner indicated, glides forward with the same ease and freedom that the Sea-Gull cleaves the air above it. In clear deep water I have watched its graceful evolutions with considerable interest; and I have been astonished at the length of time the bird could remain under before rising to the surface to breathe. Whether it is nocturnal in its habits I am unable to say; but I am inclined to think not, inasmuch as my captive bird seemed to be far less active after dark than during the day, and when disturbed appeared to stumble about in a very blind manner.
It makes a loud croaking noise; and where large companies are breeding together they appear to keep up a constant angry altercation. The eggs, which are usually two in number, are deposited in a shallow artificial burrow or in a natural crevice among the rocks. Occasionally, however, these burrows are of considerable depth; and Reischek informs me that he traced one under the root of a tree, at Dusky Sound, for a distance of 12 feet. He also found the nests (often carefully lined with leaves and grass) more than a mile from the sea-shore. Sometimes three or four birds are found associated; and it is said that the sexes assist each other in the labour of incubation. The eggs are of a very rounded form, measuring 2·2 inches in length by 1·7 in breadth, greenish white originally, but always much soiled or stained by the bird, and often smeared with a white chalky substance.
Aptenodytes undina, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1844, p. 57.
Spheniscus undina, Gould, B. of Austr. vii. pl. 85 (1848).
Eudyptula undina, Bonap. C. R. xlii. p. 775 (1856).
Eudyptila undina, Gray, Hand-1. of B. iii. p. 99 (1871).
Ad. similis E. minori, sed minor, et suprà dilutiùs et lætiùs cyanescens.
Adult. Crown, nape, hind neck, and all the upper parts bright glossy pale blue, the shafts of the feathers black; sides of the head bluish grey; throat, fore neck, and all the underparts pure silvery white; upper surface of flippers bright blue, each feather with a lanceolate mark of black down the centre; along the inner edges of flippers a narrow band of white. Irides pale grey with a silvery edge to the pupil. Bill blackish brown, paler on the under mandible; feet yellowish white, with black claws; the webs and soles blackish brown. Total length 14·5 inches; length of flipper 3; tail 1·25; bill, along the ridge 1·25, along the edge of lower mandible 1·5; tarsus ·75; middle toe and claw 1·75; hind toe and claw ·4.
Young. I have obtained newly-fledged specimens from the nest, with the down adhering; the colours were the same as in the adult, the blue on the upper surface being conspicuously bright.
Nestling. Covered with thick short down, sooty brown on the upper and white on the under surface; irides purplish grey.
Obs. Like Eudyptula minor, this species assumes the full plumage from the nest, the blue on the upper surface being very bright. I have a specimen in that stage with remnants of down adhering.
This Penguin is equally, if not more abundant on our coasts than the preceding one; and the foregoing account is applicable to both species.
Dr. Finsch refuses to admit any specific distinction. Dr. Coues also, in writing of Gould’s types in the Museum at Philadelphia, says:—” These specimens are slightly smaller than average minor, bluer than usual, but not bluer than No. 1338, for example, and with rather weak bills… . . I cannot distinguish these specimens even as a variety.” Mr. Gould, however, who originally described this bird, observes:—“By many persons it might be regarded as the young of E. minor; but I invariably found the young of that species, whilst still partially clothed in the downy dress of immaturity, to exceed considerably in size all the examples of this species, even when adorned in the adult livery, and possessing the hard bill of maturity; there can be no question, therefore, of the two birds being distinct.”
In support of my own view that this bird is specifically distinct from the preceding one, I have already published Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. ix. pl. xv.
There is a fine mounted group of New-Zealand Penguins in the Canterbury Museum. The case
Eudyptula minor, with down still adhering to the plumage; and in these young birds the bill is fully one third larger than that of an adult example of E. undina in the same group.
On January 18th I visited the Rurima Rocks in the Bay of Plenty and dug out several of these Penguins from their deep subterranean burrows. One was an adult male, in perfect plumage, which bit savagely on being taken hold of and uttered a low growling note. After examining the bird I turned it loose, and it was amazing to see with what celerity he trundled over the stony beach and dived into the surf, not appearing again on the surface till he was well out at sea. In another hole I found an adult female with her plumage much faded and worn, indicating the close of the breeding-season, which probably commences about September. I found two nestlings of very unequal size, and covered with down, in a hole by themselves; and the natives brought me another young bird in a more advanced state, having the bright plumage of the adult, but with a broad yoke of blackish down adhering to its shoulders, with a remnant also on the flippers.
Many of the young of both this and the preceding species lose their lives, in the months of January and February, owing to their inexperience in keeping off a lee shore when the surf is breaking. They are cast ashore and perish on the sands, where I have counted a dozen in less than a mile’s walk. I found them particularly abundant on the open beach at Waeheke, in the exact spot where, in 1864, H.M.S. ‘Harrier’ pitched a shell into a retreating body of Ngatiporou warriors, killing their chief,
They swim and dive with great activity; resting their bodies on the surface with the whole of the back exposed and the head raised they travel along at marvellous speed, diving under the moment any danger threatens.
I have found this little Penguin far more tractable than the crested species ( Eudyptes pachyrhynchus), for under judicious management it will soon become perfectly tame. I have on several occasions endeavoured to keep the Crested Penguins alive, but I could never induce them to eat anything. A very fine one sulked in my aviary for a whole week without, so far as I could discover, eating a morse! of anything. In the end, I had (adopting an Irishman’s expression) “to save its life by killing it.” This bird was sent to me by Captain Fairchild, of the Government steamboat ‘Hinemoa,’ who had captured it with many others in Caswell Sound, where he found these Penguins breeding in the early part of September. He also presented me with six specimens of the egg, all collected by himself in that locality; they were found under shelter of the rocks, and there were generally two, but sometimes three, in a nest. It was very amusing, he states, to watch the proceedings of the birds after their nests had been plundered. They were breeding in a colony and all close together. On strutting up to this breeding-place and finding their own eggs missing, they would deliberately commence to steal from their neighbours, pushing the eggs along the ground into their own nests with their bills, and appropriating them in the most methodical way. Major Mair’s bird of the same species (mentioned on p. 288) would come up regularly at feeding-time and would make its wants known by a loud chuckle accompanied by a comical twisting of its neck. It had also a habit of waddling off to a duck-yard, a distance of a quarter of a mile, apparently for company, and then coming back at the usual time to be fed.
The genus Pygoscelis (established by Wagler in 1832) holds an intermediate position between Eudyptes and Aptenodytes, and although not among the genera defined in my Introduction (pp. lxi to lxxxiv), I have found it necessary to employ it.
Le Manchot Papou, Sonn. Voy. N. Guin. p. 181, pl. cxv. (1776).
Aptenodytes papua, Forst. N. Comm. Götting, iii. p. 140, pl. 3 (1781).
Papuan Penguin, Lath. Gen. Syn. iii. pt. 2, p. 565 (1785).
Apterodita papuæ, Scop. Del. Faun. et Flor. Insubr. ii. p. 91. no. 71 (1786).
Chrysocoma papua, Steph. Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 59 (1825).
Pygoscelis papua, Gray, List
Eudyptes papua, Gray, Gen. of Birds, iii. p. 641 (1849).
Aptenodytes tæniata, Peale, U. S. Expl. Exp. p. 264 (1848).
Pygoscelis wagleri, Sclater, Ibis, 1860, p. 390.
Spheniscus papua, Schl. Mus. P.-B. Urinatores, p. 5 (1867).
Pygosceles tæniata, Coues, Pr. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phil. 1872, p. 195.
Pygoscelis tæniatus, Scl. & Salv. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, p. 653.
Ad. suprà nigricans vix cinereo lavatus: alis magis cinereis, margine alari conspicuâ et remigum apicibus fasciam terminalem latam formantibus albis: supracaudalibus rigidis, nigricantibus cinereo lavatis: rectricibus nigris, marginaliter brunnescentibus: fasciâ latâ verticali albâ ab utroque oculo per verticem ductâ: facie laterali et gutture cinerascentibus, gutturis plumis albido variis: corpore reliquo subtùs sericeo-albo: alâ inferiore albâ, remigibus extimis apicaliter cinereis plagam conspicuam exhibentibus: pectore subalari et plagâ alterâ ad ortum alæ positâ cinereis: rostro lætè aurantiaco, culmine nigro: pedibus aurantiacis: iride lætè brunneâ.
Adult. Head and upper part of neck all round slaty black, excepting only a coronal band of white, extending from eye to eye, which is half an inch or more in width on the sides and narrows to a mere streak in the middle, with some scattered white feathers below it; entire upper surface dull blue-black, more or less intermixed with brown; on the sides of the body, flanks, and upper tail-coverts the blue tinge deepens; lower part of fore neck and entire under surface pure white; flippers dull bluish black, largely margined on the inner edge with white, their under surface being also white with a conspicuous patch of blackish grey at the humeral flexure; tail-feathers long, rigid, and dull bluish black with polished shafts. Bill reddish brown, changing to horn-colour at the tips; legs reddish brown with black claws. Total length 29 inches; length of flipper 8·5; tail 6·25; bill, along the ridge 2·25, along the edge of lower mandible 3·25; tarsus 1; middle toe and claw 3·25.
Young. Differs from the adult only in having the crown-mark narrower and washed with brown; the line of demarcation on the throat less defined, being mixed with grey; and the fore neck, as well as the wing-margin more or less marked with brown.
Obs. In none of the examples I have examined is the posterior edge of the coronal band regular or well-defined, but is broken, more or less, by small scattered spots which spread downwards towards the nape.
In the Otago Museum there are two specimens (adult and young) obtained from Macquarie Island,
Its cry is said to resemble the short bark of the fox.
Prof. Moseley states that in the stomachs of some he dissected at the Falkland Islands he found fish-bones, cuttlefish-beaks, and stones.
The Rev. Mr. Eaton gives the following interesting account of its breeding-habits on Kerguelen Island:—“It builds in communities, some of only a dozen, others from 70 to 150 families. A more populous colony upon the mainland was visited by six officers from the ships, who estimated the number of nests in it to amount to 2000 or more. These larger communities are approached from the sea by regular paths, conspicuous at a distance, like well-worn sheep-tracks, which lead straight up the hill from the water. Their formation is due to the Penguins being very particular about where they land and enter the sea. A small party of the birds occupied a position upon the neck of a low promontory within an hour’s walk of Observatory Bay. Their nests were nearest to the farther side of the isthmus; but when they were approached the male birds used to run to the water, not by the shortest route where it was deep close to the rocks, but by the longest to a place where the shore was shelving. It was amusing to see them start off in a troop as fast as their legs could carry them, holding out their wings and tumbling headlong over stones in their way, because as they ran they would keep looking back instead of before them, and to hear their outcries. Panic and consternation seemed to possess them all; but the females (possibly because they could not keep up with their mates) seldom went far from their nests, and, if the intruder stood still, soon returned and settled down again upon their eggs. Not many weeks had passed before a change was effected in their conduct. The young were hatched, and now the mothers anxiously endeavoured to persuade them to follow the example of their fathers and run away to sea. But the nestlings preferred to stay in their nests; they did not mind if the stranger did stroke them; although their anxious mothers ran at him with open mouths whenever he dared to do so. Only a few of the older chicks could be prevailed upon to stir, and they after waddling a few yards became satisfied with their performance and turned to go home again. The mothers, who had straggled to a greater distance, began to return too. It was now that the more tardy youngsters began to experience the ills of life. Every Penguin that had reached its place before them aimed blows at them as they passed by towards their own abodes. One of the little birds certainly did seem to deserve correction. It saw its neighbour’s nest empty and sat down in it. The old female Penguin, the rightful occupier, presently returned in company with her own chick, to whom, having put her head well into his mouth, she began to administer refreshment after his run. Seeing them so pleasantly engaged, the small vagrant, thoughtlessly presuming on her generosity, went nearer and presented himself to be fed also, as if he had a right to her attention and care. She looked at him while he stood gaping before her with drooping wings, unable for the moment to credit what she saw. But suddenly the truth flashed upon her, and provoked by his consummate audacity she gave vent to her indignation, pecked his tongue as hard as she could, chased him out of the nest, darting blows at his back, and croaked ominously after him as he fled precipitately beyond the range of her beak, leaving trophies of down upon the scene of his unfortunate adventure.”
The nests of this Penguin on Kerguelen Island were composed of dried leaf-stalks and seed-stems of Pringlea, together with such other suitable material as happened to be at hand, and they usually contained two eggs, one of them invariably larger than the other.
Mr.
Patagonian Penguin, Penn. Phil. Trans. lviii. p. 91, pl. 9 (1768).
Le Manchot de la Nouvelle Guinée, Sonn. Voy. N. Guin. p. 180, pl. 113 (1776).
Apterodita longirostris, Scop. Del. Faun. et Flor. Insubr. ii. p. 91, no. 69 (1786).
Aptenodytes patachonica, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 556 (1788).
Pinguinaria patachonica, Shaw, Nat. Misc. xi. pl. 409 (1800).
Aptenodytes pennantii, Gray, Ann. N. H. 1844, p. 315.
Spheniscus pennantii, Schl. Mus. P.-B. Urinatores, p. 3 (1867).
“Dr. Coues, in his ‘Monograph’ of the Aptenodytes longirostris, Coues, Pr. Phil. Acad. 1872, p. 193 Spheniscidæ, revives Scopoli’s name for this species; and in this I think he is justified, for, laying aside Gmelin’s title of patachonica, which confuses two species, the Apteryodita of Scopoli (i. e.) seems to be the next in order of priority. It is founded on ‘Le Manchot de la Nouvelle Guinée’ of Sonnerat (Voy. N. G. p. 180, pl. 113), and although the figure in this plate is very bad, representing the black on the throat as extending far down to the centre of the breast, the description quite agrees.” (Sharpe, App. Voy. Ereb. and Terr. Birds, p. 38.)Cf, also Sclater, Ibis, 1888, p. 326.
Ad. pileo gulâque et facie laterali nigris: collo postico tergoque pallidè cyanescentibus, dorso et uropygio saturatioribus: plagâ latâ aurantiacâ a regione paroticâ posticâ per latera colli angustante, et gulam nigram marginante: colli lateribus cyanescentibus, antice latè nigro marginatis: jugulo medio aurantiaco: corpore reliquo subtùs omninò sericeo-albus, pectoris lateribus dorso concoloribus: alis cinereis, remigibus seriatim cinereo terminatis, margine alari summo nigricante: caudâ nigrâ: rostro nigro, mandibulis rubescenti-flavis, versus apicem nigricantibus: pedibus nigris.
Adult male. Crown, sides of the head, and throat jet-black; spatulate spot on each side of hind head, line down the sides, and the upper part of fore neck deep golden yellow, fading gradually away on the lower part of fore neck; hind neck and general upper surface pale blue, deepening on the back and rump, each feather with a dark centre; underparts yellowish white. From the crown a narrow fringe of black separates the yellow already described from the blue of the nape, and, continuing downwards as far as the wings, spreads outwards till it is an inch in extent. Irides brown; bill black, the flattened sides of the lower mandible (up to within an inch and a half of its extremity) reddish yellow; feet and claws black. Total length 36 inches; length of flipper 11; tail 3·5; bill, along the ridge 3·5, along the edge of lower mandible 4; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 4.
Nestling. Covered with very dense fine down of a uniform yellowish-brown or dark buff colour in some, while in others it is many shades darker, or dull blackish brown. There is no difference in the appearance of the sexes at this stage.
Obs. There is a specimen (from Macquarie Island) in the Otago Museum in which the colour on the fore neck is a vivid canary-yellow, fading off downwards towards the breast; the head and throat glossy black, so also is the line along the sides dividing the two colours; the plumage of the back is a pale silvery blue; bill black, sides of lower mandible bright yellowish brown; feet black; irides represented as bright yellow.
The specimen of this noble Penguin in my collection from which my description is taken was obtained on Stewart’s Island, where this bird is extremely rare.
Professor Moseley gives the following account (Voy. Chall., Zool. vol. ii. p. 123) of the breeding-habits of this Penguin at Marion Island in December 1883:—
“Most interesting, however, by far amongst all rookeries of Penguins which I have seen was one of the King Penguins, which I met with a little further along the shore. The rookery was in a space of perfectly flat ground of about an acre in extent. It was divided into two irregular portions, a larger and smaller, by some grassy mounds. The flat space itself had a filthy black slimy surface, but the soil was trodden hard and flat. About two thirds of the space of one of the portions of the rookery, the larger one, was occupied by King Penguins, standing bolt upright, with their beaks upturned, side by side, as thick as they could pack, and jostling one another as one disturbed them… . . Penguins were to be seen coming from and going to the sea from the rookery, but singly, and not in companies like the Crested Penguins. The King Penguins when disturbed made a loud sound like ‘urr-urr-urr.’ They run with their bodies held perfectly upright, getting over the ground pretty fast, and do not stop at all. A good many were in bad plumage, moulting, but there were plenty also in the finest plumage. On the small area of the rookery, which consisted of a flat space sheltered all round by grass slopes, and which formed a sort of bay amongst these, communicating with the larger area by two comparatively narrow passages, was the breeding-establishment.
“These birds are said by some observers to set apart regular separate spaces in their rookeries for moulting, for birds in clean plumage not breeding, and again for breeding-birds. Here the breeding-ground was quite separate, and the young and breeding-pairs were confined to this smaller sheltered area. This was the only King-Penguin rookery which I saw in full action.”
The Rev. Mr. Eaton writes (Zool. Kerg. Isl. p. 153):—“In December and January small parties of these Penguins come into sheltered inlets to moult… . There are so few land animals on Kerguelen Island that the unwonted sight of people walking never failed to attract the notice of the King Penguins. Standing at their ease in their sheltered hollows they uttered as it were derisive cries from time to time while the strangers laboured through the Azorella. Seldom did they take the trouble to stir when anyone approached them, but remaining in a group, some standing still, others lying down, they quietly awaited the progress of events. Their unconsciousness of danger was singularly shown by the following incident. One day while grappling for Algæ in Swain’s Bay, I came with one of the men upon six ‘Kings’ in a group. Seeing that some of them had finished moulting and were well coloured, we walked up to them, seized the two finest by their necks, and sat down upon their backs. The others stayed beside us unconcerned at the fate of their companions, though they were beating the ground beneath us with their wings and gasping for breath within a yard or so of them. ‘What shall be will be’; so they made themselves comfortable, and they were not molested.”
The egg of this Penguin is of a remarkable shape, being perfectly pyriform. I have before me now two specimens from Macquarie Island. Both are alike in this respect, although one appears to have the apex a little more produced than the other. The more regular pear-shaped one measures exactly four inches in length by three inches in breadth, and is of a pale greenish white; the shell is of close texture, with a roughened surface, the whole of it being covered with prominent papillæ, which are larger and more thickly spread around the central circumference. The other egg gives a measurement only one eighth of an inch shorter by one sixteenth narrower; consequently the more produced appearance is due rather to shape than size. It likewise has a rough surface, but it wants the papillæ, and the entire shell is stained and smudged to an unequal yellowish-brown colour. These eggs were collected on Macquarie Island on the 19th November, which fixes the breeding-time of this Penguin.
Apteryx australis, Gould, B. of Austr. vi. pl. 2 (1848, nec Shaw).
Apteryx australis var. mantelli, Finsch, J. f. O. 1872, p. 263.
Apteryx mantelli, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed. p. 358 (1873, nec Bartlett).
Apteryx mantelli, Sharpe, App. Voy. Ereb. and Terr. p. 36 (1875, nec Bartl.).
Dr. Finsch, as far back as 1871, wrote to me:—“You are quite right in what you say about Bartlett’s Apteryx bulleri, Sharpe, Proc. Well. Phil. Soc. p. 6 Apteryx mantelli. This is, as I have already stated, by no means a species; for all the characters given by him are without value. I have examined about twenty specimens, from the South Island, and they all belong to one and the same species. Bartlett was not, at the time he described his bird, aware of the great variation in the size of the two sexes, and in the scutellation of the tarsus also. Sometimes the scutellation in one and the same bird is different in the two legs. In any case, his name of
As will be explained further on (see p. 324), Dr. Finach arrived at the conclusion that the two birds were inseparable. Holding strongly to the opposite view, I figured and described the North Island bird, in my former edition, under the name of Apteryæ mantelli.
Mr. Sharpe, after a close study of a complete series of specimens in my collection, has lately contributed a paper on this subject to the Wellington Philosophical Society (l. c.), in which he says:—“During a recent examination of some skins of Apteryges, in company with Sir Apteryx of the North Island is certainly specifically distinct from the Apteryx australis of the South Island; and I was a little surprised to find, on going over the literature of the subject, that, notwithstanding a similar verdict on the part of such excellent naturalists as Sir Apteryx mantelli of Bartlett, under which name it appeared in the first edition of Buller’s ‘Birds of New Zealand,’ and it is the
“It gives me great pleasure to adopt a suggestion of my friend Dr. Finsch that the North Island Apteryx be called Apteryx bulleri, after the learned author of the ‘Birds of New Zealand,’ a work which, in its first edition, seemed to me to be as complete as it was possible to make a history of the birds of any single area until I saw the magnificent new edition on which Sir
Ad. rufescens: dorsi plumis rufescentibus ad basin pallidioribus, utrinque nigro marginatis, quasi striatis, scapis plumarum productis, duris: pileo et collo postico nigricanti-brunneis, plumis ad basin grisescentibus: fronte et facie laterali clariùs grisescentibus, illâ pallidiore: gutture sordidè brunnescente: corpore reliquo subtùs grisescenti-brunneo, plumis medialiter pallidioribus, quasi striolatis: corporis lateribus dorso concoloribus: rostro albicanti-corneo: pedibus saturatè brunneis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Head, neck, and fore part of breast dark greyish brown, the produced filaments of the feathers black, inclining to grey towards the base of the bill; general plumage of the upper parts dark rufous streaked with blackish brown; lower part of breast, abdomen, and inner side of thighs pale greyish brown. The streaky appearance of the upper surface is produced by each feather having the centre pale rufous-brown, darker towards the tip, and the long hair-like filaments on both sides black; the fluffy basal portion of the feather is of a uniform light grey. The long straggling hairs or feelers which beset the fore part of the head and angles of the mouth are jet-black. Irides black; bill clear white horn-colour; tarsi and toes pure whitish or pale brown to dark brown; claws blackish brown, that of the middle toe whitish towards the base.
Male. Extreme length, following the curvature of the back 23 inches; bill, along the ridge 4·25, along the edge of lower mandible 4·85; tarsus 2·75; inner toe and claw 2·25; middle toe and claw 2·9; outer toe and claw 2·1; hallux or hind tarsal claw ·5.
Female. Extreme length, following the curvature of the body, 27·5 inches; bill, along the ridge 6, along the edge of lower mandible 6·6; tarsus 3·5; inner toe and claw 2·6; middle toe and claw 3·4; outer toe and claw 2·2; hallux or hind tarsal claw ·75.
Obs. As will be at once apparent from the above measurements, the male is considerably smaller than the female. It is moreover usually of a brighter rufous, inclining to chestnut-brown, although the tone of the colouring in different-examples is somewhat variable.
The males have pale brown legs and feet, sometimes whitish, and occasionally marked with blackish brown on the hind part of the tarsus. The females have occasionally the same, but generally their tarsi and toes are dark brown, and sometimes (in very old birds) uniform brownish black.
Young male. A young male which I received from the Upper Wanganui, in October 1870, had the general tints of the plumage lighter than in the adult female, but not so bright as in ordinary examples of the adult male; the sides of the head whitish grey, with a dark ear-spot; the-bill 3 inches long and of a white horn-colour; tarsi in front and toes whitish or flesh-coloured; the edges of the metatarsal scutella margined with pale brown, hind part of tarsi and soles darker, and the claws blackish brown. In this bird the feathers of the back were far less rigid than in the full-grown bird; the rudimentary wings were furnished with a delicate sharp-pointed spur of an arched form, half an inch in length, brown in its basal portion and yellowish towards the tip. The tubes of the quills were extremely small, narrow, and flexible, the feathery shaft being far more ample in proportion than in the adult bird.
In another example of the young bird (in a more advanced condition, judging by the greater strength of the quills) the tarsi and toes were of a dark greyish-brown colour.
Younger state. In the very young bird the plumage is soft and fluffy, and of a uniform dull blackish brown, with the rigid tips of the shafts and the produced hair-like filaments black; paler or greyer on the head and throat. Bill shining ivory-white; tarsi and toes delicate grey; claws black.
Obs. To show how much individuals of both sexes vary in size, I will give here the measurements of two fully adult birds captured by myself in the Pirongia ranges:—
♂ Length (measured as above) 22 inches; bill, along the ridge 3·75, along the edge of lower mandible 4·25; tarsus 2·5; middle toe and claw 2.
♀ Length 25·25 inches; bill, along the ridge 5·2, along the edge of lower mandible 5·75; tarsus 2·75; middle toe and claw 2·75.
In the last-mentioned bird the plumage is in excellent order (in spite of the breeding-season, which is destructive to most specimens), and the lega and feet are of an almost uniform blackish brown, the scutella, which are very regular and distinct, having the centre somewhat lighter.
Another female, from Kawhia, gives the following measurements:—Length 26 inches; bill, along the ridge 5·5, along the edge of lower mandible 6; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 3.
Varieties. There is much individual variety in the shade of the plumage, some being of a lighter and brighter rufous-brown than others, and some being entirely blackish brown on the upper surface; but on a general view the species is decidedly darker than Apteryx australis of the South Island. As mentioned above, the
A specimen obtained by me on the Pirongia mountain, during a Kiwi-hunt fully described in the following pages, is deserving of special mention here. The natives called it a “Kiwi-kura,” in allusion to the reddish hue of its plumage. Instead of being blackish brown or rufous brown like the rest, the whole of the body-plumage is of a uniform dull brick-red; and, what is more remarkable still, instead of the plumage being thickset with narrow shaft-lines, the feathers are long, broad, and fluffy, but with numerous stiff filaments, thus preserving the distinctive character of Apteryx bulleri, as hereinafter explained. The face, chin, and upper part of the throat are greyish white; tarsi and toes pale greyish brown; claws greyish black with white ridges. The stomach contained hinau and taiko berries. On dissection it proved to be a male, the testes being largely developed. Extreme length, following the curvature of the back, 24 inches (to end of outstretched legs 30·75); bill, along the ridge 4, along the edge of lower mandible 4·75; tarsus 2·5; middle toe and claw 3.
This very interesting specimen was found in a nest-burrow with two young birds; and, as might have been expected, these, instead of being almost black, like ordinary examples, were reddish brown with much softer plumage. One of these chicks afterwards made its escape; the skin of the other (which proved on dissection to be a male) is in my collection. At the age of three weeks it gave the following measurements:—Length 9·5 inches; bill, along the ridge 1·75, along the edge of lower mandible 2·25; tarsus 1·5; middle toe and claw 1·75. The frayed or open character of the plumage so conspicuous in the adult is likewise congenital.
There was a somewhat similar bird to this (also a male) in the collection which I presented some years ago to the Colonial Museum; but in that example the colour was brighter and more inclined to chestnut.
In Sir Apteryx bulleri from the Pirongia Ranges, in which not only is the plumage darker than in ordinary examples, but the tarsi and toes are almost black. There is a similar specimen (likewise a female) in my own collection. These were the only black-legged examples out of some thirty adult birds examined by me from that locality; but a male specimen from the Hokianga district has the plumage even darker and the tarsi and toes perfectly black. A fourth example from the Kawhia district (an adult female), which I purchased alive from the natives, has the extremities brownish grey, with black borders to the well-marked scutella. This bird likewise differs from the typical form in having the bill dark brown on its upper surface from the base to the tip, with a tinge of the same colour on the lower mandible; and the claws blackish brown with whitish or horn-coloured ridges.
In the structure of the plumage also there is more or less variation observable. Some have the prickly character, owing to the rigidity of the produced shafts, more pronounced than others; and in some the plumage is thicker and longer than in others. In one of my specimens from Pirongia the plumage of the shoulders is so dense and long that it forms, as it were, an overhanging mantle.
It is said that during one hunting-season (in 1885) the Taupo natives caught on the Kai-manawa Ranges no less than three hundred Kiwis, of which five were albinoes. One of these was brought in to Taupo alive, and was in Major Scannell’s charge for about five weeks. Ultimately it came into the possession of Mr.
General Remarks. Although the head of the Apteryx is small, the neck is large and muscular. There is also a great development of muscle on the thighs; and the feet are strong and powerful, and armed with sharp claws. (In the adult female, of which the general measurements are given above, the circumference of the tibia in its largest part was 6·25 inches, of the tarsal joint 3·25, and of the tarsus 2.) The bill is broad at the base, then tapering, gently arched, and very much produced, with a slight enlargement at the tip, under which the nostrils are situated. The tongue is short and flattened, very thin, but rigid in its anterior portion, with an even width of ·2 of an inch, and rounded at the extremity. The wings are
Apteryx australis. The fore part of the head and sides of the face are beset with straggling hairs or feelers, varying in length from 1 to 6 inches, and perfectly black.
A full and complete history of the remarkable wingless birds which, even to the present day, form the most distinctive feature in the avifauna of New Zealand, would necessarily fill a volume. As, however, the osteology and anatomy of these singular forms have already been exhaustively discussed by Professor Owen in several able ‘Memoirs’ published by the Zoological Society, I do not propose to touch on this part of the subject, but rather to confine myself to some account of their life-history; and as the habits of the several species of Apteryx at present known to us appear to be the same in almost every respect, I consider it sufficient for my present purpose to record the observations I have made on the bird inhabiting the North Island, an excellent portrait of which, from a living bird, is given on the foregoing Plate.
Some six-and-twenty years ago, when residing at Wellington, I received, through the kind offices of Mr. Apteryx. They were eight in number, mostly females, and all full-grown. Three of these birds having shortly afterwards died, I forwarded them in spirits to Professor Owen, to assist him in his examination of the anatomy of this anomalous form. The others remained in my possession for a considerable time; and I was thus afforded a favourable opportunity of studying their peculiarities of structure and habit. In the letter forwarding them, Mr. Woon gave the following information:—“They were caught by muzzled dogs in the bosky groves and marshes of the Upper Wanganui, at a place called Manganuioteao, about 100 miles from the mouth of the river. There are great numbers still to be found in this district. They go together in companies of from six to twelve, and make the country resound at night with their shrill cry.”
During my subsequent residence at Wanganui as Resident Magistrate, I had in my possession at various times no less than seventeen of these birds, of different ages, and all obtained from the same locality, which appears to be one of the last strongholds of the Apteryx in the North Island. In former years they were very abundant in the mountainous part of the Hokianga district, north of Auckland; but according to all accounts they are now comparatively scarce in that part of the country. To the present day they linger on some of the small islands in the gulf of Hauraki; for although so singular a fact has often been called in question, resting as it apparently did on the mere assertion of the natives, the matter was placed beyond all dispute by Mr. T. Kirk, who obtained several himself on the Little Barrier.
The natives whom I found camping at the foot of the Kaimanawa range in March 1887 assured me that the Kiwi was still very plentiful there. About a fortnight before the date of my visit (or end of February) they captured a female with a well-grown young one in a hollow log. It may be inferred therefrom that this species commences nesting about the beginning of January.
I cannot better illustrate the habits of this bird under confinement than by giving the following extracts from a notebook containing the record of my own observations from time to time. The first entry relates to a fine bird brought to me by a native from Ranana, who stated that he had taken it from a small natural cavity on the slope of the Mairehau hill, some fifty miles up the Wanganui river.
“Oct. 1866. One of the inmates of my aviary at present is an adult female Kiwi, only recently captured. During the day it retires into a small dark chamber, where it remains coiled up in the form of a ball—and if disturbed or dislodged, moves drowsily about, and seeks the darkest corner of its prison, when it immediately rolls itself again into an attitude of repose. It appears to be blinded by the strong glare of sunlight; and although it recovers itself in the shade, it can then only detect objects that are near. Night is the time of its activity; and the whole nature of the bird then undergoes a change: coming forth from its diurnal retreat full of animation, it moves about the aviary unceasingly, tapping the walls with its long slender bill, and probing the ground in search of earthworms. The feeding of this bird at night with the large glow-worm (‘toke-tipa’ of the natives) is a very interesting sight. This annelid, which often attains a length of 12, and sometimes 20 inches, with a proportionate thickness, emits at night a bright phosphoric light. The mucous matter which adheres to its body appears to be charged with the phosphorus; and on its being disturbed or irritated the whole surface of the worm is illumined with a bright green light, sufficiently strong to render adjacent objects distinctly visible. Seizing one of these large worms in its long mandibles, the Kiwi proceeds to kill it by striking it rapidly on the ground or against some hard object. During this operation the bird may be clearly seen under the phosphoric light; and the slime which attaches itself to the bill and head renders these parts highly phosphorescent, so that, even after the luminous body itself has been swallowed, the actions of the bird are still visible. There is no longer the slow and half stupid movement of the head and neck; but the bill is darted forward with a restless activity, and travels over the surface of the ground with a continued sniffing sound, as if the bird were guided more by scent than by sight in its search for food.”
The subject of this notice having afterwards died, I sent the skeleton (skilfully prepared by the late Dr. Knox) to Professor Newton, of Cambridge; and it still occupies a place of honour in the University Museum.
The next entry in my notebook refers to a purchase of eight from the Upper Wanganui natives in October 1870:—“The lot consists of two adult males, one young male, three adult females, and two young birds of doubtful sex. One of the females has the plumage very much faded and worn, resembling somewhat that of the Australian Emu, the tips of the feathers having, as it were, a weather-beaten appearance. The old birds are shy, always attempting to hide themselves from view, but very vicious when taken hold of: they struggle violently and utter a low growling note, accompanied by a vigorous striking movement of the feet. The young birds are particularly savage, and instead of running away they charge you in the most plucky manner, using their feet as weapons of offence: when provoked they manifest their anger by an audible snapping of the bill; and at other times they emit a peculiar chuckle, not unlike that of a brood-hen when disturbed on her nest. I have only once heard these captives produce the loud whistling cry which is so familiar to the ear in the wild mountain-haunts of the Kiwi. The birds occupy at present an empty stall in my stable, and they find both concealment and warmth by burying themselves in a heap of loose straw. During the day they remain coiled up in the form of an almost perfectly round ball, with the head and bill hidden beneath the dense hair-like plumage of the body. If hungry, however, they will sometimes wander about in a desultory manner, probing or touching every object with their bills. They often huddle together when at rest, lying one upon another like little pigs; and when sound asleep no amount of noise will rouse them. On being thrust with a stick, or rudely wakened, they move about in a drowsy inert manner, and soon
The Kiwi is in some measure compensated for the absence of wings by its swiftness of foot. When running it makes wide strides and carries the body in an oblique position, with the neck stretched to its full extent and inclined forwards. In the twilight it moves about cautiously and as noiselessly as a rat, to which, indeed, at this time it bears some outward resemblance. In a quiescent posture, the body generally assumes a perfectly rotund appearance; and it sometimes, but only rarely, supports itself by resting the point of its bill on the ground. It often yawns when disturbed in the daytime, gaping its mandibles in a very grotesque manner. When provoked it erects the body, and, raising the foot to the breast, strikes downwards with considerable force and rapidity, thus using its sharp and powerful claws as weapons of defence. The story of its striking the ground with its feet to bring the earthworms to the surface, which appears to have gained currency among naturalists, is as fanciful as the statement of a well-known author that it is capable of “inflicting a dangerous blow, sometimes even killing a dog!”
While hunting for its food the bird makes a continual sniffing sound through the nostrils, which are placed at the extremity of the upper mandible. Whether it is guided as much by touch as by smell I cannot safely say; but it appears to me that both senses are called into action. That the sense of touch is highly developed seems quite certain, because the bird, although it may not be audibly sniffing, will always first touch an object with the point of its bill, whether in the act of feeding or of surveying the ground; and when shut up in a cage or confined in a room it may be heard, all through the night, tapping softly at the walls. The sniffing sound to which I have referred is heard only when the Kiwi is in the act of feeding or hunting for food; but I have sometimes observed the bird touching the ground close to or immediately round a worm which it had dropped without being able to find it. I have remarked, moreover, that the Kiwi will pick up a worm or piece of meat as readily from the bottom of a vessel filled with water as from the ground, never seizing it, however, till it has first touched it with its bill in the manner described. It is probable that, in addition to a highly developed olfactory power, there is a delicate nervous sensitiveness in the terminal enlargement of the upper mandible. It is interesting to watch the bird, in a state of freedom, foraging for worms, which constitute its principal food: it moves about with a slow action of the body; and the long, flexible bill is driven into the soft ground, generally home to the very root, and is either immediately withdrawn with a worm held at the extreme tip of the mandibles, or it is gently moved to and fro, by an action of the head and neck, the body of the bird being perfectly steady. It is amusing to observe the extreme care and deliberation with which the bird draws the worm from its hiding-place, coaxing it out as it were by degrees, instead of pulling roughly or breaking it. On getting the worm fairly out of the ground, it throws up its head with a jerk, and swallows it whole.
In preparing my specimens I was astonished at the toughness of the skin, even in the very young birds; and the late Mr. Apteryx before me; this is so thick that a pair of light shoes might easily be made of it. In setting up these birds, the toughness of the skin
From time to time live examples of the Apteryx have been received by the Zoological Society; and the following notes by Mr. Bartlett, on the incubation of this bird in the “Gardens” (P. Z. S. 1868, p. 329), are worth quoting:—
“In 1851 Lieut.-Governor Eyre presented to the Society an Apteryx. This bird proved to be a female. In the year 1859 she laid her first egg, and has continued to lay one or two eggs every year since that time. In 1865 a male bird was presented by Apteryx, I think sufficient has been witnessed to show that this bird’s mode of reproduction does not differ essentially from that of the allied struthious birds, in all cases of which, that have come under my observation, the male bird only sits.”
The enormous size of the Kiwi’s egg has often been the subject of speculation and comment; for, till the fact was established beyond all question, it seemed almost impossible that the very large eggs occasionally brought in by the natives were the produce of this bird. In the spring of 1870 I had the pleasure of forwarding several live examples of the Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1870, vol. iii. p. 73.Apteryx to the Hamburgh Consul at Wellington, for transmission to the Zoological Society of Berlin; and one of these afterwards furnished the subject of the following notice in the minutes of the Wellington Philosophical Society
“Dr. Hector drew the attention of the meeting to an interesting specimen of an egg of the Kiwi taken in utero. He stated that the bird from which the specimen had been taken belonged to Mr. Krull, and had recently died. It had been presented to the Museum; and on being skinned, it was found to contain a fully formed egg, the large size of which had evidently been the cause of the death of the bird. He considered the specimen unique and setting at rest all doubt as to whether the Kiwi really lays an egg so disproportionately large to the size of the body of the bird.”
The period of gestation in this bird appears to be unusually protracted; and one of my captives, for the space of forty days before extruding her egg, moved about with evident difficulty, being apparently unable to stand upright, resting the weight of the body on the heel of the tarsus, and walking in a staggering manner. She laid a very large egg on the 22nd March, recovered her full activity on the following day, moped on the next, and died on the 25th.
Since the foregoing pages were written, for my former edition of this work, I have had an opportunity of seeing the Kiwi in its home, and of studying the natural history of the species in its wild state.
In October 1882 I was attending the Native Land Court at Cambridge professionally, and in order to enable the native tribes to attend a projected meeting between the Minister for Native Affairs and the “Maori King” at Whatiwhatihoe, I had applied to the Court for a week’s adjournment, which was accordingly granted. This gave me the long-desired opportunity for a Kiwi-hunt in the celebrated Pirongia ranges. Owing to our strained relations with the “King party,” no European had been admitted into this part of the country for many years. It was necessary therefore to obtain King Tawhiao’s consent before starting on the expedition. This was readily obtained at a private interview with the old chief, who assured me that, owing to the long closure, “the mountain was now full of Kiwis.” I then saw rôle—running about the room and gently tapping with its bill, after the manner of the old bird, as already described.
After sketching the likeness of this defenceless chick (which proved to be a male) I sacrificed his little life on the sacred altar of science and made a pretty cabinet specimen of the skin (see woodcut on page 326).
At noon on Tuesday, Nov. 1, we had completed all our arrangements for a week’s sojourn in the bush and started, fully equipped, for a small kainga, about a mile from Alexandra, where we found our men and dogs awaiting us. The former consisted of an experienced Kiwi-hunter,
At daybreak one of the native attendants called me up to hear the rich flute-notes of the Kokako (Glaucopis wilsoni) in the low timber at the edge of the forest. I went after him with my gun, but owing to the thickness of the underwood I failed to find the bird. Leaving our camp at 6 A.M. we entered the dense bush and resumed our ascent of the range. Before we had gone far the dogs (each of whom carried a sheep-bell around his neck) took up the Kiwi scent and disappeared down a ravine, one of the natives dashing after them. He presently reappeared with a fine female Kiwi, which was immediately secured in a Maori ket. I returned with him to the spot and saw at once how utterly hopeless it would be to attempt Kiwi-catching without dogs. Near the bottom of a deep gully, completely choked up with the ground-kiekie ( Freycinetia banksii), so thick and luxuriant indeed that it was a matter of difficulty to push through it at all, down among the gnarled roots of a tawhero, and quite hidden by a growth of
Our natives were not long in putting up a double shelter, in the form of an inverted V, with the apex open. A log fire occupied the space between, the opening in the roof permitting the smoke to escape. My friend and myself occupied one side and the natives the other. These bush huts, which are quite impervious to the rain, are very simply and rapidly constructed. First, a slanting framework of slender sticks cut from the adjoining woods is erected, and this is thatched on top and sides with the pliant leaves of the nikau palm (Areca sapida), the long fronds being skilfully interlaced together, and covered on the outside with a thick layer of tree-fern branches placed with the lower surface reversed, so as to prevent annoyance from the dusty seed-spores.
Our camping-place was conveniently chosen, with ready access to firewood and water, besides being a very picturesque spot; and as it may give some faint idea of the richness and surpassing loveliness of the New-Zealand “Bush,” I shall endeavour to describe it. Behind and overshadowing us was a grove of fine tawa trees, their tops meeting so as to admit only a glimmering of the sunlight, and immediately beyond them, in striking contrast with the clear, upright boles of the former, a group of tawhero, their trunks covered from the ground upwards with a dense growth of climbing kiekie, spreading out its tufted arms in all directions. Right in front of us was a thick and almost impenetrable tangle of undergrowth, laced together with the kareao-vine, which hangs its wiry cables from the tree-tops above and twists and coils about among the underwood in every conceivable form. Then a little to the right and open to the light of heaven through a gap in the forest could be seen a lovely group of Cyathea medullaris, the stems of the largest being some forty feet in height, and in their very midst, touched by their waving fronds and leaning against a sturdy hinau, stood a withered, crownless trunk, covered with a thick profusion of epiphytic plants in every shade
After having refreshed ourselves in the morning, we started on our first real Kiwi-hunt. We took a course down the side of the gully and were soon in a perfect labyrinth of supplejack (Rhipogonum scandens). These vines hung from the trees, ran along the ground, twisted around each other and crossed and recrossed, forming the most complete Chinese puzzle one could imagine, and so interlacing the underwood together that it was a matter of extreme difficulty to get through it even at a slow pace. Then when the little dogs took up the scent and disappeared down the gully it became necessary to follow quickly in the direction their bells indicated, so as to be “in at the death;” and then the hunt became as exciting as it was difficult—the kareao catching the feet and tripping one up or striking painfully across the shins—and so up and down, now swinging by a vine, now pushing on all fours through the tangle; forcing one’s way through clumps of kiekie and dense beds of Lomaria down into the bottom of the ravine; then, as the scent led upwards, following the tinkling bells (the dogs being out of sight) up the tangled slope again, the course sometimes forming a complete circuit of the “field” and representing the erratic wanderings of the Kiwi upon the feeding-ground the night before. Heated, out of breath, scratched in the face and hands, and with our shins aching from repeated contact with the kareao-vines, every now and then we halted to ascertain by the sound of the bells the position of the dogs, and then, full of excitement, resumed our novel chase again. At length, just beside a rough track on the hillside, our dogs ran their quarry to earth, and began to tear with their paws at the opening to the “rua-kiwi.” Calling the dogs off and closing in upon the spot, we drew from the cavity a fine male Kiwi, and then two vigorous young birds, all unharmed but evidently much scared and striking boldly with their claws. Our captives were soon secured in a Maori ket and we sat down to rest for a short time before taking up the scent again. I put my arm far down into the cavity and found that although the rounded entrance was just large enough to admit the bird, the chamber opened out inside, extending diagonally to a depth of about two feet, and wide enough at the bottom for the accommodation of two full-grown birds. I drew out the nest-materials, consisting of shreds of kiekie-leaves and other dry litter, mixed with Kiwi-feathers.
We had not to hunt long before we came upon another bird, a fine adult female and presumably the mate of the one we had just caught. She had taken refuge in a cavity under a rata-root and one of the dogs, having unfortunately slipped his muzzle, killed the bird by breaking her neck. Other captures followed and the aggregate result of the first day’s hunt was ten Kiwis, of all ages, and one splendid egg For the information of collectors it may be mentioned that as soon as the bird is killed it is advisable to hang it up by the bill, not the legs, otherwise the extremely fine network of blood-vessels towards the nostrils become surcharged, and the bill, losing its whitish horn-colour, becomes first rosy and then dark brown. It is undesirable also to kill the bird by compression, as the same result is apt to follow. I found a drop of prussic acid placed in the gullet the safest and most expeditious mode of treatment.
Not far from our camp there was an ancient rata tree—its age extending to many hundreds of years—its hollow trunk bound round with huge cables of aka, and holding in its hoary arms tons of Astelia and other parasitic plants. One of our natives set fire to this tree near the base. The accumulation of dry vegetable substances soon ignited, and the flames ascended the hollow trunk with a roar like that from a steamer’s boiler. All day long this monarch of the forest burned fiercely, sending up a column of smoke visible many miles away on the Waikato plains. During the night we were all startled from our sleep by the fall of this burning tree, which came down with a terrific crash carrying everything before it. We had just time to turn out of our blankets and witness a “display of fireworks” compared with which the Crystal Palace exhibition is mere child’s play!
In the early part of the night we heard the shrill cry of a Kiwi—a prolonged whistle slightly ascending and descending (whence the native name)—and when it was sufficiently light our natives went out with the dogs and brought in an adult female and two young ones. These were found together in one hole. The mate was no doubt one of those obtained in the same locality on the previous day.
Early next morning, accompanied by a native, I climbed to the summit of Pirongia proper and had a magnificent view of the Upper Waikato, the day being beautifully clear and cloudless. The ascent is somewhat laborious owing to its steepness and the absence in many places of anything like a bush-track. Almost to the very summit of the peak we met with traces of the Kiwi in earth-borings of the kind already described; but although we had one of the dogs with us, we did not find any birds in our track. My native companion was no doubt right in his statement that the Kiwi at night roams over these feeding-grounds, and returns on the approach of day to the shade of the gullies, where the light penetrates more feebly. All along this mountain-track and on the summit I found in great abundance the katoutou shrub with its bright green foliage and pretty tassels of crimson flower. The afternoon yielded two more adult males and two young ones, besides an egg just ready to be hatched. The succeeding morning was showery, and although the men made an early start they brought in about noon only two more adult birds (male and female) taken at different places, and two more young ones, the effect of the rain being to obliterate the scent and spoil the hunt. The weather having now set in very wet and tempestuous we had to discontinue Kiwi-hunting and see to making our temporary shelter more secure, by an extra layer of kiekie thatch. The rain came down in torrents towards evening, but on the whole we found ourselves very comfortably housed.
Our expedition lasted a week, with varying success each day according to the weather, the total result being forty Kiwis of all ages and nine eggs.
We partook of the flesh of one of the Kiwis which the natives had boiled. It had the dark appearance of, and tasted very much like, tender beef.
The first two birds (both females) killed by the dogs I dissected with the following result:—The stomach of one contained three wetas (Deinacrida thoracica), ten huhu grubs, mostly of large size, several earthworms, and a small brown beetle which my son Percy afterwards identified as Coptomma
acutipenne; also some berries of the mairi and taiko (well-known forest trees) and a round object, nearly as large as an ordinary marble, which proved to be the egg of the great earthworm toke-tipa. Before we had made out the last-named thing I handed it for examination to my companion, who pressed it between his finger and thumb, when it burst, sending a jet of milky fluid into my eye, causing much smarting and subsequent irritation. The stomach of the other bird contained, besides insect-remains, a large number of the hard kernels of the taiko berry; and it seems to me that these are swallowed by the Kiwi (in lieu of quartz pebbles, which are not to be found in every locality) to assist the process of digestion. I have found similar kernels in the stomachs of Kiwis received from the Upper Wanganui. Among the comminuted matter I was able to detect some very minute land-shells. In the stomach of another which I opened afterwards I found a number of angular pieces of pebble; and others contained the hard kernels of pokaka, miro, mairi, and hinau berries.
The adult birds when taken from their holes were perfectly mute, but endeavoured to wound with their sharply-armed feet and made a snapping noise with their bills. I soon found that the safest mode of holding them was suspended by the bill. They then only struggle vainly and strike the air with their feet; but if their rumps are allowed to touch the ground, so as to give them leverage, then they strike with effect, as I was not long in discovering. A strong adult bird is capable of inflicting a nasty scratch with its sharp claws by a downward stroke; and one of our natives showed me some skin-wounds, long ugly scratches on his arms and legs, inflicted on the previous day by a large Kiwi which he had followed into a sort of cavern at the edge of a stream and captured with his hands.
Judging by analogy and the form of the bird, I felt persuaded that the Kiwi was a burrower, but our native attendants all denied it. We had undoubted proof of it, however, before we had finished. For the safe custody of our captive birds we had constructed a commodious cage, consisting of kareao-vines well arched over, with both ends driven firmly into the ground, then laced together with native flax and covered over with fern-fronds to keep out the daylight. The birds seemed perfectly at home at once and commenced to eat the minced-up fresh meat supplied to them. The old birds continued silent, but the young ones emitted now and then, and especially at night, a low sound not unlike the whimpering of a new-born kitten. The cage contained seven fine adult birds, four females and three males. To our dismay in the morning we discovered that all the former had made their escape during the night through a burrow which undermined the kareao-vines and passed right under an adjacent log, a distance of some eighteen inches. The three male birds were still in the cage. It is evident that the females alone perform the work of digging and preparing the “rua,” although, as will presently appear, they take no part whatever in the incubation of the eggs. All the specimens of this sex collected by us at this season had the plumage of the back and rump so abraded and worn as to be quite valueless as skins, and were accordingly reserved for skeletons. The males, on the other hand, while having, in every instance, the abdomen denuded of feathers by constant sitting, generally presented a smooth and undamaged plumage. In further proof of this the adult females invariably had their claws blunted, as the result of their scraping or digging operations, whereas the other sex (except very old birds) had these weapons perfectly sharp.
I have already described how some of our captives effected their escape on the mountain by tunnelling under their cage. We had further evidence, after our return to Cambridge, of their engineering skill. One of my birds—not a Pirongia captive, but one caught by the natives in the Kawhia district and the largest specimen of Apteryx bulleri I had ever seen—was placed with the rest in a vacant stable which had been previously secured all around the sides to prevent burrowing. To my astonishment, however, in the morning, I found that “Madam Jumbo” (as we had christened this large Kiwi) had, during the night, forced aside a heavy packing-case, removed a loose scantling stud, deliberately tunnelled a passage through the hard clay foundation, and escaped from her place
We kept some of these birds in confinement for a period of six months or more for the purpose of studying more closely their habits and peculiarities of character. Individuals were found to vary much in disposition. Some adapted themselves at once to their new surroundings and became perfectly tame and familiar; others continued, to the last, wild and shy. One male in particular manifested a sulky temper: instead of running off with the rest to hide in a dark corner it would poise its body on its bill and feet and remain perfectly motionless till approached, when it would bristle up its feathers, stretch up its body, and strike forward with its feet, at the same time snapping audibly with its mandibles and uttering a low growling note. The conduct of these birds was appreciably affected by their condition of health: a sickly bird was always restless during the day, and walked about in the sunlight in a desultory fashion; whereas the healthy ones, on being brought to the light, would dart off to the nearest dark corner and endeavour to secrete themselves. The state of the weather seemed likewise to affect their spirits: on dark and wet nights they were particularly active and noisy; on moonlight nights they were generally silent. The cry consists of a short, shrill whistle, not so prolonged as that of the Woodhen, nor so sharp and clear. Usually the sexes cry in response, the male leading off with his shrill ki-i-wi-i, and his mate replying in a peculiar half whistle, half scream; this is repeated four or five times in succession between the hours of 9 and 10, and the birds, as a rule, are silent for the rest of the night. Occasionally, and apparently when under excitement, they keep up these responsive calls for fifteen or twenty minutes without cessation. The young or half-grown birds also call to each other, the male in a thinner whistle and the female in a thick husky way. These captive birds ate fresh meat, soaked bread, and boiled potato with avidity, and several of the young ones died of sheer obesity.
My investigations on the spot enabled me to determine one important fact with certainty, namely, that, as with the Mooruk, the Cassowary, the Emu, and the Rhea (all of which have bred in the Zoological Society’s Gardens), the male bird alone performs the labour of incubation, and takes upon himself the entire charge of the young till they are old enough to shift for themselves. There is indeed an equitable division of labour after the pairing has commenced. The female, without any assistance from her mate, digs or scoops out a nesting-place, usually adapting to her requirements an existing hole or cavity in the ground, forms a rude nest and deposits her two eggs. Having done this she walks off and disclaims all further responsibility, abandoning her mate to his share of the parental duty, and (so the natives allege) immediately pairing with another male and forming a new nest elsewhere.
The breeding-season evidently extends over a considerable period. Of the ten eggs collected by our party during the first week of November, nine contained well-developed chicks, some of them just ready for exclusion, and the tenth was perfectly fresh. The very young bird figured on page 326 and the egg purchased from the natives were taken from one hole, and the male bird was still sitting. From the condition of the chick, I judged that if undisturbed it would have been hatched out in another day or two; it was alive and active when the shell was opened, although the egg had been out of the nest for several days. Some of the young birds taken by us were apparently about two months old. I think it probable that there are two broods in the season, inasmuch as one of our
One of the nests found by us contained a young bird and an egg (an unusually large one, and from its white appearance evidently newly laid), another contained a single young bird, and two others contained each two young ones. All of them, with a solitary exception, were active and strong, snapping angrily with their little bills and attempting to strike with their feet. The exception referred to could not have been hatched out very long because it was too weak to run, and, after the manner of young nestlings, had an abnormally large stomach. It is evident that the bird usually lays two eggs; occasionally, however, there is only one, and Mr. Cheeseman informs me of two well-authenticated instances of three eggs in the nest, one in the Waitakerei Ranges and the other at Raglan. In both cases the eggs were brought to the Auckland Museum and the fact vouched for to his satisfaction.
The natives state that the Kiwi begins to lay in August, which is quite likely to be true, as the eggs must take a long period to incubate. It will be remembered that Mr. Bartlett’s bird (mentioned on page 314) sat on perseveringly from the beginning of January to the 25th of April. In further support of this view. I may mention the following circumstance. Among the live birds brought from Pirongia was a female which appeared to be carrying a well-developed egg in the oviduct, inasmuch as it moved about with awkwardness and habitually rested on the tarsus horizontally as described at page 314. She was more untractable than the other birds, attacking the hand when approached, striking savagely forward with her feet, and uttering at the same time a low growl. This bird was killed by an accident about the middle of February following; and on dissection I found a membranous egg, about two thirds the full size, the shell not having yet formed. In the ordinary course a fortnight would probably have elapsed before the exclusion of the egg for incubation. Again, among the birds captured by my party there were three young birds of the year; that is to say, of such a size as to make it probable they had been hatched out about April or May. If the conclusion thus pointed to is the true one, the nesting-operations of the Kiwi must extend over a great portion of the year; in which case its reproduction is not the least interesting feature in the natural history of this anomalous bird. In all the eggs I opened (save one freshly laid) there was enclosed with the well-developed feathered chick a tough membranous sac, connected with the embryo and containing several ounces of yellow fatty substance (vitellus). When all this adipose matter has been absorbed into its system, the chick, having in the meantime expanded to its full size, cracks its tabernacle and comes out into the world ready for active service. It is very soon able to forage for itself and increases rapidly in size, inasmuch as the young which I attempted to rear had more than doubled their size in six months.
The eggs, which are broadly elliptical in form, vary somewhat in size. The largest of those collected by us measured 5·30 inches in length by 3·30 in breadth; and the smallest 4·5 by 2·7. The latter weighed exactly 11½ ounces, being just four ounces less than the weight of our largest. Two other eggs of full size weighed respectively 14 oz, and 15½ oz. They vary likewise in form, some being more elliptical than others, whilst one in my possession is perfectly oval. Some are pure white when laid, others have a greenish-grey tint; but owing to the long period of incubation they get much soiled by contact with the bird, and more especially its feet, the shell becoming a dirty yellowish-brown colour. This is easily washed off, by the application of a brush, in soap and cold water; but I think it is necessary to do this whilst the egg is fresh, for there is a greasy matter on the surface which would no doubt make the discoloration permanent if allowed to become perfectly dry. The fresh egg on being emptied of its contents exhibited a delicate pink tint on the inner surface of the shell; but this was absent in those containing chicks.
Apteryx australis, Shaw and Nodder, Nat. Misc. xxiv. pls. 1057, 1058 (1813).
Dromiceius novœ zealandiœ, Less. Man. d’Orn. ii. p. 210 (1828).
Apteryx mantelli, Bartlett, P. Z. S. 1850, p. 275.
Apteryx fusca, Potts, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. v. p. 196 (1873).
Ad. similis A. bulleri, sed major, pallidior, et magis grisescens; tergo tantùm vix castaneo tincto: scapis plumarum haud conspicuis, itaque ptilosi molliore distinguendus.
Adult. Differs from Apteryx bulleri in its larger size and in the lighter colour of its plumage, the feathers being of a sandy or greyish brown, with darker margins, those of the upper parts only slightly tinged near the tips with rufous. The plumage of the nape and back of the neck is less hairy; and the feathers of the back and hind parts are destitute of the lengthened and stiffened points which characterize the other species.
Male. Total length, following the curvature of the back, 22 inches; bill, along the ridge 3·75, along the edge of lower mandible 4·1; rudimentary wing, to end of hook, 1; tarsus 2·25; middle toe and claw 3·5; hallux ·75.
Female. Total length (measured as above) 27 inches; bill, along the ridge 5·5, along the edge of lower mandible 5·8; rudimentary wing, to end of hook, 1·5; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 3·75; hallux ·8.
Obs. As a rule the South-Island birds are larger than those from the North Island; but occasionally examples of Apteryx bulleri are met with fully equal in size to the largest specimens of Apteryx australis; and this is therefore of little or no value as a specific character. It may be observed that in this species the long facial hairs or feelers are, generally speaking, far less abundant than in the North-Island Apteryx.
Young. Has the head and hind neck dark grey, and the rest of the plumage greyish brown, lighter on the under-parts, each feather with a narrow streak of fulvous along the shaft; on the feathers of the upper parts this streak is darker towards the tip, and the terminal filaments are black, whereas on the underparts of the body both the tips and filaments are light brown or fulvous; the bill, which measures two inches in length, is light horn-colour; the legs and feet are light brown, the metatarsi being covered anteriorly with thin scales, scarcely definable to the eye. In this young condition the quill-tubes are very minute, and the plumage of the body is extremely soft to the touch.
In the Rowley collection at Chichester House, Brighton, there is a specimen of the chick, apparently younger than that described above, and differing from it in the lighter tone of its plumage, especially on the upper parts.
The nestling has a wing-claw of the same character as in the adult, although scarcely more than a decimal of an inch in length.
Partial albino. In the Canterbury Museum there is a partial albino, in which the crown and sides of the head, the throat and the whole of the fore neck, and the front of the thighs are yellowish white.
The first example of the Apteryx of which there is any record was obtained in New Zealand about the year 1813, by Captain Barclay, of the ship ‘Providence,’ and afterwards deposited in the collection of the late l. c.), and afterwards, at greater length, by Mr. Yarrell, in the ‘Transactions of the Zoological Society’ (vol. i. p. 71, pl. 10). On the 10th December, 1850, a series of specimens was exhibited before the Zoological Society of London, when Mr. Bartlett pointed out characters which, as he contended, established the existence of two species, hitherto confounded under the specific name of Apteryx australis. Mr. Bartlett stated, at this meeting, that an Apteryx belonging to the late Dr. Mantell having been placed in his hands by that gentleman, he had remarked its dissimilarity to ordinary examples, and that, after a careful comparison with a number of other specimens, he had come to the conclusion that it was a new species. On comparing Dr. Mantell’s bird, however, with the original specimen in the Earl of Derby’s collection, he had found that they were identical. He accordingly referred his supposed new species to Apteryx australis, and distinguished the more common bird as Apteryx mantelli, for which he proposed the following characters:—“its smaller size, its darker and more rufous colour, its longer tarsus, which is scutellated in front, its shorter toes and claws, which are horn-coloured, its smaller wings, which have much stronger and thicker quills, and also its having long straggling hairs on the face” (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850, p. 276).
In a paper read before the Wellington Philosophical Society on the 12th November, 1870 Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. iii. pp. 37–56.
After that paper was written I had an opportunity of examining several fine series of South-Island Apteryges, and of comparing them with examples from the North Island; and I was then convinced that there are in reality two species of brown Apteryx, readily distinguishable from each other by a very remarkable difference in the structure of their plumage. In the South-Island Kiwi the feathers of the upper parts are soft and yielding when stroked against the grain, whereas in the North-Island bird, owing to a peculiarity in the structure of the shaft, they have stiffened points, and are harsh and prickly to the touch. This character (apart from a slight difference in the colour of the plumage) is constant in all the specimens I have examined; and I have no hesitation in giving it a specific value. In this course I am supported by the unanimous opinion of several of the best ornithologists in England, to whom I have submitted specimens for examination.
I take this opportunity of saying that the credit of this discovery belonged to the late Sir Julius von Haast, who, on receiving from me a North-Island bird for comparison with the specimens in the Canterbury Museum, detected this structural difference in the plumage, and informed me of it long before I had an opportunity of verifying the fact for myself.
Dr. Since the publication of my first edition, I have examined numerous examples of both forms, and I have seen no reason to change or modify the views expressed above as to the specific value of the North-Island Kiwi, as compared with “As hitherto I have had no opportunity of examining any reliable specimens from the North Island, it naturally was not possible for me to make sure about the value of certain characters. I am indebted now to the kindness of Dr. Buller for two specimens from the North Island, so that I am able to make a direct comparison of specimens from both islands. Besides the two specimens from the North Island, I have four old birds (two male and two female) and a young one from the South Island before me; also an old one and a half-grown bird, without any definite locality—consequently a total of nine specimens in different stages and conditions of age and sex. To refer, in the first place, to the tinge of colour. I had, before this, opportunities of observing that in specimens from the South Island the colour is by no means constant, but on the contrary varies from greyish brown to rusty-rod brown. The latter tone of colour, as is well known, is produced by the terminal third part of the feathers being of that shade. Each individual feather is coloured either dark brownish grey or brown, changing gradually towards the tip into rusty brown; the single filaments or barbs of the feathers, which stand far apart from each other, terminate, however, in black hair-like tips, which impart to the whole plumage the peculiar bristle-like character. In this fundamental point of colouring the specimens from both islands absolutely agree, and the feathers which I have before me, and which have been carefully pulled out, do not betray differences of any kind. Only, as I have already said, the intensity of the rust-brown on the third part of the tip of each feather is sometimes stronger, sometimes feebler, and on this depends the general colouring of the specimen. One specimen from the North Island shows the same darker and of a more vivid rust-brown than examples from the South Island. It does not, however, appear quite so dark as a specimen in the Bremen collection, without a positively defined locality, of which I have already made mention. The other specimen from the North Island, however, so perfectly agrees, in regard to the rust-brown tone of colour, with specimens from the South Island that, in point of fact, not the slightest difference is observable. Consequently the tinge of colouring as a specific character must be considered as absolutely worthless. The case is different, however, in regard to the relative hardness or softness of the plumage, which is perceptible to the touch. I am in a position to confirm the statement that in general the specimens from the North Island possess more strongly developed feather-shafts, which project beyond the barbs in the shape of naked tips, and consequently appear more like bristles and have a harsher feel. This peculiarity is very perceptible on stroking the feathers the wrong way, or on carefully feeling them; but cannot be distinguished on stroking with the palm of the hand along or in the direction of the feathers. If stroked in this way even the most delicately sensitive hand would be unable to detect any difference at all between certain specimens from the North and South Islands respectively. It is worth mentioning here that on patting the plumage of Professor Huxley, in his ‘Characters for Classification,’ notices the absence of continued shafts as characteristic of the genus Professor Parker has called my attention to another distinguishing feature, which appears to be constant: in Apteryx australis, var. mantelli)Apteryx australis of the South Island. It is desirable, however, to have the arguments on both sides stated fully, and I have therefore taken the trouble to translate, from the German, Dr. Finsch’s last published remarks on this subject in the ‘Journal für Orni-thologie,’ from which it will be seen that this naturalist is still opposed to the recognition of the North-Island bird as a distinct species:—Apteryx oweni (in the manner described) the same difference as compared with Apteryx australis becomes at once apparent. What has been said in regard to the relative hardness or softness due to the more or less pronounced development of the projecting naked shaft-tips, which differ again in Apteryx oweni, has reference moreover to the plumage of the upper side of the rump. With that which covers the hind head and neck the case is different; and here perhaps might be found a single criterion, or distinguishing mark, which is appreciable not merely to the touch but also to the eye, and which might be considered as a sufficient specific character for the North-Island Apteryx. The feathers of the back of the head and the back of the neck have stronger and more projecting shafts, with the barbs composing the webs further apart and consequently less numerous. These hair-like barbs not only feel harder to the touch, but the longer and protruding hair-like filaments are quite apparent to the eye. This peculiarity I find borne out in all the specimens before me. If therefore one intends to acknowledge the Apteryx of the North Island as a distinct species, a distinguishing character could only be found in this visible difference of plumage on the hind head and back of neck. On the front and sides of the neck the peculiarity I have described is scarcely perceptible. Still, I do not venture as yet to set up this character as a constant one, as possibly there may be exceptions. Besides, this character alone does not appear to me of sufficient importance to differentiate a species. In my judgment therefore, for the present, this Apteryx of the North Island is only a slightly deviating form of the known Apteryx australis. I doubt whether it will be possible to define with certainty specimens the origin of which is not warranted, without direct comparison in all cases.”Apteryx. The abnormal character of A. bulleri in this respect is very curious.Apteryx bulleri the claw on the wing is strongly curved and black; in A. australis it is less curved and whitish; in A. oweni it is much smaller and lighter coloured.
According to the now generally accepted view of what constitutes a “species,” the amount of difference is quite immaterial, provided it be constant and readily distinguishable. If (as is certainly the case) all the known examples from the North Island are referable to “var. mantelli (Finsch),” then, for all practical purposes, the bird must be regarded as distinct, and is, I submit, as much entitled to recognition as any other species on our list.
Professor Sir Apteryx presents such a singular and seemingly anomalous compound of characters belonging to different orders of Birds as may well make the naturalist pause before he ventures to pronounce against the possibility of a like combination of peculiarities in the historical Dodo. It seems, as it were, to have borrowed its head from the Longirostral Grallœ, its legs from the Gallinœ, and its wings from the struthious order. It is clothed with a plumage having the characteristic looseness of that of the terrestrial birds deprived of the power of flight; its feathers resemble those of the Emu in the general uniformity of their size, structure, and colour, but they are more simple than in any of the tridactyle Struthionidœ, as they want the accessory plumelet… . When the trunk is stripped of its plumage, the body of the Apteryx presents the form of an elongated cone gradually tapering forwards, from the broad base formed by the haunches to the extremity of the attenuated beak. The wings appear as two small crooked appendages projecting about an inch and a half from the sides of the thorax, and terminated by a curved, obtuse, horny claw 3 lines long: the antibrachium is retained in a state of permanent flexion by the surrounding integument of the wing; and it cannot be brought by forcible extension beyond an angle of 45° with the humerus. Nine quasi-quill-plumes, not exceeding in length the ordinary body-feathers, but with somewhat thicker shafts, are arranged in a linear series along the ulnar margin of the antibrachium; the terminal ones are the largest, and in one specimen they presented a structure differing from that of the ordinary plumes, consisting of a shaft from which radiated a series of flattened horny filaments of nearly equal length.” (Prof. Owen’s ‘Memoir on Apteryx australis,’ Trans. Z. S. ii. p. 257.)
Professor Hutton, in his valuable essay on the “Geographical Relations of the New Zealand Fauna” (Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vi. p. 232), says:—“The Apterygidœ have a more generalized structure than the other struthious birds; they, therefore, belong to an older type, and cannot, with any degree of correctness, be said to represent the extinct race of Moas.” And, again, in his review of my ‘Birds of New Zealand’ (first edition) in the ‘New-Zealand Magazine,’ p. 99, Professor Hutton says:—“We must take exception to the Kiwi being considered as the living representative of the Moa, or, as Dr. Buller puts it in his preface, ‘the only living representative of an extinct race.’ No doubt the Kiwi and the Moa have several features in common; but it is certain that both the Emu and the Cassowary are far more nearly related to the Moa than is the Kiwi.” Professor Mivart has since read a paper before the Zoological Society of London on the axial skeleton of the Struthionidæ, which effectually settles the question at issue. He pointed out that, judging by the characters of the axial skeleton, the Emu presents the least differential type, from which Rhea diverges most on the one hand, and Apteryx on the other; that the resemblance between Dromœus and Casuarinus is exceedingly close, while the axial skeleton of Dinornis is intermediate between that of Casuarinus and Apteryx; its affinities, however, with the existing New-Zealand form very decidedly predominating.
Still later, Professor Newton (in his article “Ornithology” in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’) thus referred to the subject:—“Some systematists think there can be little question of the Struthiones being the most specialized and therefore probably the highest type of these Orders, and the present writer is rather inclined to agree with them. Nevertheless the formation of the bill in the Apteryges is quite unique in the whole Class, and indicates therefore an extraordinary amount of specialization. Their functionless wings, however, point to their being a degraded form, though in this matter they are not much worse than the Megistanes, and are far above the Immanes—some of which at least appear to have been absolutely wingless, and were thus the only members of the Class possessing but a single pair of limbs.”
It will be seen, therefore, that I was fully justified in referring to the existing species of Apteryx as “the diminutive representatives of colossal ornithic types that have disappeared.”
An able paper communicated by Professor Huxley to the Zoological Society on June 2, 1882, contains some interesting information on the respiratory organs of Apteryx, from which I extract the
Apteryx presents any real approximation to mammals in the structure of its breathing-apparatus is of considerable interest from its bearing upon the general problem of the affinities of birds to other groups of vertebrated animals. Having recently examined a specimen of Apteryx (which, although it had been many years in spirit, was still in a very fair state of preservation) with reference to this point, I have come to the conclusion that its respiratory organs differ in no essential respect from those of other birds, though they exhibit those peculiarities which are peculiar to and characteristic of the class Aves in a less developed condition than that which obtains in all those Carinatæ and Ratitæ which have been carefully studied… . . The respiratory organs of Apteryx are thoroughly ornithic, differing from those of other birds chiefly in the greater width and smaller aggregate surface of the respiratory passages, in the rudimentary condition of the pneumatic sacs, and in the much greater strength of the pulmonary and septal aponeurotic expansions. Neither in Apteryx, nor in any other bird, has either of these the slightest real resemblance to a mammalian diaphragm. For, as has been seen, the heart lies altogether behind both, and the muscular digitations of the pulmonary aponeurosis are supplied by the intercostal nerves, the phrenic being absent. The vertical and oblique septa really answer to the fibrous tissue of the posterior and middle mediastinum in mammals. In this, as in all other cases, the meaning of ornithic peculiarities of structure is to be sought, not in mammals, but in reptiles. It is only among reptiles that we meet with pneumatic bones similar to those of birds (Crocodilia, Pterosauria, Dinosauria), pulmonary airsacs (Chamæleonidæ), and membranous expansions which are comparable to the septa in birds.” (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1882, pp. 560–568.)
Comparatively few specimens of this species are now brought in by collectors in the South Island, whereas the supply of Apteryx oweni is undiminished; and the conclusion is irresistible that Apteryx australis, perhaps the most interesting bird in the Southern Hemisphere, is fast becoming extinct.
Mr. Reischek informs me that on the 25th September he captured a male bird of this species sitting on a single fresh egg on a loose nest composed of grass and dry leaves under the shelter of a stone at an elevation of 2000 feet above the sea. The egg, unfortunately, got broken through the kicking of the bird when resisting capture. The sex was determined by dissection, and the bird was of unusual size, equalling the measurements which I have given for the adult female.
A specimen of the egg in Mr. Apteryx bulleri, but rather larger than ordinary examples of the latter, measuring 4·75 inches in length by 3·05 in breadth.
Apteryx owenii, Gould, P. Z. S. 1847, p. 94.
Apteryx mollis, Potts, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. v. p. 196 (1873).
Ad. griseus, brunneo et fulvescente alternè transfasciatus, dorsi plumis etiam subterminaliter nigro transfasciatis: subtùs pallidior, clariùs grisescens, plumis albido et brunneo alternè fasciatim transnotatis: pileo guttureque clarè griseis, facie laterali paullò saturatiore: rostro saturatè corneo: pedibus pallidè brunneis, unguibus corneis: iride nigrâ.
Adult. Head, throat, and fore neck dull yellowish brown, darker on the nape; general plumage of the body light yellowish brown, mottled all over and obscurely banded in a wavy manner with blackish brown; the rigid hair-like points of the feathers bright fulvous; underparts paler, the plumage of the abdomen becoming light fulvous obscurely barred with brown. Each feather examined separately has the main portion, which is concealed by the outer plumage, glossy greyish brown, becoming paler towards the root; above this, where the barbs are disunited, it is crossed by an irregular bar of fulvous or yellowish brown, beyond which again it is blackish brown tipped with shining fulvous: on the feathers of the underparts and sides of the body there are generally two of these transverse bands. It is the blending together of these markings that produces the peculiar mottled and wavy appearance described above. Irides black; bill dark horn-colour; legs and feet pale brown, the claws horn-coloured, with transparent tips.
Male. Total length, following the curvature of the back, 17·5 inches; bill, along the ridge 2·85, along the edge of lower mandible 3·4; tarsus 1·75; middle toe and claw 2·4; hallux or hind tarsal claw ·4.
Female. Total length, following the curvature of the back, 20 inches; bill, along the ridge 3·5, along the edge of lower mandible 4; tarsus 2·5; middle toe and claw 3; hallux or hind tarsal claw ·5.
Obs. Independently of the marked difference in size between the sexes, there is a considerable amount of individual variation; and adult specimens are sometimes met with of so small a size as even to suggest the existence of another species. I have remarked this more particularly with examples received from the southern portions of the South Island.
The ground-tints of the plumage vary slightly in different birds. As a rule, however, the male is of a somewhat darker shade than the female, and the plumage has a more banded or rayed character, while the tips of the feathers on the upper parts are of a brighter fulvous.
Young. Plumage very soft; dull greyish brown, obscurely mottled; vertex, sides of the head, and throat greyish white; the light tips of the feathers very conspicuous, having the appearance of small pencilled lines on a darker ground, the produced hair-like filaments being entirely black. Bill white horn-colour, measuring 1·5 inch; tarsus 1·4, and with well-developed scutes.
Very young state. A chick of this species, in the Rowley collection at Brighton, is of a uniform yellowish-brown colour, with the tips of the feathers lighter. The late Dr.
Varieties. The following is the description of a specimen in the Canterbury Museum, exhibiting a tendency to albinism:—On the left side, just above the thigh, there is a broad irregular patch of the purest white; and there is a similar but more rounded patch on the inner side of each thigh, and another smaller one near the rump; on the right side there are also a few white feathers; and on the sides of the head above the eyes, as well as on the throat, there are patches of dull greyish white blending with the surrounding dark grey plumage. It has the feathers of the thighs and rump much worn by incubation, the shaft-lines being denuded for the space of half an inch. Where the plumage is of the ordinary character the shaft-lines are wholly black or with fulvous points, but where the white patches occur the shafts are, like the webs, perfectly white.
In the Sydney Museum there is a more perfect albino, the whole of the plumage being greyish white, very obscurely streaked with brown.
In the Otago Museum there is a pure albino from the west coast, presented by Mr. Allen. I have met with two other similar instances, all the plumage being either white or tinged with cream; the bill white and the legs pale brown. In the collection referred to there is also a very dark variety, approaching in colour to Apteryx haasti, but of inferior size. This was obtained at Jackson’s Bay in July 1875.
In the possession of Mr.
Remarks. In this species the bill is straighter than in Apteryx bulleri, and the facial hairs or feelers are much shorter, seldom exceeding 2·5 inches in length. In the rudimentary wing the forearm measures scarcely more than one inch; the terminal claw is about ·5 of an inch in length, horn-coloured, slightly curved, and sharp-pointed; the quills are equal and regular, the tube being ·75 of an inch in length; and the webs, which are perfectly soft, are light brown in colour, crossed by two broad bars of pale fulvous. In the young, or in birds of the first year, the wing-quills are very feebly developed. The tarsi are proportionally longer and more slender than in Apteryx bulleri; and they are covered anteriorly with closely-set scales of a rounded form. The claws are long, slender, and sharp-pointed, sometimes with the tip incurvate; the hind claw is slender, only slightly arched, and with sharp edges. The plumage is soft and yielding to the hand when passed along it; but in a reverse direction or against the grain it is slightly rigid, although it wants the stiffened shafts which give to the feathers of Apteryx bulleri their distinguishing character. On raising the plumage with the hand and viewing it laterally it has very much the appearance of the thick fur on the back of a tabby cat. The general effect on the surface bears a close resemblance to the fur of the small Australian marsupial, Lagorchestes fasciatus, both in colour and in the peculiar character of the wavy markings.
The Grey Kiwi is distributed over a great portion of the South Island, and in some of the remote districts is still very abundant. Till recently it was not known to occur in any part of the North Island. We had, in consequence, been so accustomed to speak of Apteryx oweni as a strictly South-Island species, and as representing there the Brown Kiwi of the North Island (Apteryx bulleri), that the discovery of its existence, under certain conditions, in the Wellington provincial district furnished an interesting fact in geographic distribution. A fine specimen for which I am indebted to Mr.
This peculiarity of range, as compared with the distribution of the species in the South Island, is very suggestive, and it will be interesting to discover whether this bird inhabits the summits of mountains further north.
It frequents the woods, and, being (like its congeners) nocturnal in its habits, must be sought for in prostrate hollow trunks, natural holes or caverns among the roots of the large forest-trees, and clefts
All the specimens of this form in the Canterbury Museum were obtained on the western slope of the Southern Alps. The late Sir Julius von Haast collected upwards of fifty of them on that side, but never saw or even heard of one on the eastern side of the Alps.
It is said to be excellent eating; and the diggers’ pot is contributing, equally with the trade in specimens, to the rapid extirpation of the bird. The effect of such a statement as this on the mind of a true-hearted naturalist may be readily inferred from the following letter addressed by the late Mr. Blyth to the Editor of ‘The Ibis,’ in 1861:—“Some time ago I met a stranger who had been travelling in New Zealand. Of course I was curious about the Apteryx oweni; and I showed him Gould’s figure of the bird, and tried to make him comprehend some notion of its value. ‘Good,’ said he, ‘I know it well: we ate four of them in one pie!’ Alas for Apteryx oweni, as well as for the last remaining specimens of Dinornis or Palapteryx (if such there yet remain), to be put into a pie! Gather your roses while you may, Mr. Editor, and collect your impennates before this pestilent civilization spoils and ruins every thing!”
The Maoris, too, have a penchant for roast Kiwi; and travelling parties, when passing through the districts which these birds frequent, as soon as they have fixed up their camp for the night, start off with their dogs to hunt for them, the The following is a newspaper account of one of these feasts, which took place at Parihaka in July 1881:—“Monday being wet, all the natives kept close in their houses, but the weather clearing by next day, although still cold and windy, a move was made, and all collected on the meeting-square. There were then brought on Pigeons, Kakas, and Tuis to the number of 9400, besides three calabashes of Pigeons preserved in their own oil, two casks of preserved Mutton-birds from the Chatham Islands, 600 piharau or lampreys, and the usual pile of bread and boilers of tea. The birds were first distributed, one apiece to each man, woman, and child—even baby in arms; after that another, as far as they went—three Tuis being given as an equivalent to one Pigeon, or Kaka. After this the preserved birds were served round; then the lampreys were scrambled for—there not being enough for distribution; then the bread and tea was partaken of, and the feast concluded. Not many of the birds were consumed on the meeting-square, they being saved for a feast by the natives in their respective houses. Previous to the distribution, a long line of girls, gaily dressed, came in on each side of the square, each carrying a basket of taro and kumaras, or potatoes. These they placed on the heap of birds and retired. Tohu afterwards addressed the meeting, but his speech was unimportant. He referred to birds and eels being of old the food of chiefs, and greenstone their ornaments, which a ‘tutua’ dare not wear; neither dare he partake of their food; but that at the present time all might partake and adorn themselves, for all were equal in his eyes.”Apteryx oweni, like its congeners, being strictly nocturnal in its habits. But it is in the North Island, where the Maori population is so much larger, that the Kiwis, as well as other native birds, suffer most from this uncontrolled system of hunting. This is especially the case when the members of a tribe are preparing for one of their periodical feasts
The egg of this species is of a long elliptical form, measuring 4·3 inches in length by 2·4 in its widest part. It is originally white, but becomes much stained or soiled during incubation; and some examples have the shell traversed with thread-like excrescences, especially at the larger end. A specimen from Martin’s Bay is an almost perfect ellipse, with a smooth, perfectly white, and rather glossy shell, and measures 4·1 inches in length by 2·6 in breadth. Another specimen in the Canterbury Museum is much stained and discoloured, but appears to have been originally white, with a finely granulate surface. At the larger end there are numerous irregularities on the shell, formed by limy excrescences; one of these presents the appearance of a piece of twisted thread, being fully two inches in length. Another in the same collection has a great portion of its surface marked with scarcely perceptible oblique furrows or interruptions in the granulation of the shell.
Apteryx haasti, Potts, Trans. N.-Z. Inst. 1871, vol. iv. p. 204.
Apteryx maxima, Hutton, Cat. Birds of N. Z. 1871, p. 23 (nec Bp.).
Roa or Roaroa, and Kiwi-karuai.
Ad. similis A. oweni, sed multò major, saturatior, et tergo castaneo tincto.
Adult. Head and neck dark greyish brown; the whole of the upper parts as in Apteryx oweni, but darker, the bands being almost black, and the fulvous markings strongly tinged with chestnut; underparts as in A. oweni, but decidedly darker. Irides black; bill white horn-colour; legs and feet dark brown, changing to brownish black on the posterior aspect of the metatarsi and on the soles; claws dark horn-colour. Total length 25·5 inches; bill, along the ridge 4·75, along the edge of lower mandible 5·4; tarsus 2·75; middle toe and claw 3·1; hallux or hind tarsal claw ·75.
Obs. Another example is slightly smaller and somewhat darker; and the thighs are marked by two chestnut bars, one on the hind part and the other immediately above the tarsal joint. To which sex these birds belong has not been ascertained, although they are supposed to be females. If they are males, it may be reasonably inferred that the female of this species is considerably larger than Apteryx australis.
General Remarks. This species resembles Apteryx oweni in general appearance, but is distinguished by its much larger size (equalling that of A. australis), by its darker plumage, which has a strong tinge of chestnut, and by the more robust form and darker colour of the legs and feet. Its metatarsi are armed anteriorly with large and broad scutella, approaching more nearly in this respect to those of A. australis than of the former species, in which the scales are small and rounded. The claws are large, well formed, only slightly arched, and sharp-pointed. The quill-tubes are about an inch in length; and the terminal claw, which measures ·4 of an inch, is slender, arched, and pointed. The structure of the feathers on the upper parts of the body appears to be similar to that observable in Apteryx australis, the shafts of the feathers being less produced than in A. oweni; and altogether the form appears to be an intermediate one, combining in some degree the distinguishing characters of both.
At the time of my first edition only two specimens of this fine Apteryx were known, both of which belonged to the Canterbury Museum. These were obtained on the high ranges above Okarita, on the west coast of the South Island, where, according to the resident natives, this large Grey Kiwi is tolerably common. Since that date another specimen (also from the west coast) has been received at the Museum, differing from those previously described in being somewhat darker and more strongly suffused with chestnut; indeed the coloration is almost as dark as in Apteryx mantelli, thus falsifying Dr. Finsch’s opinion that its plumage “entirely agrees with
Trans. N.-Z. Inst. vol. vii. p. 236.
The resident Maoris, on seeing the first examples that were brought in, said that this was the young of the Roaroa, a Kiwi said to exceed considerably in size the Tokoeka (Apteryx australis).
I am informed that Mr. Bills has obtained from the west coast and forwarded to England no less than five specimens of Apteryx haasti, some of which were larger and more handsomely marked than those in the Museum. These were probably females, although the collector was unable to state the sex.
There is no proof whatever that the bird here described is the same as that for which M. Jules Verreaux proposed the name of Bp. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sc. xliii. p. 841 (1856, ex Verr. MS.).
With closely-allied forms sharing the same habitat, it is somewhat hard to determine how far to go or where to stop in the discrimination of species. So far as we can judge at present, Apteryx haasti is readily distinguishable from A. oweni; but there would seem to be almost as much justification for our distinguishing as a new species, separable from A. bulleri, the Kiwi-kura (or “red Kiwi”) found with its young of the same colour in the Pirongia ranges (as mentioned on page 310), for in this instance there was not merely a distinction of colour, but a very manifest modification in the structure of the plumage. It is no answer to say that both forms were found inhabiting the same range of mountain, any more than it would be an objection to the already recognized species that Apteryx australis, A. oweni, and A. haasti are all found in the same district, or that, while Apteryx bulleri is abundant in the Upper Wanganui, A. oweni is known to exist on the hill-tops between that district and Wellington. The explanation is, of course, to be found in descent from a common ancestor, the differentiation having been brought about by natural causes which we have not yet been able to determine with any certainty. As we have seen in treating of Apteryx bulleri, examples from different localities in the North Island exhibit minor peculiarities that are more or less constant. Such variation can hardly be matter of surprise in the case of flightless birds whose habitat for countless generations may have been restricted to some particular range of mountains. This principle extended ought to be sufficient to account for the existence of at least four recognized species of Apteryx within so small a geographical area as New Zealand.
For obvious reasons I have endeavoured to make my account of this very remarkable group of wingless birds as full and exhaustive as possible. A part from the special interest attaching to species that are rapidly expiring, the Apterygine form is so entirely anomalous among existing birds, that every minute particular of natural economy and life-history appears to be worth recording.
It must be at once apparent that a close and patient study of the avifauna of such a country as New Zealand cannot fail to have an important bearing on the question, which claims so large a share of attention among naturalists of the present day, as to the origin of species.
It seems impossible for any one who has given even the most cursory attention to the subject to doubt that such closely allied forms as Apteryx bulleri and Apteryx australis, Ocydromus greyi and Ocydromus australis, and the other representative species inhabiting the North and South Islands respectively, have in each case sprung from a common parent, the amount of difference which is now sufficient to distinguish them specifically being the result of a long-continued and persistent modification in a given direction, and under conditions favourable to its permanence. The only admission
Trans. Zool. Soc. ii. p. 293.In the Introduction to this work (page xxxii) I mentioned a specimen of the leg of Dinornis elephantopus, in the Cambridge University Museum, which Professor Newton had kindly forwarded to me for inspection, and I then referred to an astragalus-like bone, the presence of which had hitherto escaped notice in the osteology of Dinornis. On turning to Professor Owen’s elaborate ‘Memoir on the Anatomy of Apteryx’
Having brought this matter under the notice of Dr. Günther, at the British Museum, we together dissected specimens of Apteryx bulleri and Megapodius pritchardi, and found this little bone present in the former bird but not in the latter. At Professor Newton’s suggestion we afterwards made a similar examination of the leg of a Tinamou (Crypturus tataupa) and with a successful result, there being the same interarticular bone attached to the head of the tarso-metatarsus by means of two ligaments, one long and slender, the other broad and short.
The discovery of this new bone seemed to me of so much interest that I made a special journey to York for the purpose of examining the comparatively recent skeleton of Dinornis robustus preserved in the public Museum there, as mentioned at page xxiii of my Introduction. Here I found the same bone, but of a somewhat different form, being scarcely half as thick as in D. elephantopus, although the bird was of much larger stature. It looked more like a cartilage, for which, indeed, it had been mistaken, the label attached denominating it a “knee cartilage.”
Before returning the unique specimen to the Cambridge Museum I had careful drawings of it made by Mr. Dinornis elephantopus with two of the toephalanges attached by means of dried ligament; and Plate L. represents the back view.
The illustrations are reduced one fourth, the dimensions of the metatarsus being as follows:—
The proximal phalanges of the inner and middle toes are still firmly attached to the distal trochleæ by means of a tough ligament, and a small portion of the sole is still present.
The astragalus-like bone to which I have specially referred is well shown, in its natural position, in Plate XLIX. It measures 2·5 inches in width, with a vertical thickness in front of fully an inch, tapering off on the sides and wedge-shaped behind, with a uniform depth of 1·25 of an inch.
Professor Owen in his minute description of the tarso-metatarsal bone of Dinornis elephantopus, says (Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand, vol. i. p. 227):—
“I had, hitherto, regarded the metatarse of Dinornis crassus, described and figured at p. 137, in pl. xl. figs. 4 & 5, as presenting the most extraordinary form and proportions of all the restored species of huge wingless birds of New Zealand; it is strikingly surpassed in robustness and in great relative breadth and thickness by the same bone of the present species, which chiefly on that account I have proposed to name elephantopus. Only in the great Maccaws and Penguins do the proportions of the metatarsus resemble those in this most robust-legged of birds; but the Parrot-like tribe present those peculiar modifications of the distal trochleæ, with the strong articulation for the back toe, which relate to the Scansorial modifications of the bird’s foot; and the Penguins associate with their broad and short metatarsus a characteristic retention of much of the primitive separation of the three constituent bones. In Dinornis elephantopus these elements have become as completely coalesced as in any other species, and the general characters of both proximal and distal ends accord with those in previously described species…… From the metatarsus of Dinornis robustus that of the Dinornis elephantopus differs, most strikingly, in its proportions of length to breadth, being little more than half the length, but of nearly equal breadth; the distal trochleæ, however, being relatively less expanded than in Dinornis robustus… . . Equalling, or nearly equalling, the phalanges of that bird in breadth and thickness, the bones of the foot differ chiefly in shortness, but in a less degree than the metatarsi differ.”
Professor Owen’s figure of this bone (op. cit. vol. ii. pl. lvii.) shows the proximal articular surface of the metatarsus; but in the specimen under notice this is partly covered by the interarticular bone already described; whilst the ectocalcaneal and the mesocalcaneal processes are completely hidden by the dried integument, or heel-pad, which, as already mentioned (Introd. p. xxxii) and as shown in the Plate, is still adhering to the base.
I have already discussed fully (Introd. pp. xviii to xxxv) the controversial question of the antiquity of the Moa, and I do not think it necessary to add anything further on the subject except to mention
“At the meeting of the Philosophical Society of Wednesday night the vexed question whether the Maori had ever actually known the Moa, or only through tradition, was briefly discussed upon a paper by Lieutenant-Colonel McDonnell, read by Mr. J. Park. The paper, which was entitled ‘The Ancient Moa Hunters at Waingongoro,’ was ostensibly a reply to Mr. Colenso, of Napier (a gentleman who, as is well known, has always held the theory that the Moa was extinct when the Maori arrived from Hawaiki), who had stated that there was nothing in the stories or proverbs of the Maoris to show that they actually knew the Moa. Colonel McDonnell expressed surprise that a statement of that kind should have come from such a Maori scholar as Mr. Colenso. As showing that the Maoris had known the Moa, and had hunted and eaten it, he related an incident within his own experience which happened on the West Coast of the North Island in 1866. Sir George Grey (then Governor) was visiting the locality, and an old Maori named New Zealand Times, Nov. 1, 1888.
The number of species described in my former edition was 147. Of these two have been omitted in the present work, namely, Nestor occidentalis and Tribonyx mortieri, the former being now treated as a mere variety of Nestor meridionalis, and the latter because, as already stated (Introd. p. xiv), there is no authentic record of its occurrence in New Zealand. On the other hand, 48 species have been added. Of this number three new species were described and named by myself in the ‘Transactions of the New-Zealand Institute,’ and four more are characterized for the first time in the present work. Professor Hutton and Dr. Finsch have each added two new species. Gerygone sylvestris, Potts, Ocydromus brachypterus, Lafr., and Eudyptes pachyrhynchus, Gray, have now been admitted as good species. The other additions to the list, 34 in number, are made up of stragglers from Australia, and species inhabiting the New-Zealand seas that have hitherto escaped observation.
In the Introduction I gave the number of Cormorants (including two doubtful forms) as fourteen; but, as fully explained in my account of Phalacrocorax brevirostris (Vol. II. p. 169), I have since treated Mr. Sharpe’s P. finschi as a mere variety of that species, thus reducing the number to thirteen. On the other hand, the number of Petrels has been increased, by a closer investigation of the subject, from thirty-three to thirty-nine. Of those now added only one is a new species, Puffinus bulleri, Salvin (Ibis, 1888, p. 354).
Those who possess my former edition, or who may otherwise have an opportunity of comparing the two works, will see how much new material has been embodied in the present one, the book having been practically rewritten and the amount of reading matter increased threefold.
It must not be supposed, however, from this that there is nothing left for the future ornithologist in New Zealand. Most, if not all, of the species inhabiting the mainland (the so-called “land-birds” and waterfowl) have no doubt been pretty thoroughly worked out; but a great deal has yet to be done among the shore-birds and sea-birds. Since the publication of my former edition, no less than 38 species of this class have been added to the list, and even whilst the present volume was passing through the press several more have been discovered.
I have described at page 88 (Vol. I.) the causes of the rapid disappearance of many of the New-Zealand
In my account of the well-nigh extinct Pogonornis cincta (Vol. I. p. 104), I stated that the only collections in this country that could boast the possession of a female of this species were the British Museum and the University Museum at Cambridge. On this point, however, Canon Tristram sends me the following note:—“I have had for years a lovely female skin, in most perfect condition. It was given to me by the late Dr. Lyall, R.N., who shot it in 1850.”
Among the native species apparently doomed to extinction at no distant date are the Bell-bird and the Tui. The former of these has entirely disappeared from the North Island, but its delicious note is still to be heard in the gardens and shrubberies of Nelson and Christchurch; and on the western side of the Southern Alps this bird is still to be found in all suitable localities. Tuis also, although greatly diminished in numbers during the last twenty years, are still comparatively plentiful in many parts of both islands. It is indeed pleasing to record that they sometimes frequent the shrubberies in and around our principal towns, and that in Mrs.
On the other hand, some of the indigenous species find the new conditions of life favourable to their increase. For example, the Banded Rail (Rallus philippensis) is now comparatively plentiful in all suitable localities. On the low-lying sandy lands near the sea-shore, where fields of pinky-red rushes alternate with flax and toetoe, it may be flushed by the sportsman’s dog, almost at his very feet; and in the bosky fringes of the forest, where the native bramble casts a mantle over the low vegetation, and tangles of kohia and other creeping plants make progression well-nigh impossible, its note is now familiar, although a few years since its very appearance was unknown to many of the natives.
I have mentioned (Introd. p. xlviii, footnote) the unfortunate fate that befell one of the Queen’s White Swans at Kawau. I am glad, however, to learn from Professor Hutton that the experiment was not so unfruitful as I had supposed. Writing to me, from Christchurch, under date of Oct. 17, he says:—“Sir George Grey gave me a pair of White Swans, in 1868, to take up to the Waikato. I turned them out in Lake Whangape, and when I left in 1870 there were thirteen of them. I have been told that they are now commonly seen on the lakes in the Lower Waikato.” He adds:—“Also Rooks were introduced into Canterbury from Lincolnshire, many years ago, by Sir
Since writing my account of the various species of Even in the Rev. Mr. Green’s charming account of his ascent of Mount Cook, the ubiquitous Weka comes in for a passing notice. Camped at the edge of a little blue lake, fringed with scrub, at the foot of the Tasman glacier, he writes:—“Here, for the first time, we found the New Zealand edelweiss (Ocydromus inhabiting New Zealand, I have
Ocydromus troglodytes at the British Museum, and although a very unfinished production, it certainly represents a highly-coloured specimen of Ocydromus australis. I trust I have succeeded in elucidating the very confused synonymy of this group and in giving something like finality to the nomenclature. But the manner in which some of the forms intergrade renders the subject a very puzzling one. Under more than one aspect the Woodhen is a bird of considerable interest, and I have therefore endeavoured to do full justice to its natural historyGnaphalium grandiceps), and my men seemed to take fresh heart after all their fagging work, when we had our hat-bands adorned with the familiar little felt-like flowers. After a good night’s rest on a bed of Veronica hectori, we continued our ‘swagging,’ and on the next afternoon, Feb. 23, we reached our fifth and final camp. We were now 3750 feet above the sea, having gained by a week’s labour only 1450 feet of actual elevation, and Mount Cook still towered 9000 feet above us. Our advance was here checked by the ice of the much broken Ball glacier coming down from our left, and though we carried our swags on to its surface in hopes of camping farther up, the absence of scrub on the further spurs, of sufficient size to promise a supply of firewood, made us retrace our steps and pitch our tents on a gravel slope close to the mountain side, in the angle formed by the Ball and Tasman glaciers. Here a glacier stream provided us with water, and the vicinity of our camp was strewn with dead wood brought down by landslips and avalanches from the steep slopes above. Whilst looking for a suitable nook for our tent, Boss came upon a little square patch of dwarfed gnarled Coprosma exactly the square of our tent. It grew by itself on the gravel in a snug corner, and seemed as if prepared so specially for our use that we did not wish to decline the hospitality of nature. Filling up, therefore, the centre of the square with some cut bushes we pitched our tent on it. Never was a bed more comfortable; its spring was perfect, we never sank to within less than 5 inches or 6 inches of the ground; and so long as the Wekas contented themselves with squeaking and grunting, and not pecking upwards, we did not wish to deny them the comfortable lodging beneath us, which they seemed to appreciate. From this camp we made a long day’s excursion up the main glacier and completed our reconnaissance of the ridges of Mount Cook; and from a point on the medial moraine I took a circle of angles with a view to making my map, and secured a couple of negatives of the Hochstetter ice-fall. But the light was so brilliant, there not being a cloud in the sky, that over-exposure of my plates was almost unavoidable. A brisk breeze, occasionally blowing in sudden strong squalls from south-west or north-west, prevailed in the valley, while on the mountain ridges a steady, fierce wind seemed to blow continuously from the west. The Woodhens or Wekas (Ocydromus australis) were a source of constant amusement; they seemed to know no fear, and would come picking and examining every article in our camp, and were always ready to bolt off with any small object left on the ground. They cared little for the stones we threw at them, and all night they kept up a constant whistling, accompanied by a kind of grunting noise. On the stream hard by we had an inexhaustible supply of Blue Ducks (Hymenolaimus malacorhynchus); there were never many to be seen at a time, but when we shot three or four one day a couple of brace more would occupy the same part of the stream next morning. They were not wild, so in order to save cartridges we generally pelted stones to get them close together, and then tumbled two or three in the one shot.”
With the kind assistance of Mr. Salvin, who has made a special study of the Procellariidæ for the purposes of his forthcoming ‘Monograph,’ I have made a very complete list of our Petrels up to date, but I am persuaded that many more have yet to be added. As mentioned in my Introduction, the wide ocean which surrounds New Zealand is, so to speak, the great nursery of this family, and their breeding-grounds are the numerous rocks and islets which abound off our coasts or the small groups of islands lying in mid-ocean and far out of the track of our ordinary commerce. Here is still a most promising field for future workers in New-Zealand ornithology.
In his excellent ‘Critical Notes on Procellariidæ’ (Orn. Miscell. vol. i. pp. 249–257) Mr. Salvin says:—“The exceedingly extensive range of many species of this family of birds adds to the difficulties of their study when the evidently close specific relationship between many of them is considered. But could we compare specimens taken from the breeding-stations, much of our perplexity would, I believe, vanish, and the slight differences observable in specimens captured at various points on the high seas would at once assume a greater value, and definite laws of geographical distribution would be found to prevail in these as in other birds. It is on certain islands that the Procellariidæ assemble in the
At page 24 (Vol. I.) I have stated my reasons for not including the Kermadec Islands in this work; but as any information relating to the birds of this group must be of interest to the student of New-Zealand ornithology, especially in regard to the subject of geographical distribution, I have much pleasure in quoting the following observations recorded by Mr. Circus gouldi), the Kingfisher (Halcyon vagans), the Tui (Prosthemadera novæ zealandiæ), the White-eye (Zosterops cærulescens), the Pipit (Anthus novæ zealandiæ), the Red-fronted Parrakeet (Platycercus novæ zealandiæ), the Pukeko (Porphyrio melanonotus), and the Grey Duck (Anas superciliosa). Mr. Bell states that both the Long-tailed Cuckoo (Eudynamis taitensis) and the Shining Cuckoo ( Chrysococcyx lucidus) are yearly visitants; and that a large Fruit-Pigeon, supposed to be identical with the New-Zealand species, was abundant till it had been exterminated by the introduced cats. A similar fate has befallen the Red-fronted Parrakeet on Sunday Island; but this bird is still plentiful on Meyer Islet, an outlying wooded rock, whilst on Macaulay Island it is to be seen in great numbers, going about in flocks of from twelve to fifty, hopping amongst the short grass, and apparently feeding on the seeds of
Apart from the serious work of the naturalist, whose duty it is to observe and record, there is pleasure in the mere watching of birds in their native haunts: to witness the ever-varying evolutions of the sea-birds in their tireless flight; to follow the stately White Crane or the Bittern in their lonely wanderings through the swamp; to sit on some mossy bank, with the scented karetu at your feet and the soft hum of insect-life all round, watching the playful flight of the Tiwaiwaka, as it opens its pretty fan and hunts in the air for invisible flies; or even to gaze on the solitary bird whose life is thus charmingly sketched by Sir
Some curious facts relating to the distribution of New-Zealand birds have been recently recorded by Dr. Finsch in ‘The Ibis’ (1888, pp. 307–309) from specimens obtained by Mr. Sphenœacus fulvus. This species is very rare in New Zealand; but its congener, S. punctatus, is common in both islands, frequenting the stunted fern in the open land, but more generally the thick vegetation of the swamps. In its island-home, where there is no open land and no swamp, it has changed its habits and lives in the bush. As I have stated at page 62 (Vol. I.) there is another allied, but very distinct species (S. rufescens), inhabiting the Chatham Islands, which does not occur in New Zealand. Another bird met with on this island was the Black Tomtit (Miro traversi), a form absent from New Zealand, but common at the Chatham Islands. Several examples were observed, and it is stated that their habits are exactly similar to those of the North-Island Tomtit (Myiomoira toitoi). After leaving the Snares, the ‘Stella’ visited the Auckland, Campbell, Antipodes, and Bounty Islands. Neither of the above mentioned birds was found in any of these localities; but, curiously enough, another allied species, the South-Island Tomtit (Myiomoira macrocephala), was met with on the Auckland Islands.
Mr. Reischek reports that on the Auckland Islands he found a species of Skua feeding on the young Penguins. This was doubtless Stercorarius antarcticus, the form which I have described above at page 63. Mr.
Having now sent my last sheet to press, I cannot altogether dispel a feeling of regret that my work is finished, for it has been a source of much enjoyment to me since my arrival in England.
Few persons who are not themselves practical ornithologists can fully realize what this statement implies. The truth is this:—In imagination I have lived over again the pleasantest part of my colonial life. In memory I have recalled the bright dewy morning, now five-and-thirty years ago, when I shot my first Koheperoa in the old Mission-garden at Tangiteroria, and found my beautiful prize lying on the sward with its banded wings and tail stretched out to their full extent. I have remembered the delight with which, almost as long ago, I shot in the Tangihua mountains my first Piopio, a bird so rare at the far north, even at that time, that it was entirely unknown to the natives of the district. I have roamed through the woods and listened to the scream of the Kaka, the shrill call of the Kingfisher, and the twitterings of the smaller birds, whose every note has been familiar to me since my boyhood. I have floated in the warm sunlight down the silent river, its banks overhung with evergreens and drooping ferns in rich profusion, and watched the Tuis high in the air performing their fantastic flight. I have traversed the deep lagoon, pushing my little canoe along the smooth watercourses among the beds of raupo, startling the ever-vigilant Bittern, provoking a peevish cry from the Pukeko, and flushing Ducks at every turn. I have ridden for a whole day over fern-clad hills, attended along the road by flights of Ground-Larks, with the Harrier sailing in wide circles overhead; and as the shades of evening were closing in upon the landscape, I have heard the whistling cries of the Woodhen in responsive pairs. I have tramped along the shore, gun in hand, for miles, and brought noise and consternation among the crowding flocks of sea-birds in my anxiety to secure good specimens. And, at night, I have sat for hours by my log fire in the bush, listening to the rapid talk and merry laughter of my Maori companions, broken now and then by the call of the lonely Morepork from the gloomy depths of the forest. All this have I done, over and over again in imagination, while endeavouring to depict in truthful language, for the information of the general reader, the life-histories of the various species.
If the perusal of these sketches should afford my friends anything like the amount of interest and pleasure their preparation has given me, I shall feel that I have not been altogether unsuccessful in this further endeavour to popularize the study of ornithology.
That I had a specially interesting Ornis to deal with cannot be denied; and I think it will be conceded that, on the whole, I have honestly discharged my duty as its biographer. The numerous letters of approval I have received during the progress of the present edition, from Subscribers whose judgment I value, have been highly gratifying to me; and I feel that I have nothing to complain of on the part of reviewers. But to my mind the highest tribute of praise the book has elicited is that contained in a letter from a very able colonial statesman—one who has devoted more than forty years of his active life to public affairs and still holds high office—in which, after thanking me for a presentation copy of Vol. I., he says:—“But the feeling that stayed and will stay most is admiration for the splendid service you have again done our country. How infinitely little are the ephemeral doings of all us politicians, when set against a work of such constant interest and value as your ‘Birds’; and how happy you must be at being able to dedicate such a capo d’ opera in science to your boys, amid the applause of those who are best able to recognize what it has been and is!”
Abnormal growth of a Huia’s bill, i, 17.
Acanthidositta, citrina, i, 114.
Acanthisitta, i, 110.
Acanthisitta, gilviventris, i, 111.
Acanthisitta, haasti, i, 111.
Acanthisitta, longipes, i, 108.
Acanthisitta, punctata, i, 113.
Acanthisitta, tenuirostris, i, 113.
Acanthiza albofrontata, i, 49.
Acanthiza chrysorhina, i, 135.
Acanthiza flaviventris, i, 44.
Acanthiza igata, i, 44.
Acanthiza tenuirostris, i, 113.
Acanthocera carunculata, xlii.
Acanthylis caudacuta, i, 117.
Accipiter cooperi, i, 128.
Accipiter nisus, i, 128.
Acromyodi, i, 37.
Actitis brevipes, ii, 38.
acuminatus, Limnocinclus, ii, 37.
acuminatus, Totanus, ii, 37.
Adamastor, lxxx.
Adamastor, cinereus, ii, 241.
Adamastor, typus, ii, 241.
adusta, Diomedea, ii, 189.
Ægialitis bicinctus, ii, 3.
Ægialophilus, ruficapillus, ii, 5.
ægyptiaca, Chenalopex, xlviii.
Aeipetes antarcticus, ii, 229.
Ælurœdus, i, 30.
Æpyornis, li.
Æstrelata cookii, ii, 217.
Æstrelata fuliginosa, ii, 221.
Æstrelata gavia, ii, 236.
Æstrelata gouldi, ii, 245.
Æstrelata incerta, ii, 220.
Æstrelata lessonii, ii, 219.
Æstrelata mollis, ii, 222.
Æstrelata neglecta, ii, 224.
æthereus, Phaeton, ii, 186.
affinis, Æstrelata, ii, 223.
affinis, Porzana, ii, 103.
africanus, Graculus, ii, 166.
Agapornis, i, 180.
Akiaki, ii, 55.
Alauda arvensis, xliii.
Alauda littorea, i, 63.
Alauda novæ seelandiæ, i, 63.
alba, Gallinula, ii, 90.
alba, Herodias, ii, 124.
alba, Motacilla, i, 248.
Albatros, Black-eyebrowed, ii, 198.
Albatros, Chocolate, ii, 189.
Albatros, Grey-headed, ii, 201.
Albatros, Shy, ii, 203.
Albatros, Sooty, ii, 205.
Albatros, Yellow-nosed, ii, 202.
albatrus, Diomedea, ii, 189.
albicilla, Fringilla, i, 53.
albicilla, Mohoua, i, 53.
albicillus, Certhiparus, i, 53.
albicollis, Himantopus, ii, 27.
albifacies, Athene, i, 198.
albifacies, Ieraglaux, i, 198.
albiflora, Parsonia, i, 3.
albifrons, Anarhynchus, ii, 9.
albifrons, Muscicapa, i, 36.
albifrons, Sterna, ii, 68.
albifrons, Turdus, i, 36.
albistriata, Hydrochelidon, ii, 70.
albivitta, Procelsterna, ii, 78.
albivittatus, Anous, ii, 78.
albofrontata, Acanthiza, i, 49.
albopectus, Muscicapa, i, 39.
albosignata, Eudyptula, ii, 300.
albostriata, Hydrochelidon, ii, 70.
albus, Himantopus, ii, 21.
Alcedo chlorocephala, i, 121.
Alcedo cyanea, i, 121.
Alcedo sacra, i, 121.
Alcedo vagans, i, 121.
Alcidæ, xvi.
Allied Shearwater, ii, 239.
altus, Dinornis, xxvii.
aluco, Syrnium, xlvii.
amaurosoma, Nectris, ii, 232.
amaurosoma, Puffinus, ii, 232.
American Cardinal, i, 30.
American Toucan, i, 15.
Amokura, ii, 187.
Anarhynchus, albifrons, ii, 9.
Anas, atricilla, ii, 273.
Anas, blanchardi, ii, 260.
Anas, boschas, ii, 259.
Anas, cheneros, ii, 264.
Anas, finschi, ii, 260.
Anas, gibbifrons, ii, 261.
Anas, leucophrys, ii, 251.
Anas, malacorhynchus, ii, 276.
Anas, mülleri, ii, 251.
Anas, novæ seelandiæ, ii, 273.
Anas, novæ zealandiæ, ii, 273.
Anas, punctata, ii, 262.
Anas, rhynchotis, ii, 269.
Anas, sandwichensis, ii, 252.
Anas, superciliosa, xlii, xlvii, lvi; ii, 251, 255, 259, 260, 272, 338.
Anas, variegata, ii, 264.
andersonii, Gavia, ii, 61.
andersonii, Gelastes, ii, 61.
Anous albivittatus, ii, 78.
Anous cinereus, ii, 78.
Anous stolidus, xiii.
Anser variegata, ii, 264.
Antarctic Petrel, ii, 229.
antarctica, Cataracta, ii, 63.
antarctica, Priocella, ii, 229.
antarctica, Procellaria, ii, 229.
antarctica, Sternula, ii, 70.
antarctica, Thalassæca, ii, 229.
antarctica, Thalassoica, ii, 229.
antarcticus, Aeipetes, ii, 229.
antarcticus, Fulmarus, ii, 229.
antarcticus, Megalestris, ii, 63.
antarcticus, Palæeudyptes, xxvi.
Authomiza cæruleocephala, i, 85.
Anthornis, auriocula, i, 92.
Anthornis, melanura, xlii, xliii, lix; i, 82, 85, 92, 93, 135, 242.
Anthus, lxiv; i, 115.
Anthus, aucklandica, i, 63.
Anthus, aucklandicus, lvii.
Anthus, australis, i, 64.
Anthus, graui, i, 63.
antipoda, Eudyptes, ii, 294.
antipoda, Pygoscelis, ii, 294.
antipoda, Spheniscus, ii, 294.
antipodes, Catarrhactes, ii, 294.
antipodes, Eudyptes, ii, 294.
antipodes, Pygoscelis, ii, 294.
Antipodes-Island Parrakeet, i, 148.
antipodum, Clupeilarus, ii, 47.
antipodum, Eudyptes, ii, 294.
antipodum, Larus, ii, 47.
antipodus, Dominicanus, ii, 47.
antipodus, Larus, ii, 47.
Aplonis atronitens, i, 25.
Aplonis australis, i, 25.
Aplonis caledonicus, xiii; i, 25.
Aplonis cassinii, i, 25.
Aplonis marginalis, i, 25.
Aplonis marginata, i, 25.
Aplonis marginatus, i, 25.
Aplonis mavornata, i, 25.
Aplonis nigroviridis, i, 25.
Aplonis pacificus, i, 25.
Aplonis rufipennis, i, 25.
Aplonis striatus, i, 25.
Aplonis tabuensis, i, 25.
Aplonis viridigriseus, i, 25.
Aplonis vitiensis, i, 25.
approximans, Circus, i, 206.
approximans, Circus,=C. gouldi, i, 247.
Aprosmictus scapulatus, i, 171.
Aptenodyta minor, ii, 300.
Aptenodytes, lxxxiii.
Aptenodytes, catarractes, ii, 299.
Aptenodytes, chrysocome, ii, 290.
Aptenodytes, flavilarvata, ii, 294.
Aptenodytes, longirostris, xiv; ii., 306.
Aptenodytes, minor, ii, 300.
Aptenodytes, patachonica, ii, 306.
Aptenodytes, tæniata, ii, 304.
Aptenodytes, undina, ii, 302.
Apterodita longirostris, ii, 306.
Apterodita papuæ, ii, 304.
Apteryx, xvi, xix, xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxvi, xxvii, xxx, xxxii, xxxvi, xlviii, xlix, li, liii, lxxxiv; i, 105; ii, 86, 87, 109, 325, 333.
Apteryx, australis, xvii, xlii, liii; ii, 308, 322, 323, 324, 325, 330, 331.
Apteryx, australis, var. mantelli, ii, 323.
Apteryx fusca, ii, 322.
Apteryx mollis, ii, 327.
Apteryx oweni, xlii, liii; i, 8; ii, 324, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331.
Aptornis, bulleri, xxiii.
Aptornis, defossor, xxiii.
Aptornis, otidiformis, xxiii.
apus, Hirundo, i, 116.
aquila, Atagen, ii, 182.
aquila, Fregata, ii, 182.
Pelecanus, ii, 182.
aquilus, Tachypetes, ii, 182.
arborea, Chelidon, i, 74.
arborea, Collocalia, i, 74.
Archæopteryx, li.
Ardea, lxxvi.
Ardea, asha, ii, 129.
Ardea, atra, ii, 129.
Ardea, cærulea, ii, 129.
Ardea, caledonica, ii, 139.
Ardea, cinerea, ii, 129.
Ardea, concolor, ii, 129.
Ardea, egretta, ii, 124.
Ardea, flavirostris, ii, 124.
Ardea, jugularis, ii, 129.
Ardea, leucops, ii, 134.
Ardea, maculata, ii, 136.
Ardea, matook, ii, 129.
Ardea, minuta, ii, 137.
Ardea, modesta, ii, 124.
Ardea, pannosa, ii, 129.
Ardea, pæciloptera, ii, 141.
Ardea, poiceloptera, ii, 141.
Ardea, poiciloptila, ii, 141.
Ardea, pusilla, ii, 136.
Ardea, sparrmannii, ii, 139.
Ardea, syrmatophora, ii, 124.
Ardeidæ, lxxvi.
Ardeola novæ zealandiæ, ii, 136.
Ardeola pusilla, ii, 136.
Ardetta maculata, ii, 136.
Ardetta punctata, ii, 136.
Arenaria interpres, ii, 14.
argetræa, Columba, i, 229.
ariel, Atagen, ii, 185.
ariel, Procellaria, ii, 213.
ariel, Pseudoprion, ii, 213.
Arinæ, i, 180.
arvensis, Alauda, xliii.
Ash-coloured Snipe, ii, 38.
asha, Ardea, ii, 129.
asha, Herodias, ii, 129.
asiaticus, Phalaropus, ii, 30.
assimilis, Circus, i, 206.
assimilis, Cireus,=jardinii, i, 247.
assimilis, Harpagornis, xxv.
assimilis, Rallus, ii, 95.
Aatrelata leucocephala, ii, 219.
Atagen aquila, ii, 182.
Atagen ariel, ii, 185.
Athene albifacies, i, 198.
Athene ejulans, i, 198.
Athene noctua, i, 34.
Athene novæ seelandiæ, i, 192.
Athene novæ zealandiæ, i, 192.
atlantica, Procellaria, ii, 221.
atlantica, Pterodroma, ii, 221.
atlanticus, Fulmarus, ii, 221.
atra, Ardea, ii, 129.
atra, Herodias, ii, 129.
atrata, Chenopis, xlvii.
atrata, Eudyptes, lvii.
atratus, Eudyptes, ii, 296.
tricilla, Anas, ii, 273.
atripes, Sterna, ii, 68.
atronitens, Aplonis, i, 25.
Auckland-Island Duck, ii, 263.
Auckland-Island Merganser, ii, 279.
Auckland-Island Shag, ii, 161.
Auckland-Island Snipe, ii, 32.
aucklandica, Anthus, i, 63.
aucklandica, Cænocorypha, ii, 32.
aucklandica, Corydalla, i, 63.
aucklandicus, Anthus, lvii.
aucklandicus, Cyanoramphus, i, 137.
auratus, Charadrius, ii, 6.
auriceps, Coriphilus, i, 142.
auriceps, Cyanoramphus, i, 142.
auriceps, Enphema, i, 142.
auriceps, Platycercus, xlii, lix; i, 96, 142, 145, 147, 149.
auriocula, Anthornis, i, 92.
aurioculus, Falco, i, 206.
auritus, Graucalus, ii, 162.
auritus, Ptilotis, i, 101.
australasiana, Limosa, ii, 40.
australasianus, Hæmatopus, ii, 16.
Australian Black Swan, xlvii.
Australian Curlew, ii, 45.
Australian Darter, ii, 175.
Australian Gannet, ii, 177.
Australian Ground-Parrakeet, i, 149.
Australian Kite, i, 212.
Australian Magpie, i, 209.
Australian Masked Plover, ii, 13.
Australian Moorhen, xlii.
Australian Quail, i, 226.
Australian Ring-Dove, i, 28.
Australian Rosehill Parrakeet, i, 196.
Australian Shrike, i, 66.
Australian Wattle-bird, xlii.
australis, Anthus, i, 64.
australis, Aplonis, i, 25.
australis, Apteryx, xvii, xlii, liii; ii, 308, 322, 323, 324, 325, 330, 331.
australis, var. mantelli, Apteryx, ii, 323.
australis, Aythya, ii, 275.
australis, Botaurus, ii, 141.
australis, Centrourus, i, 150.
australis, Cordyline, i, 43.
australis, Cypselus, i, 116.
australis, Eurystomus, i, 118.
australis, Harpa, i, 220.
australis, Hieracidea, i, 215.
australis, Micropus, i, 116.
australis, Miro, liii, lix; i, 33, 36, 37, 87, 88, 209, 239.
australis, Nestor, i, 150.
australis, Numenius, ii, 45.
australis, Ocydromus, xlii, liii; i, 249; ii, 105, 116, 119, 120, 331, 337.
australis, Petroica, i, 33.
australis, Podiceps, ii, 283.
australis, Prion, ii, 212.
australis, Psittacus, i, 150.
australis, Rallus, ii, 116.
australis, Schœniclus, ii, 37.
australis, Sula, ii, 177.
australis, Synoïcus, i, 226.
australis, Turdus, i, 33.
Austrocoraces, i, 30.
Avocet, Red-necked, ii, 20.
Avocetta novæ zealandiæ, ii, 20.
Aythya australis, ii, 275.
azaræ, Dominicanus, ii, 47.
azaræ, Larus, ii, 47.
azureus, Eurystomus, i, 120.
balthica, Sylochelidon, ii, 73.
Banded Dottrel, nesting of, ii, 15.
banksi, Pachyptila, ii, 211.
banksii, Procellaria, ii, 211.
banksii, Pseudoprion, ii, 211.
Banks’s Dova Petrel, ii, 211.
Bar-tailed Godwit, xl.
Bee-cater, Poö, i, 94.
Bee-cater, Wattled, i, 106.
Bell-bird, Chatham-Island, i, 92.
bérard, Procellaria, ii, 208.
berardii, Pelecanoides, ii, 208.
Bérard’s Diving-Petrel, ii, 208.
bicincta, Hiaticula, ii, 3.
bicinctus, Ægialitis, ii, 3.
bicinctus, Charadrius, ii, 3.
bicinctus, Ochthodromus, ii, 3.
Bittern, Black-tailed, ii, 141.
Black-backed Bittern, ii, 141.
Black-backed Gallinule, ii, 79.
Black-backed Gull, ii, 57.
Black-backed Gull, Southern, ii, 45.
Black-bellied Storm-petrel, ii, 249.
Black-eyebrowed Albatros, ii, 198.
Black-faced Crow, i, 66.
Black Penguin, ii, 296.
Black Petrel, ii, 242.
Black Swan, Australian, xlvii.
Black Teal, ii, 273.
Black Tern, White-winged, ii, 77.
Black Tomtit, ii, 330.
blanchardi, Anas, ii, 260.
Blue Billy, ii, 220.
Blue Heron, ii, 129.
Blue Mountain-Parrot, i, 171.
Blue Penguin, ii, 300.
Blue Petrel, ii, 214.
Blue-wattled Crow, lix; i, 1.
Boatswain-bird, ii, 188.
Bonaparte’s Shearwater, ii, 230.
borealis, Strepsilas, ii, 14.
boschas, Anas, ii, 259.
Botaurus, lxxvi.
Botaurus, australis, ii, 141.
Botaurus, melanotus, ii, 141.
Botaurus, pæciloptila, ii, 141.
Botaurus, pæciloptilus, lvi.
Botaurus, poicilopterus, ii, 141.
Botaurus, poiciloptilus, ii, 141.
Botaurus, stellaris, ii, 142.
brachipus, Rallus, ii, 100.
brachypterus, Gallirallus, ii, 120.
Brachypteryx, ii, 86.
brachypus, Lewinia, ii, 100.
brachypus, Rallus, lvii.
brachyura, Diomedea, ii, 196.
Break-bones, ii, 227.
brevicaudatus, Puffinus, ii, 230.
brevicaudus, Nectris, ii, 230.
brevicaudus, Priofinus, ii, 230.
brevicaudus, Puffinus, ii, 230.
brevipes, Actitis, ii, 38.
brevipes, Heteroscelus, ii, 38.
brevipes, Limosa, ii, 40.
brevipes, Procellaria, ii, 217.
brevipes, Totanus, ii, 38.
brevirostris, Carbo, ii, 168.
brevirostris, Gracalus, ii, 168.
brevirostris, Halieus. ii, 168.
brevirostris, Microcarbo, ii, 168.
brevirostris, Phalacrocorax, ii, 148, 154, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 335.
British Red-breasted Merganser, ii, 279.
Broad-billed Dove Petrel, ii, 212.
Broad-billed Petrel, ii, 212.
Bronze Cuckoo, i, 135.
Brown-billed Gull, ii, 61.
Brown Duck, ii, 257.
Brown Kiwi, ii, 328.
Brown Parrot, i, 217.
Brown Parrot, Southern, i, 150.
Brown Petrel, ii, 241.
Brown River-Shag, Large, ii, 146.
Brown Saddle-back, i, 23.
Brown Shag, ii, 163.
Brown Woodhen, ii, 115.
Bruchigavia corallinus, ii, 61.
Bruchigavia gouldi, ii, 61.
Bruchigavia jamesonii, ii, 61.
Bruchigavia melanorhynchus, ii, 58.
Bruchigavia pomare, ii, 61.
brunnea, Falco, i, 216.
brunneus, Harpe, i, 220.
Buff-crowned Parrot, i, 146.
Buff Woodhen, ii, 119.
bulleri, Aptornis, xxiii.
bulleri, Larus, outer primaries of, ii, 62.
Buller’s Shearwater, ii, 240.
Bush-Hawk, i, 220.
Bush-Warbler, i, 50.
Cænocorypha aucklandica, ii, 32.
cærulea, Ardea, ii, 129.
cærulea, Halobæna, ii, 214.
cærulea, Pachyptila, ii, 214.
cærulea, Procellaria, ii, 214.
Cærulean Warbler, i, 77.
cærulescens, Zosterops, liv, lviii, lix; i, 65, 77, 84, 135, 136; ii, 338.
cæruleus, Fulmarus, ii, 214.
calcitrans, Cnemiornis, xxvi.
Caledonian Night-Heron, ii, 139.
caledonica, Ardea, ii, 139.
caledonica, Nyctiardea, ii, 139.
caledonicus, Aplonis, xiii; i, 25.
caledonicus, Nycticorax, ii, 139.
Calidris canutus, ii, 35.
calidris, Tringa, ii, 35.
californicus, Lophortyx, i, 249.
californicus, Ortyx, i, 226.
Callæas cinerea, i, 5.
Callæas olivascens, i, 1.
Callæas wilsoni, i, 1.
callæas, Cryptorhina, i, 5.
Calœnas nicobarica, i, 250.
Calornis cantoroides, i, 25.
Campbell-Island Shag, ii, 167.
Campephaga ferruginea, i, 31.
Campephaga melanops, i, 66.
Campephagidæ, xl, lxiv.
“Canary,” i, 56.
Candida, Demiegretta, ii, 132.
Candida, Gygis, ii, 338.
candidus, Himantopus, ii, 29.
cantoroides, Calornis, i, 25.
Canutus cinereus, ii, 35.
Canutus islandicus, ii, 35.
Canutus rufescens, ii, 35.
canutus, Calidris, ii, 35.
Cap de Bonne Eapérance, L’Abatros du, ii, 189.
Cape-Goose, xlviii.
“Cape-Hen,” ii, 205.
capensis, Daption, ii, 215.
capensis, Procellaria, ii, 215.
capensis, Tanagra, i, 31.
Carbo brevirostris, ii, 168.
Carbo flavagula, ii, 168.
Carbo fucosus, ii, 149.
Carbo graculus, ii, 145.
Carbo hypoleucus, ii, 149.
Carbo leucogaster, ii, 149.
Carbo purpurascens, ii, 155.
carbo, Malacrocorax, ii, 146.
carboides, Graculus, ii, 145.
carboides, Graucalus, ii, 145.
carboides, Phalacrocorax, ii, 145.
Cardinal, American, i, 30.
Cardinalis virginianus, i, 30.
Carduelis, i, 113.
carneipes, Majaqueus, ii, 234.
carneipes, Procellaria, ii, 234.
Carpophaga, concinna, i, 250.
Carpophaga, forsteri, i, 250.
Carpophaga, galeata, i, 250.
Carpophaga, goliath, i, 250.
Carpophaga, novæ seelandiæ, i, 229.
Carpophaga, spadicea, i, 231.
carunculata, Acanthocera, xlii.
carunculata, Acanthochæra, xiii, xiv, xl, liv; i, 68, 106, 107.
carunculata, Ptilotis, i, 249.
carunculatus, Corvus, i, 106.
carunculatus, Creadio, i, 18.
carunculatus, Creadion, xlii, liii, lix; i, 18, 21, 52, 106, 238.
carunculatus, Graculus, ii, 153.
carunculatus, Leucocarbo, ii, 155.
carunculatus, Merops, i, 106.
carunculatus, Oxystomus, i, 18.
carunculatus, Pelecanus, ii, 155.
carunculatus, Sturnus, i, 18.
carunculatus, Xanthornus, i, 18.
Casarca, lxxxi.
Casarca, rutila, ii, 266.
Casarka castanea, ii, 264.
caspia, Hydroprogne, ii, 73.
caspia, Sterna, ii, 73.
caspia, Sylochelidon, ii, 73.
Caspian Tern, ii, 73.
caspius, Helopus, ii, 73.
caspius, Thalasseus, ii, 73.
cassinii, Aplonis, i, 25.
castanea, Casarka, ii, 264.
castanea, Virago, ii, 261.
Casuarinus, ii, 325.
Cataracta antarctica, ii, 63.
Catarractes chrysocome, ii, 290.
catarractes, Aptenodytes, ii, 299.
catarractes, Lestris, ii, 63.
Catarrhactes antipodes, ii, 294.
Catarrhactes minor, ii, 300.
catarrhactes, Stercorarius, ii, 65.
cauta, Diomedea, (Thalassarche), ii, 203.
Cayenne Tern, ii, 183.
Ceblepyris melanops, i, 66.
Cecropis nigricans, i, 74.
Centrourus australis, i, 150.
Ceropia crassirostris, i, 31.
Certhia heteroclites, i, 56.
Certhia melanura, i, 85.
Certhia olivacea, i, 85.
Certhia sannio, i, 85.
Certhiparus, albicillus, i, 53.
Certhiparus, cinerea, i, 53.
Certhiparus, maculicaudus, i, 51.
Certhiparus, novæ seelandiæ, i, 51.
Certhiparus, novæ zealandiæ, i, 51.
Certhiparus, ochrocephalus, i, 56.
Certhiparus, senilis, i, 53.
Chaffinch, xlvii.
Chalcites lucidus, i, 132.
chalcites, Chrysococeyx, i, 132.
chalcites, Cuculus, i, 132.
Charadrius lxx.
Charadrius auratus, ii, 6.
Charadrius bicinctus, ii, 3.
Charadrius dudoroa, ii, 11.
Charadrius frontalis, ii, 9.
Charadrius glareola, ii, 1.
Charadrius glaucopis, ii, 6.
Charadrius lobatus, ii, 13.
Charadrius novæ seelandiæ, ii, 11.
Charadrius novæ zealandiæ, ii, 11.
Charadrius pluvialis, ii, 6.
Charadrius ruficapillus, ii, 5.
Charadrius sinclus, ii, 14.
Charadrius taitensis, ii, 6.
Charadrius torquatula, ii, 11.
Charadrius utopiensis, ii, 35.
Charadrius virginianus, ii, 6.
Charadrius virginicus, ii, 6.
Charadrius xanthocheilus, ii, 6.
Chatham-Island Bell-bird, i, 92.
Chatham-Island Ferd-bird, i, 62.
Chatham-Island Robin, i, 38.
Chatham-Island Shag, ii, 166.
Chatham-Island Snipe, ii, 33.
Chatham-Island Warbler, i, 49.
Chats, i, 37.
Chelidon arborea, i, 74.
Chenalopex ægyptiaca, xlviii.
cheneros, Anas, ii, 264.
Chenopsis atrata, xlvii.
Chestnut-breasted Plover, ii, 3.
Chick of White-headed Stilt, ii, 23.
Chicken, Mother Carey’s, ii, 187.
chilensis, Stercorarius, ii, 65.
Chinese Pheasant, i, 226.
Chionis, xvi.
chloris, Halcyon, i, 126.
chloris, Muscicapa, i, 56.
chloris, Sitta, i, 113.
chlorocephala, Alcedo, i, 121.
chlororhyncha, Procellaria, ii, 235.
chlororhyncha, Thiellus, ii, 235.
chlororhynchos, Puffinus, ii, 235.
Chocolate Albatros, ii, 189.
Chrysococcyx, chalcites, i, 132.
Chrysococcyx, lucidus, liv, lv, lviii, lix; i, 45, 129, 132, 136,; ii, 338.
Chrysococcyx, smaragdineus, i, 131.
Chrysocoma minor, ii, 300.
Chrysocoma pachyrhynchus, ii, 287.
Chrysocoma papua, ii, 304.
Chrysocoma saltator, ii, 290.
chrysocome, Aptenodytes, ii, 290.
chrysocome, Catarractes, ii, 290.
chrysocome, Spheniscus, ii, 290.
chrysocomus, Eudyptes, ii, 287.
chrysorhina, Acanthiza, i, 135.
cincinnatus, Merops, i, 94.
cincinnatus, Philemon, i, 94.
Cinclus interpres, ii, 14.
Cinclus morinellus, ii, 14.
cincta, Meliphaga, i, 101.
cincta, Ptilotis, i, 101.
cinerea, Callæas, i, 5.
cinerea, Certhiparus, i, 53.
cinerea, Perdix, i, 226.
cinerea, Procellaria, ii, 241.
cinerea, Tringa, ii, 35.
Cinereous Fulmar, ii, 241.
Cinereous Wattle-bird, i, 5.
cinereus, Adamastor, ii, 241.
cinereus, Anous, ii, 78.
cinereus, Canutus, ii, 35.
cinereus, Priofinus, ii, 241.
cinereus, Puffinus, ii, 241.
cinnamomina, Halcyon, xiii.
Circus, approximans, i, 206.
Circus, approximans, = C. gouldi, i, 247.
Circus, assimilis, i, 206.
Circus, assimilis, = jardinii, i, 247.
Circus, cyaneus, i, 209.
Circus, gouldi, xlii, lix; i, 206, 247, 248; ii, 65, 152, 253, 277, 338.
Circus, gouldi, = C. approximans, i, 247.
Circus, gouldi, outline of, lx.
Circus, jardinii, i, 207.
cirrhatus, Pelecanus, ii, 157.
citrina, Motacilla, i, 113.
citrina, Sylvia, i, 113.
Citrine Warbler, i, 113.
Citrinella, Motacilla, i, 113.
Clupeilarus antipodum, ii, 47.
clypeata, Spatula, ii, 271.
Cnemiornis calcitrans, xxvi.
coccinea, Vostaria, i, 105.
Cockatoo, Sulphur-crested, i, 160.
colchicus, Phasianus, i, 226.
colensoi, Phalacrocorax, ii, 161.
collaris, Morinella, ii, 14.
collaris, Strepeilas, ii, 14.
Collocalia arborea, i, 74.
Colluricincla concinna, i, 66.
Columba argetræa, i, 229.
Columba livia, xvi.
Columba novæ seelandiæ, i, 229.
Columba spadicea, i, 229.
Columba spadicea, leucophæa i, 229.
Columba zealandica, i, 229.
Colymbus cornutus, ii, 283.
Colymbus cristatus, ii, 283.
Colymbus wrinator, ii, 283.
Common Pheasant, xivii.
Common Sea-Gull, i, 210.
Common Sheldrake, ii, 266.
Common Swallow, i, 76.
Common Thrush, xlvii.
concinna, Carpophaga, i, 250.
concinna, Colluricincla, i, 66.
concinnata, Prosthemadera, i, 94.
concolor, Ardea, ii, 129.
concolor, Demiegretta, ii, 129.
concolor, Herodias, ii, 129.
cookii, Æstrelata, ii, 217.
cookii, Fulmarns, ii, 217.
cookii, Procellaria, ii, 217.
cookii, Rhantistes, ii, 217.
Cookilaria leucoptera, ii, 217.
Cookilaria mollis, ii, 222.
Cookilaria velox, ii, 217.
Cook’s Petrel, ii, 217.
cooperi, Accipiter, i, 128.
Cooper’s Sparrow-Hawk, i, 128.
Coot, xxii.
Coracias pacifica, i, 118.
Coraciidæ, lxvii.
corallinus, Bruchigavia, ii, 61.
corallinus, Gelastcs, ii, 61.
Cordyline australis, i, 43.
Corethrura tabuensis, ii, 101.
Coriphilus auriceps, i, 142.
Coriphilus novæ zealandiæ, i, 137.
Cormorant, lvii.
cornutus, Colymbus, ii, 283.
Corvus, i, 16.
Corvus, carunculatus, i, 106.
Corvus, melanops, i, 66.
Corvus, paradoxus, i, 106.
Corydalla aucklandica, i, 63.
Corydalla novæ zealandiæ, i, 63.
Coturnix, lxx.
Crane, White, i, 221.
crassirostris, Ceropia, i, 31.
crassirostris, Eurystomus, i, 120.
crassirostris, Keropia, i, 31.
crassirostris, Tringa, ii, 36.
crassirostris, Turdus, i, 31.
Creadio carunculatus, i, 18.
Creadion, carunculatus, xlii, liii, lix; i, 18, 21, 52, 106, 238.
Creadion, pharoides, i, 18.
Creeper, Mocking, i, 85.
crepidatus, Larus, ii, 66.
crepidatus, Stercorarius, ii, 66.
crepitans, Rallus, i, 209.
Crex plumbea, ii, 101.
Crex pratensis, ii, 98.
crex, Ortygometra, xiii.
crispicollis, Sturnus, i, 94.
cristata, Lophaithyia, ii, 283.
cristata, Pinguinaria, ii, 299.
cristatus, Colymbus, ii, 283.
Crow, i, 237.
Crow, Black-faced, i, 66.
Crow, Blue-wattled, lix; i, 1.
Crow, New-Zealand, xvi.
Crow, Piping, i, 4.
Crow, Wattled, i, 106.
Crymophilus rufus, ii, 30.
Cryptorhina callæas, i, 5.
Crypturus tataupa, ii, 333.
Cuckoo, Bronze, i, 135.
Cuckoo, English, i, 128.
Cuckoo, Long-tailed, xli, lv, lix; i, 27, 127, 128, 248; ii, 338.
Cuckoo, Shining, xli, liv, lv, lix; i, 48, 129, 132, 136, 248; ii, 338.
Cuckoo, Society, i, 127.
Cuculus chalcites, i, 132.
Cuculus fasciatus, i, 127.
Cuculus lucidus, i, 132.
Cuculus nitens, i, 132.
Cuculus taitensis, i, 127.
Cuculus taitius, i, 127.
Cuculus versicolor, i, 132.
cuneicauda, Eudynamys, i, 127.
Curlew, Australian, ii, 45.
Curruca igata, i, 44.
cyanea, Alcedo, i, 121.
cyaneus, Circus, i, 209.
cyanicollis, Eurystomus, i, 120.
cyanocephalus, Porphyrio, ii, 79.
cyanopus, Numenius, xl.
cyanopus, Sula, ii, 338.
Cyanoramphus aucklandicus, i, 137.
Cyanoramphus auriceps, i, 142.
Cyanoramphus erythrotis, i, 137.
Cyanoramphus malherbi, i, 142.
Cyanoramphus novæ guineæ, i, 137.
Cyanoramphus novæ zelandiæ, i, 137.
Cyanoramphus unicolor, i, 148.
Cyanorhamphus, i, 180.
Cyanorhamphus, saisetti, i, 139.
Cyanorhamphus, saisseti, i, 137.
Cymbirhynchus, i, 110.
Cymotomus obscurus, ii, 238.
Cypselidæ, lxvii.
Cypselus, lxvii.
Cypselus, australis, i, 116.
Cypselus, murarius, i, 117.
Cypselus, vittata, i, 116.
Dabchiek, New Zealand, ii, 280.
Dacelo gigas, i, 120.
Dacelo sancta, i, 121.
Daption, lxxix.
Daption, capensis, ii, 215.
Darter, Australian, ii, 175.
Darter, New-Holland, ii, 175.
Dasyptilus pecqueti, i, 157.
defossor, Aptornis, xxiii.
delicatula, Strix, i, 205.
demersus, Phaëton, ii, 299.
Demiegretta Candida, ii, 132.
Demiegretta concolor, ii, 129.
Demiegretta novæ hollandiæ, ii, 134.
Dendrocygna, lxxxii.
deserti, Muscicapa, i, 72.
diadematus, Spheniscus, ii, 298.
Dicæidæ, liv.
Didus, ineptus, xix.
dieffenbachi, Hypotænidia, ii, 121.
dieffenbachii, Hypotænidia, ii, 121.
dieffenbachii, Myiomoira, i, 42.
dieffenbachii, Ocydromus, ii, 121.
Dieffenbach’s Rail, ii, 121.
dilophus, Hydrocorax, ii, 164.
Dinornis, xvii, xix, xx, xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxv, xxvi, xxx, xxxii, xxxiii, xlix, liii, lvi; ii, 86, 260, 325, 329, 333.
Dinornis, altus, xxvii.
Dinornis, huttoni, xxvii.
Dinornis, otidiformis, xix.
Diomedea adusta, ii, 189.
Diomedea albatrus, ii, 189.
Diomedea brachyura, ii, 196.
Diomedea (Thalassárche) cauta, ii, 203.
Diomedea exulans, ii, 189, 194, 195, 197, 198, 204, 206, 220.
Diomedea fusca, ii, 205.
Diomedea palpebrata, ii, 205.
Diving Petrel, Bérard’s, ii, 208.
Dodo, li.
Domestic Duck, ii, 259.
domesticus, Passer, xliv; 1. 123.
Dominicanus antipodus, ii, 47.
Dominicanus azaræ, ii, 47.
doralis, Zosterops, i, 77.
Dottrel, nestling of Banded, ii, 15.
Dottrel, New-Zealand, ii, 1.
Doubtful Petrel, ii, 220.
Dove Petrel, Banks’s, ii, 211.
Dove Petrel, Broad-billed, ii, 212.
Dove Petrel, Gould’s, ii, 212.
Dove Rock, xvi.
Dromæus, ii, 325.
Dromas, xvi.
Dromiceius novæ zealandicæ, ii, 322.
Dromornis, lii.
Duck, lvii.
Duck, Auckland-Island, ii, 263.
Duck, Brown, ii, 257.
Duck, Domestic, ii, 259.
Duck, Mountain, lvi.
Duck, New-Zealand, ii, 273.
Duck, Soft-billed, ii, 276.
Duck, Spoon-bill, ii, 269.
Duck, Supercilicus, ii, 251.
Duck, White-eyed, ii, 275.
Duck, White-winged, lvi.
Duck, Whistling, ii, 268.
dudoroa, Charadrius, ii, 11.
dumerilii, Philedon, i, 85.
Dun-rumped Swallow, i, 74.
Dusky Petrel, ii, 238.
Dusky Flover, ii, 1.
Dusky Shearwater, ii, 238.
Dysporus, lxxvii.
Dysporus, piscator, xiii.
Dysporus, serrator, ii, 177.
Eagle, New-Zealand, ii, 183.
Eagle, White-bellied Sea-, i, 212.
egretta, Ardea, ii, 124.
Egyptian Goose, xlviii.
ejulans, Athene, i, 198.
elephantopus, Dinornis, xxii, xxiii, xxvii, xxxii; ii, 333, 334.
Emperor Shag, ii: 153.
Emeu, li.
Emu, ii, 325.
English Cuckoo, i, 128.
English Pheasant, i, 226.
erythrotis, Cyanoramphus, i, 137.
esslingii, Nestor, i, 152.
Eudynamis, tahitiensis, i, 127.
Eudynamis, taitensis, lv, lvi, lviii, lix; i, 37, 44, 45, 127, 131; ii, 338.
Eudynamis, taitiensis, i, 127.
Eudynamys euneicauda, i, 127.
Eudynamys tahitius, i, 127.
Eudyptes, lxxxiii.
Eudyptes, antipoda, ii, 294.
Eudyptes, antipodes, ii, 294.
Eudyptes, antipodum, ii, 294.
Eudyptes, atrata, lvii.
Eudyptes, atratus, ii, 296.
Eudyptes, chrysocomus, ii, 287.
Eudyptes, nigriventris, ii, 290.
Eudyptes, nigrivestis, ii, 290.
Eudyptes, pachyrhyncha, ii, 287.
Eudyptes, pachyrhynchus, ii, 287, 289, 290, 291, 296, 299, 303, 335.
Eudyptes, papua, ii, 304.
Eudyptes, schlegeli, ii, 298.
Eudyptes, sclateri, ii, 289.
Eudyptes, vittata, ii, 299.
Eudyptila minor, ii, 300.
Eudyptula, albosignata, ii, 300.
Eulabeornis, lv.
Eulabeornis, lafresnayanus, ii, 122.
Eulabeornis, philippensis, ii, 95.
Euphema, i, 180.
Euphema, aùriceps, i, 142.
Euphema, novæ zeelandiæ, i, 137.
European Kestrel, i, 122.
European Owl, i, 34.
European Oyster-catcher, ii, 17.
Euryapteryx, xxvi.
Eurylæmus, i, 110.
Eurystomus, lxvii.
Eurystomus, australis, i, 118.
Eurystomus, azureus, i, 120.
Eurystomus, crassirostris, i, 120.
Eurystomus, cyanicollis, i, 120.
Eurystomus, orientalis, i, 120.
exulans, Diomedea, ii, 189, 194, 195, 197, 198, 204, 206, 220.
eytoni, Leptotarsis, ii, 268.
Falco aurioculus, i, 206.
Falco brunnea, i, 216.
Falco femoralis, i, 218.
Falco novæ seelandiæ, i, 213.
Falco peregrinus, i, 217.
Falco subniger, i, 212.
Falcon, Gyr, ii, 183.
Falcon, New Zealand, i, 213.
Fantail, Pied, lix; i, 27, 69, 73.
Fan-tailed Flycatcher, i, 23, 69.
fasciatus, Cuculus, i, 127.
Fern-bird, Chatham-Island, i, 62.
Fern-bird, Fulvous, i, 61.
Fern-Sparrow, ii, 98.
ferruginea; Campephaga, i, 31.
ferruginea; Tringa, ii, 35.
finschi, Anas, ii, 260.
Fish-eye, i, 242.
Fish-Hawk, i, 222.
fissipes, Sterna, ii, 77.
flabellifera, Muscicapa, i, 69.
flavagula, Carbo, ii, 168.
flavilarvata, Aptenodytes, ii, 294.
flavirhynchus, Phalacrocorax, ii, 173.
flavirostris, Ardea, ii, 124.
flavirostris, Graucalus, ii, 173.
flavirostris, Herodias, ii, 124.
flaviventris, Acanthiza, i, 44.
flavirostris, Gerygone, xiii, lix; i, 44, 47, 49, 50, 129, 135, 136, 240, 241, 248.
Flesh-footed Shearwater, ii, 233.
fluminea, Ortygometra, xiii.
Flycatcher, Fan-tailed, i, 23, 69.
Flycatcher, White-shafted, i, 135.
Flycatcher, Yellow-headed, i, 56.
formosus, Pezoporus, i, 149.
forsteri, Carpophaga, i, 250.
forsteri, Pachyptila, ii, 212.
forsterorum, Malacorhynchus, ii, 276.
forsterorum, Miro, i, 42.
Forster’s Shearwater, ii, 236.
foxii, Limosa, ii, 40.
Fregata aquila, ii, 182.
Fregata minor, ii, 185.
fregàta, Pelagodroma, ii, 248.
fregàta, Thalassidroma, ii, 248.
Fregetta, grallaria, ii, 250.
Fregetta, melanogastra, ii, 249.
Frigate bird, ii, 220.
Frigate bird, Great, ii, 182.
Frigate bird, Small, ii, 185.
Frigate Pelican, ii, 182.
Frigate Pelican, Lesser, ii, 185.
Frigate Pelican, Palmerston, ii, 182.
Frigate Pelican, White-headed, ii, 182.
Frigate Petrel, ii, 248.
Frilled Shag, ii, 173.
Fringilla albicilla, i, 53.
frontalis, Charadrius, ii, 9.
frontalis, Hirundo, i, 76.
frontalis, Thinornis, ii, 9.
fucosus, Carbo, ii, 149.
Fulica novæ zealandiæ, ii, 40.
Fulicas, ii, 140.
fulicaria, Tringa, ii, 30.
fulicarius, Æstrelata, ii, 221.
fulicarius, Muscicapa, i, 72.
fulicarius, Æstrelata, ii, 221.
fulicarius, Phæbetria, ii, 205.
fulicarius, Pterodroma, ii, 221.
fuliginosus, Hæmatopus, ii, 18.
fuliginosus, Totanus, ii, 38.
Fuligula, lxxxii.
Fulix novæ seelandiæ, ii, 273.
Fulmar, Cinereous, ii, 241.
Fulmarus antarcticùs, ii, 229.
Fulmarus atlanticus, ii, 221.
Fulmarus cæruleus, ii, 214.
Fulmarus cookii, ii, 217.
Fulmarus glacialoides, ii, 228.
Fulmarus lessoni, ii, 219.
Fulmarus leucopterus, ii, 217.
fulva, Strix, i, 192.
Fulvous Fern-bird, i, 61.
Fulvous Plover, ii, 6.
fulvus, Megalurus, i, 161.
fulvus, Pluvialis, ii, 6.
fusca, Apteryx, ii, 322.
fusca, Diomedea, ii, 205.
fuscus, Lestris, ii, 47.
galeata, Carpophaga, i, 250.
Galgulus pacificus, i, 118.
gallinaceus, Vanellus, ii, 13.
Gallinago, lxxiii.
Gallinago, punctata, ii, 40.
Gallinula alba, ii, 90.
Gallinula immaculata, ii, 101.
Gallinula nesiotis, ii, 104.
Gallinule, Black-backed, ii, 79.
Gallirallus brachypterus, ii, 120.
Gambetta pulverulentus, ii, 38.
Gannet, Australian, ii, 177.
garnotti, Priocella, ii, 228.
Garrodia, nereis, ii, 247.
Gastornis, li.
Gavia andersonii, ii, 61.
Gavia gouldii, ii, 61.
Gavia jamesonii, ii, 61.
Gavia pomare, ii, 58.
Gavia pomarre, ii, 61.
gavia, Æstrelata, ii, 236.
gavia, Procellaria, ii, 236.
Gelastes andersonii, ii, 61.
Gelastes corallius, ii, 61.
Gelastes gouldi, ii, 61.
Geopsittacus, i, 180.
Gerygone, flaviventris, xiii, lix; i, 44, 47, 49, 50, 129, 135, 136, 240, 241, 248.
“Ghost-bird,” ii, 233.
gibberifrons, Querquedula, ii, 261.
gibberifrons, Nettion, ii, 261.
gibbifrons, Anas, ii, 261.
gigantea, Procellaria, ii, 225.
gigas, Dacelo, i, 120.
gilviventris, Acanthisitta, i, 111.
glacialis, Phalaropus, ii, 30.
glacialis, Procellaria, ii, 228.
glacialis, Thalassœca, ii, 228.
glacialis, Tringa, ii, 30.
glacialoides, Thalassœca, ii, 228.
glareola, Charadrius, ii, 1.
glareola, Trynga, ii, 38.
Glaucopidæ, i, 8.
Glaucopididæ, xvi.
Glaucopis, olivascens, i, 1, 2.
Glaucopis, wilsoni, xlii, liii, lix; i, 1, 5, 10, 237; ii, 316.
glaucopis, Charadrius, ii, 6.
glaucus, Graculus, ii, 162.
glaucus, Phalacrocorax, ii, 163.
Godwit, ii, 15.
glaucus, Bar-tailed, xl.
glaucus, Southern, ii, 40.
Goldfinch, xlvii.
goliath, Carpophaga, i, 250.
Goose, Cape, xlviii.
Goose, Egyptian, xlviii.
Goose, Variegated, ii, 264.
Goshawk, ii, 183.
gouldi, Æstrelata, ii, 245.
gouldi, Bruchigavia, ii, 61.
gouldi, Circus, xlii, lix; i, 206, 247, 248; ii, 65, 152, 253, 277, 338.
gouldi, Circus, = C. approximans, i, 247.
gouldi, Circus, outline of, lx.
gouldi, Gavia, ii, 61.
gouldi, Gelastes, ii, 61.
gouldi, Heteralocha, i, 7.
gouldi, Tribonyx, xiv.
Gould’s Dove Petrel, ii, 213.
Gould’s Harrier, i, 206.
Govinda Kite, i, 211.
Gracalus brevirostris, ii, 168.
Gracalus carboides, ii, 145.
Gracalus chalconotus, ii, 162.
Gracalus melanoleucus, ii, 173.
Gracalus punctatus, ii, 164.
Gracalus rarius, ii, 149.
Graculus africanus, ii, 166.
Graculus carbo, ii, 145.
Graculus carunculatus, ii, 153.
Graculus glaucus, ii, 162.
Graculus leucogaster, ii, 149.
Graculus novæ hollandiæ, ii, 145.
grallaria, Fregetta, ii, 250.
grallaria, Procellaria, ii, 249.
Grass-bird, i, 241.
Grass-Parrot, i, 171.
Graucalus, auritus, ii, 162.
Graucalus, carboides, ii, 145.
Graucalus, flavirostris, ii, 173.
Graucalus, melanotis, i, 66.
Graucalus, purpuragula, ii, 171.
Graucalus, punctatus, ii, 164.
Graucalus, stictocephalus, ii, 171.
Graucalus, varius, ii, 149.
grayi, Anthus, i, 63.
Gray’s Shag, ii, 162.
Great-crested Grebe, ii, 283.
Great Frigate bird, ii, 182.
Great-headed Titmouse, i, 42.
Grebe, Great Crested, ii, 283.
Greenfinch, xlvii.
Green Linnet, i, 105.
Green-winged Teal, ii, 183.
Grey-backed Storm-Petrel, ii, 247.
Grey-faced Petrel, ii, 245.
Grey-headed Albatros, ii, 201.
Grey Phalarope, ii, 30.
Grey Sandpiper, ii, 38.
greyi, Stringops, ii, 107.
grisea, Procellaria, ii, 232.
grisea, Tringa, ii, 35.
riseopygius, Totanus, ii, 38.
griseus, Phalaropus, ii, 30.
griseus, Procellaria, ii, 234.
Grisled Sandpiper, ii, 35.
“Ground-Lark,” i, 63, 89.
Ground-Parrakeet, lvii.
Ground-Parrakeet, Australian, i, 149.
“Ground-Parrot,” i, 176.
Grouse, Pallas’s Sand-, i, 140.
gularis?, Æstrelata, ii, 223.
gularis?, Procellaria, ii, 223.
Gull, Black-backed, ii, 57.
Gull, Brown-billed, ii, 61.
Gull, Mackerel-, ii, 54.
Gull, Sea-, ii, 64.
Gull, Southern Black-backed, ii, 45.
Gygis candida, ii, 338.
Gymnorhina, tibicen, i, 209.
Gyr Falcon, ii, 183.
haasti, Strix, i, 200.
haasti, Xenicus, i, 111.
haastii, Acanthisitta, i, 111.
habroptilus, Strigopsis, 176.
habroptilus, Stringops, xxxvii, xxxix, lix; i, 167, 172, 176, 246.
habroptilus, Stringopsis, i, 176.
Hæmatopus, australasianus, ii, 16.
Hæmatopus, fuliginosus, ii, 18.
Hæmatopus, niger, ii, 18.
Hæmatopus, niger, australasianus, ii, 18.
Hæmatopus, niger, oceanicus, ii, 18.
Hæmatopus, ostralegus, ii, 17.
Hæmatopus, picatus, ii, 16.
hæsitata, Procellaria, ii, 241.
Hakakao, ii, 40.
Hakuakua, ii, 230.
Hakuwai, ii, 182.
Halcyon, chloris, i, 126.
Halcyon, cinnamomina, xiii.
Halcyon, juliæ, i, 126.
Halcyon, sacra, i, 126.
Halcyon, sanctus, i, 121.
Halcyon, tristrami, i, 126.
haliaëtus, Pandion, i, 222.
Halieus brevirostris, ii, 168.
Halieus melanoleucus, ii, 173.
Halobæna, lxxix.
Halobæna, cærulea, ii, 214.
Halobæna, typica, ii, 209.
Halodroma urinatrix, ii, 207.
Harpa, australis, i, 220.
Harpagornis assimilis, xxv.
Harpe brunneus, i, 220.
Harpe novæ zealandiæ, i, 213.
Harrier, Gould’s, i, 206.
Harrier, New-Zealand, lix.
Harrier, New-Zealand, outline of, lx.
Harrier, Rèunion, i, 206.
hasitata, Procellaria, ii, 241.
Hawk, Bush-, i, 220.
Hawk, Fish-, i, 222.
hectori, Megalapteryx, xxvii.
hectori, (var.), Podiceps, ii, 283.
Hedge-Sparrow, ii, 336.
Hehiwi, i, 105.
Helopus caspius, ii, 73.
Hemiphaga novæ zealandiæ, i, 229.
Hen, Swamp, ii, 79.
Herodias alba, ii, 124.
Herodias asha, ii, 129.
Herodias atra, ii, 129.
Herodias concolor, ii, 129.
Herodias flavirostris, ii, 124.
Herodias jugularis, ii, 129.
Herodias matook, ii, 129.
Herodias novæ hollandiæ, ii, 134.
Herodias pannosa, ii, 129.
Herodias pannosus, ii, 129.
Herodias sacra, ii, 129.
Herodias syrmatophorus, ii, 124.
Heron, Blue, ii, 129.
Heron, Caledonian Night-, ii, 139.
Heron, Nankeen Night-, ii, 139.
Heron, New-Holland Night-, ii, 139.
Heron, New-Zealand, ii, 129.
Heron, Sacred, ii, 129.
Heron, Spotted, ii, 136.
Heron, White, ii, 124.
Heron, White-fronted, ii, 134.
Herse nigricans, i, 74.
Herse pyrrhonota, i, 74.
Heteralocha gouldi, i, 7.
heteroclites, Certhia, i, 56.
heteroclites, Orthonyx, i, 56.
Heteroscelus brevipes, ii, 38.
Hiaticula bicincta, ii, 3.
Hiaticula novæ seelandiæ, ii, 11.
Hiaticula ruficapilla, ii, 5.
Hieracidæ, liv.
Hieracidea, i, 218.
Hieracidea, australis, i, 215.
Hieracideæ, i, 218.
Hihi-matakiore, i, 101.
Hihi-paka, i, 101.
Himantopus, albicollis, ii, 27.
Himantopus, albus, ii, 21.
Himantopus, candidus, ii, 29.
Himantopus, picatus, xv.
Himantopus, niger, ii, 24.
Himantopus spicatus, ii, 28.
Hirundinidæ, lxv.
Hirundo, lvi.
Hirundo, opus, i, 116.
Hirundo, frontalis, i, 76.
Hirundo, pacifica, i, 116.
Hirundo, pyrrhonota, i, 74.
Hirundolanius, i, 119.
holmesi, Scolopax, ii, 32.
Honey-sucker, i, 128.
Hornbill, i, 16.
hua, Mohoua, i, 56.
Huahou, ii, 35.
hudsonica, Tringa, ii, 14.
Huia’s bill, abnormal growth of a, i, 17.
Huru-pounamu, i, 108.
huttoni, Dinornis, xxvii.
huttoni, Phalacrocorax, ii, 174.
Hutton’s Rail, ii, 123.
Hutton’s Shag, ii, 174.
hybrida, Hydrochelidon, ii, 70.
Hydrochelidon, lxxiv.
Hydrochelidon, albistriata, ii, 70.
Hydrochelidon, albostriata, ii, 70.
Hydrochelidon, hybrida, ii, 70.
Hydrochelidon, leucoptera, ii, 77.
Hydrochelidon, nigra, ii, 77.
Hydrocorax dilophus, ii, 164.
Hydroprogne caspia, ii, 73.
Hylochelidon nigricans, i, 74.
Hymenolæmus, malacorhynchus, ii, 276.
Hymenolaimus, xv.
hyperboreas, Lobipes, ii, 30.
hypoleuca, Thalassidroma, ii, 248.
Hypoleucus varius, ii, 149.
hypoleucus, Carbo, ii, 149.
hypoleucus, Phalacrocorax, ii, 149.
hypopolius, Psittacus, i, 150.
Hypotænidia dieffenbachi, ii, 121.
Hypotænidia philippensis, ii, 95.
hypotænidia, Rallus, ii, 95.
Hypotriorchis novæ zealandiæ, i, 213.
Iao, i, 249.
Ichthyaëtus leucogaster, i, 212.
icterocephalus, Orthonyx, i, 56.
Icterus rufusater, i, 18.
Ieracidea novæ zealandiæ, i, 213.
Ieraglaux albifacies, i, 198.
Ieraglaux novæ zealandiæ, i, 192.
igata, Acanthiza, i, 44.
igata, Curruca, i, 44.
immaculata, Gallinula, ii, 101.
immaculata, Porzana, ii, 101.
imperator, Thalasseus, ii, 73.
incanus, Scolopax, ii, 38.
incerta, Æstrelata, ii, 220.
incerta, (Estrelata, ii, 220.
incerta, Procellaria, xiii; ii, 220.
Indian Minah, xlvii.
ineptus, Didus, xix.
ingens, Palapteryx, xxi.
interpres, Arenaria, ii, 14.
interpres, Cinelus, ii, 14.
interpres, Tringa, ii, 14.
Intoneg, ii, 188.
Iringatau, i, 81.
islandica, Tringa, ii, 35.
islandicus, Canutus, ii, 35.
isurus, Milvus, i, 212.
Jack-bird, lix, 121.
jamesoni, Larus, ii, 55.
jamesonii, Bruchigavia, ii, 61.
jamesonii, Gavia, ii, 61.
jamesonii, Larus, ii, 61.
jamesonii, Xema, ii, 61.
jardinii, Circus, i, 207.
jugularis, Ardea, ii, 129.
jugularis, Herodias, ii, 129.
juliæ, Halcyon, i, 126.
Kaeaea, i, 213.
Kahoho, ii, 269.
Kahu, i, 206.
Kahu-komokomo, i, 206.
Kahu-korako, i, 206.
Kahu-maiepa, i, 206.
Kahu-pango, i, 206.
Kaiaia, i, 213.
Kaka-kereru, i, 150.
Kaka-korako, i, 150.
Kaka-pipiwarauroa, i, 150.
Kaka-reko, i, 150.
Kakaha, i, 198.
Kakapo, chick, i, 191.
Kakarapiti, i, 213.
Kakariki, i, 137.
Kakawariki, i, 137.
Kaki, ii, 24.
Kanohi-mowhiti, i, 81.
Kaoriki, ii, 136.
Karakahia, ii, 275.
Karearea, i, 213.
Karewarewa, i, 213.
Karewarewa-tara, i, 220.
Karoro, ii, 47.
Kata, i, 55.
Kawau-paka, ii, 168.
Keha, i, 166.
Kereru, i, 229.
Keropia crassirostris, i, 31.
Keropia tanagra, i, 26.
Kestrel, European, i, 122.
Kikimutu, i, 113.
Kikirimutu, i, 113.
Ring Lory, i, 171.
Ring Lory, Penguin, ii, 306.
Kite, Australian, i, 212.
Kite, Govinda, i, 211.
Kiwi, Brown, ii, 328.
Kiwi, Large Grey, ii, 330.
Kiwi, Little Grey, ii, 327.
Kiwi, North-Island, ii, 308.
Kiwi, Red, ii, 331.
Kiwi-karuai, ii, 330.
Kiwi-kura, ii, 331.
Kiwi-parure, ii, 308.
Kiwi-pukupuku, ii, 327.
Knot, ii, 35.
Kohaperoa, i, 127.
Kohimako, i, 85.
Kohorimako, i, 85.
Kohutapu, ii, 11.
Koiro, ii, 47.
Koitareke, ii, 103.
Koko, i, 94.
Kokomako, i, 85.
Kokoreke, i, 225.
Kokorimako, i, 85.
Kokorohimako, i, 85.
Komako, i, 85.
Komiromiro, i, 39.
Kopara, i, 85.
Koreke, i, 225.
Koriroriro, i, 44.
Koroatito, i, 59.
Koropio, i, 26.
Korora, ii, 300.
Kotaretare, i, 121.
Kotata, i, 59.
Kotihe, i, 101.
Kotihewera, i, 101.
Kotuku-ngutupapa, ii, 144.
Koukouwai, i, 34.
Kuaka, ii, 40.
kuhlii, Puffinus, ii, 241.
Kuku, i, 229.
Kukupa, i, 229.
Kuruwhengi, ii, 269.
Kuruwhengu, ii, 269.
L’Abatros du Cap de Bonne Espérance, ii, 189.
La Cravate Friséc, i, 94.
lafresnayanus, Eulabeornis, ii, 122.
Lamprococcyx lucidus, i, 132.
“Land-Rail,” ii, 95, 98.
Lanius crassirostris, i, 31.
lapponica, Limosa, xl.
lapponica, var. novæ zealandiæ, Limosa, ii, 40.
Large Brown River-Shag, ii, 146.
Large Brown River-Shag, Grey Kiwi, ii, 330.
Larinæ, ii, 59.
Lark, New-Zealand, i, 63.
Larus, antipodum, ii, 47.
Larus, antipodus, ii, 47.
Larus, ozaræ, ii, 47.
Larus, bulleri, outer primaries of, ii, 62.
Larus, crepidatus, ii, 66.
Larus, littoreus, ii, 47.
Larus, melanorhynchua, ii, 59.
Larus, melanorhynchus, ii, 58.
Larus, novæ hollandiæ, outer primaries of, ii, 62.
Larus, pacificus, ii, 47.
pomare, ii, 59.
Larus, scopulinus, outer primaries of, ii, 62.
Larus, scopulinus major, ii, 61.
Larus, vociferus, ii, 47.
lateralis, Sylvia, i, 77.
Lathamus sparmanii, i, 137.
latirostris, Procellaria, ii, 212.
latirostrum, Platalea, ii, 144.
Laughing-Jackass, i, 198.
Le Coucou brun variè de noir, i, 127.
Le Manchot do la Nouvelle Guinèe, ii, 306.
Le Manchot Papou, ii, 304.
Leptotarsis eytoni, ii, 268.
Lessor Frigate Pelican, ii, 185.
lessoni, Fulmarus, ii, 219.
lessoni, Procellaria, ii, 219.
lessoni, Khantistes, ii, 219.
lessonii, Æstrelata, ii, 219.
lessonii, Prooellaria, ii, 219.
Lestris, catarractes, ii, 63.
Lestris, fuscus, ii, 47.
Lestris, longicaudata, ii, 66.
Lestris, parasiticus, ii, 66.
Lestris, richardsonii, ii, 66.
Lestris, scopulinus, ii, 55.
Leucocarbo carunculatus, ii, 155.
Leucocarbo purpurascens, ii, 155.
leucocephala, Astrelata, ii, 219.
Procellaria, ii, 219.
leucocephalus, Pelecanus, ii, 182.
leucocephalus, Tachypetes, ii, 182.
leucocephalus picatus, Himantopus, xv.
Leucocerca melanura, i, 72.
leucogaster, Carbo, ii, 149.
leucogaster, Graculus, ii, 149.
leucogaster, Ichthyaëtus, i, 212.
leucogaster, Phalacrocorax, ii, 149.
leucophrys, Anas, ii, 251.
leucops, Ardea, ii, 134.
leucoptera, Cookilaria, ii, 217.
leucoptera, Hydrochelidon, ii, 77.
leucoptera, Procellaria, ii, 217.
leucoptera, Sterna, ii, 77.
leucoptera, Viralva, ii, 77.
leucopterus, Fulmarua, ii, 217.
Leucoearcia picata, i, 250.
Lewinia brachypus, ii, 100.
lewinii, Kallus, ii, 100.
Limnocinclus acuminatus, ii, 37.
Limosa, australasiana, ii, 40.
Limosa, brevipes, ii, 40.
Limosa, foxii, ii, 40.
Limosa, lapponica, xl.
Limosa, lapponica, var. novæ zealandiæ, ii, 40.
Limosa, rufa, ii, 40.
Limosa, uropygialis, ii, 40.
Linnet, xlvii; J. 242.
Linnet, Green, i, 105.
Little Bittern, Ivi; ii, 136.
Little Blue Penguin, ii, 302.
Little Grey Kiwi, ii, 327.
Little Noddy, ii, 78.
Little Penguin, ii, 300.
Little White Tern, ii, 75.
littoralis, Strepsilas, ii, 14.
littorea, Alauda, i, 63.
littoreus, Larua, ii, 47.
livia, Columba, xvi.
lobata, Tringa, ii, 13.
lobatus, Charadrius, ii, 13.
lobatus, Phalaropus, ii, 30.
lobatus, Vanellus, ii, 13.
Lobipes hyperboreus, ii, 30.
Lobivanellus, lxxi.
Lobivanellus, personatus, ii, 39.
Long-legged Warbler, i, 108.
Long-tailed Cuckoo, xli, iv, lix; i, 27, 127, 128, 248; ii, 338.
longicaudata, Lestris, ii, 66.
longipennis, Sterna, ii, 68.
longipes, Acanthisitta, i, 108.
longipes, Miro, i, 33.
longipes, Motacilla, i, 108.
longipes, Muscicapa, i, 33.
longipes, Myioscopus, i, 33.
longipes, Pluvialis, ii, 6.
longipes, Sylvia, i, 108.
longirostris, Apterodita, ii, 306.
longirostris, Numenius, ii, 46.
longirostris, Podiicps, ii, 283.
Lophaithyia cristata, ii, 283.
Lophortyx californicus, i, 249.
Loxia turdus, i, 31.
lucidus, Chalcites, i, 132.
lucidus, Chrysococcyx, liv, lv, lix, lviii; i, 45, 129, 132, 136; ii, 338.
lucidus, Cuculus, i, 132.
lucidus, Lamprococcyx, i, 132.
Lyre-bird, i, 6.
Macaroni Penguin, ii, 297.
Mackerel-Gull, ii, 54.
lucidus, Muscicapa, i, 42.
lucidus, Myiomoira, xlii, lix; i, 37, 40, 42, 135, 239; ii, 339.
macrocephala, Rhipidura, i, 42.
macrocephalus, Pachycephalus, i, 42.
macrocephalus, Parus, i, 42.
macroptera, Pterodroma, ii, 245.
macularia, Tanagra, i, 31.
maculata, Ardetta, ii, 136.
maculata, Ardetta, ii, 136.
maculicaudus, Certhiparus, i, 51.
Magpie, xlvii.
Magpie, Australian, i, 209.
Majaqueus, lxxx.
Majaqueus, carneipes, ii, 233.
major, Numeniua, ii, 45.
major, Puffinus, ii, 232.
Mako, i, 85.
Makomako, i, 85.
Makora, ii, 55.
Malacorhynchus, lv.
Malacorhynchus, forsterorum, ii, 276.
malacorhynchus, Anas, ii, 276.
malacorhynchus, Hymenolæmus, ii, 276.
malherbi, Cyanoramphus, i, 142.
Man-of-War Bird, ii, 182.
Mantell’s Notorais, ii, 85.
Manutahae, i, 206.
Mapo, ii, 146.
marginalis, Aplonis, i, 25.
marginata, Aplonis, i, 25.
marginatus, Aplonis, i, 25.
marina, Pelagodroma, ii, 248.
marina, Procellaria, ii, 248.
marina, Thalassidroma, ii, 248.
Marsh-Hen, i, 209.
Marsh-Rail, ii, 103.
Masked Plover, ii, 39.
Masked Plover, Australian, ii, 13.
Mata, i, 59.
Matapo, ii, 146.
Matapouri, ii, 273.
Matata, i, 59.
matook, Ardea, ii, 129.
matook, Herodias, ii, 129.
Matuhituhi, i, 108.
Matuku-moana, ii, 134.
Matuku-nuia, ii, 129.
Matuku-tai, ii, 129.
Matukutuku, ii, 129.
Maubèche tachetèe, ii, 35.
Maunu, ii, 251.
mavornata, Aplonis, i, 25.
maxima, Apteryx, ii, 830, 331.
Megalapteryx hectori, xxvii.
Megalestris antarcticus, ii, 63.
Megalurus fulvus, i, 61.
Megalurus punctatus, i, 59.
Megalurus rufescens, i, 62.
Megapodius pritchardi, ii, 333.
megarhynchos, Sterna, ii, 73.
Meionornis, xxvi.
melanogaster, Puffinus, ii, 238.
melanogaster, Thalassidroma, ii, 249.
melanogastra, Fregetta, ii, 249.
melanogastra, Procellaria, ii, 249.
melanogastra, Thalassidroma, ii, 220.
melanoleucus, Graculus, ii, 173.
melanoleucus, Halieus, ii, 173.
melanoleucus, Microcarbo, ii, 173.
melanophrys, Diomedea, ii, 197, 198, 202, 204, 206, 220, 288.
melanops, Campephaga, i, 66.
melanops, Ceblepyris, i, 66.
melanops, Corvus, i, 66.
melanorhyncha, Larus, ii, 59.
melanorhyncha, Platalea, ii, 144.
melanorhynchos, Platalea, ii, 144.
melanorhynchus, Bruchigavia, ii, 58.
melanorhynchus, Larus, ii, 58.
melanotis, Graucalus, i, 66.
melanotis, Sterna, ii, 73.
melanotis, Sylochelidon, ii, 73.
melanotis, Thalassites, ii, 73.
melanotus, Botaurus, ii, 141.
melanura, Anthornia, xlii, xliii, lix; i, 82, 85, 92, 93, 135, 242.
melanura, Certhia, i, 85.
melanura, Leucocerca, i, 72.
melanura, Rhipidura, i, 72.
Meliphaga, xl.
Meliphaga, cincta, i, 101.
Meliphaga, novæ zealandiæ, i, 94.
Melopsittacus, i, 180.
Melopsittacus, undulatus, xlii.
Menura superba, i, 6.
Merganser, Auckland-Island, ii, 279.
Merganser, British Red-bresated, ii, 279.
Mergus, serrator, ii, 279.
meridionalis, Nestor, xlii, lvi, lix; i, 34, 105, 150, 151, 164, 167, 175, 183, 217, 246; ii, 335.
meridionalis, Psittacus, i, 150.
Merops carunculatus, i, 106.
Merops cincinnatus, i, 94.
Merops novæ seelandiæ, i, 94.
Microcarbo brevirostris, ii, 168.
Microcarbo melanoleucus, ii, 173.
Micropus australis, i, 116.
Micropus vittata, i, 116.
Milvus isurus, i, 212.
Minah, Indian, xlvii.
minor, Aptenodyta, ii, 300.
minor, Aptenodytes, ii, 300.
minor, Catarrhactes, ii, 300.
minor, Chrysocoma, ii, 300.
minor, Eudyptila, ii, 300.
minor, Fregata, ii, 185.
minor, Pelecanus, ii, 185.
minor, Rallus, ii, 101.
minor, Spheniscus, ii, 300.
minor, Strepsilas, ii, 14.
minor, Tachypetes, ii, 185.
minuta, Ardea, ii, 137.
minuta, Muscicapa, i, 42.
minuta, Sterna, ii, 75.
minutus, Rallus, ii, 101.
minutus, Turdus, i, 42.
Miro forsterorum, i, 42.
Miro longipes, i, 33.
mitratus, Podiceps, ii, 283.
Moa, li, lvi; ii, 325, 335. XIX.
Mocking-Creeper, i, 85.
modesta, Ardea, ii, 124.
modestus, Rallus, ii, 123.
Moeriki, ii, 121.
Moho, ii, 85.
Moho-patatai, ii, 95.
Moho-pereru, ii, 95.
Mohotatai, ii, 95.
Mohoua, i, 58.
Mohoua, albicilla, i, 53.
Mohoua, hua, i, 56.
Mohoua, ochrocephala, i, 56.
mollis, Æstrelata, ii, 222.
mollis, Apteryx, ii, 327.
mollis, Cookilaria, ii, 222.
mollis, Æstrelata, ii, 222.
mollis, Rhantistes, ii, 222.
Mollyhawk, ii, 202.
montanus, Nestor, i, 153.
Moorhen, Australian, xlii.
Morinella collaris, ii, 14.
morinella, Tringa, ii, 14.
morinellus, Cinclus, ii, 14.
morotensis, Scops, i, 247.
Motacilla alba, i, 248.
Motacilla citrina, i, 113.
Motacilla citrinella, i, 113.
Motacilla longipes, i, 108.
Motacillidæ, lxiv.
motacilloides, Rhipidura, xiii.
Mother Carey’s Chicken, ii, 187.
Mottled Petrel, ii, 223.
Mountain Duck, lvi.
Mountain Parrot, i, 166.
Mountain Parrot, Blue, i, 171.
Mountain Parrot, Kea, i, 174.
Moutuutu, i, 113.
mülleri, Anas, ii, 251.
murarius, Cypselus, i, 117.
Muscicapa albifrons, i, 36.
albopectus, i, 39.
Muscicapa chloris, i, 56.
Muscicapa deserti, i, 72.
Muscicapa flabellifera, i, 69.
Muscicapa fuliginosa, i, 72.
Muscicapa longipes, i, 33.
Muscicapa macrocephala, i, 42.
Muscicapa minuta, i, 42.
Muscicapa ochrocephala, i, 56.
Muscicapa toitoi, i, 39.
Muscicapa ventilabrum, i, 69.
Myiomoira, dieffenbachii, i, 42.
Myiomoira, macrocephala, xlii, lix; i, 37, 40, 42, 135, 239; ii, 339.
Myioscopus longipes, i, 33.
Myiothera novæ zealandiæ, i, 33.
nævia, Tringa, ii, 35.
nævius, Pelecanus, ii, 164.
nævius, Phalacrocerax, ii, 164.
Nako, i, 59.
Nankeen Night-Heron, ii, 139.
Noctris amaurosoma, ii, 232.
Noctris brevicauda, ii, 230.
Noctris brevicaudus, ii, 230.
Noctris carneipes, ii, 234.
Noctris obscura, ii, 238.
neglecta, Æstrelata, ii, 224.
neglecta, Æstrelata, ii, 224.
neglecta, Procellaria, ii, 224.
“Nelly,” ii, 226.
nereis, Garrodia, ii, 247.
nereis, Procellaria, ii, 247.
nereis, Sterna, ii, 75.
nereis, Sternula, ii, 75.
nesiotis, Gallinula, ii, 104.
Nest of Xenicus gilviventris, i, 250.
Nestling of Banded Dottrel, ii, 15.
Nestlings of Nestor notabilis, i, 165.
Nestor, australis, i, 150.
Nestor, esslinyii, i, 152.
Nestor, meridionalis, xlii, lvi, lix; i, 34, 105, 150, 151, 164, 167, 175, 183, 217, 246; ii, 335.
Nestor, montanus, i, 153.
Nestor, norfolcensis, i, 164.
Nestor, notabilis, nestlings of, i, 165.
Nestor, notabilis, novæ zealandiæ, i, 150.
Nestor, notabilis, podiceps, ii, 281.
Nestor, notabilis, superbus, i, 151.
nestor, Psittacus, i, 150.
Nettion gibberifrons, ii, 261.
New-Caledonia Rail, ii, 122.
New-Holland Darter, ii, 175.
New-Holland Darter, Night-Heron, ii, 139.
New-Holland Darter, Shag, ii, 145.
New-Holland Darter, Swallow, i, 116.
Crow, xiv.
New-Zealand Creeper, Dabchick, ii, 280.
New-Zealand Creeper, Dottrel, ii, 1.
New-Zealand Creeper, Duck, ii, 273.
New-Zealand Creeper, Eagle, ii, 183.
New-Zealand Creeper, Falcon, i, 213.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, lix.
outline of, lx.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Heron, ii, 129.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Lark, i, 63.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Ocydromus, ii, 108.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, young of, i, 197.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, Parrakeet, i, 244.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, Plover, ii, 11.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, Scaup, ii, 273.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, Shore-Plover, ii, 11.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, Shoveller, ii, 269.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, Thrush, i, 27.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, Titmouse, i, 51.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, Woodhen, lvii.
New-Zealand Creeper, Harrier, Owl, Wood-Pigeon, lviii.
Ngirungiru, i, 39.
Ngoiro, ii, 47.
Ngutupare, ii, 9.
Nicobar Pigeon, i, 250.
nicobarica, Calœnas, i, 250.
niger, Hæmatopus, ii, 18.
niger, Himantopus, ii, 24.
niger, australasianus, Hæmatopus, ii, 18.
niger, oceanicas, Hæmatopus, ii, 18.
Night-Heron, Caledonian, ii, 139.
Night-Heron, Nankeen, ii, 139.
Night-Heron, New-Holland, ii, 139.
Nightingale, ii, 336.
nigra, Hydrochelidon, ii, 77.
nigricans, Cecropus, i, 74.
nigricans, Herse, i, 74.
nigricans, Hylochelidon, i, 74.
nigricans, Petrochelidon, i, 74.
nigriventris, Eudyptes, ii, 290.
nigrivestis, Eydyptes, ii, 290.
nigroviridis, Aplonis, i, 25.
nisus, Accipiter, i, 128.
nitens, Cuculus, i, 132.
Noctua venatica, i, 192.
Noctua zelandica, i, 192.
noctua, Athene, i, 34.
Noddy, ii, 220.
Noddy, Little, ii, 78.
norfolcensis, Nestor, i, 164.
North-Island Kiwi, ii, 308.
North-Island Kiwi, Weka, ii, 116.
notabilis, Nestor, nestlings of, i, 165.
Notornis Mantell’s, ii, 85.
novæ guineæ, Cyanoramphus, i, 137.
novæ guineæ, Platycercus, i, 137.
novæ hollandiæ, Demiegretta, ii, 134.
novæ hollandiæ, Graculus, ii, 145.
novæ hollandiæ, Herodias, ii, 134.
novæ hollandiæ, Larus, outer primaries of, ii, 62.
novæ hollandiæ, Recurvirostra, ii, 20.
novæ hollandiæ, Vanellus, ii, 13.
novæ seelandiæ, Alauda, i, 63.
novæ seelandiæ, Anas, ii, 273.
novæ seelandiæ, Athene, i, 192.
novæ seelandiæ, Carpophaga, i, 229.
novæ seelandiæ, Certhiparus, i, 51.
novæ seelandiæ, Charadrius, ii, 11.
novæ seelandiæ, Columba, i, 229.
novæ seelandiæ, Falco, i, 213.
novæ seelandiæ, Fulix, ii, 273.
novæ seelandiæ, Hiaticula, ii, 11.
novæ seelandiæ, Merops, i, 94.
novæ seelandiæ, Parus, i, 51.
novæ seelandiæ, Spiloglaux, i, 192.
novæ seelandiæ, Strix, i, 192.
novæ seelandiæ, Thinornis, ii, 11.
novæ zealandiæ, Anas, ii, 273.
novæ zealandiæ, Ardeola, ii, 136.
novæ zealandiæ, Athene, i, 192.
novæ zealandiæ, Avocetta, ii, 20.
novæ zealandiæ, Charadrius, ii, 11.
novæ zealandiæ, Corydalla, i, 63.
novæ zealandiæ, Dromiceius, ii, 322.
novæ zealandiæ, Fulica, ii, 140.
novæ zealandiæ, Harpe, i, 213.
novæ zealandiæ, Hemiphaga, i, 229.
novæ zealandiæ, Hypotriorchis, i, 213.
novæ zealandiæ, Ieracidea, i, 213.
novæ zealandiæ, Ieraglaux, i, 192.
novæ zealandiæ, var. lapponica, Limosa, ii, 40.
novæ zealandiæ, Meliphaga, i, 94.
novæ zealandiæ, Myiothera, i, 33.
novæ zealandiæ, Nestor, i, 150.
novæ zealandiæ, Parus, i, 51.
novæ zealandiæ, Platycercus, xlii, xliii, lix; i, 32, 137, 138, 145, 146, 147, 149, 244; ii, 338.
novæ zealandiæ, Thinornis, xxxvii.
novæ zeelandiæ, Coriphilus, i, 137.
novæ zeelandiæ, Euphema, i, 137.
novæ zeelandiæ, Pezoporus, i, 137.
novæ zeelandiæ, Psittacus, i, 137.
novæ zelandiæ, Certhiparus, i, 51.
novæ zelandiæ, Cyanoramphus, i, 137.
novæ zelandiæ, Platycercus, i, 142.
novæ zelandiæ, Thinornis, ii, 11.
nugax, Procellaria, ii, 239.
Numenius, lxxiii.
Numenius, australis, ii, 45.
Numenius, cyanopus, xl.
Numenius, longirostris, ii, 46.
Numenius, major, ii, 45.
Numenius, rufescens, ii, 45.
Numenius, tahitiensis, ii, 45.
nycthemerus, Phalacrocorax, ii, 167.
Nyctiardea caledonica, ii, 139.
Nycticorax, lxxvi.
Nycticorax, caledonicus, ii, 139.
Nyroca, lxxxii.
obscura, Nectris, ii, 238.
obscura, Procellaria, ii, 238.
obscurus, Cymotomus, ii, 238.
obscurus, Pluviorhynchus, ii, 1.
oceanica, Oceanites, ii, 250.
oceanica, Procellaria, ii, 250.
oceanica, Thalassidroma, ii, 250.
oceanicus, Oceanites, ii, 250.
oceanicus, Totanus, ii, 38.
Oceanites, oceanica, ii, 250.
Oceanites, oceanicus, ii, 250.
Oceanites, wilsoni, ii, 250.
Oceanitidæ, lxxviii.
ochrocephala, Mohoua, i, 56.
ochrocephala, Muscicapa, i, 56.
ochrocephalus, Certhiparus, i, 56.
ochrotarsus, Turdus, i, 36.
Ochthodromus bicinctus, ii, 3.
Ocydromus, xxii, xxxvi, xxxix, lv, lxxiv; i, 89; ii, 84, 90, 109, 122, 336.
Ocydromus, australis, xlii, liii; i, 249; ii, 105, 116, 119, 120, 331, 337.
Ocydromus, dieffenbachii, ii, 121.
Ocydromus, New Zealand, ii, 108.
Œdicnemus, i, 180.
Æstrelata, affinis, ii, 223.
Æstrelata, fuliginosa, ii, 221.
Æstrelata, gularis?, ii, 223.
Æstrelata, incerta, ii, 220.
Æstrelata, mollis, ii, 222.
Æstrelata, neglecta, ii, 224.
Æstrelata, parvirostris, ii, 224.
Oii, ii, 245.
olivacea, Certhia, i, 85.
olivascens, Callæas, i, 1.
olivascens, Glaucopis, i, 1.
opisthomelas, Puffinus, ii, 236.
orientalis, Eurystomus, i, 120.
Oriole, i, 128.
Orthonyx, liv.
Orthonyx, heteroclitus, i, 56.
Orthonyx, icterocephalus, i, 56.
Orthonyx, spinicauda, i, 58.
Ortygometra, crex, xiii.
Ortygometra, fluminea, xiii.
Ortygometra, pygmæa, ii, 103.
Ortyx californicus, i, 226.
ossifraga, Procellaria, ii, 225.
ostralegus, Hæmatopus, ii, 17.
Ostrich, li.
Otagon tanagra, i, 26.
Otagon turdus, i, 31.
otidiformis, Aptornis, xxiii.
Otis tarda, xxv.
oweni, Apteryx, xlii, liii; i, 8; ii, 324, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331.
Owl, European, i, 34.
Owl, New-Zealand, young of, i, 197.
Owl-billed Parrot, i, 180.
Oxystomus carunculatus, i, 18.
Oyster-catcher, European, ii, 17.
Pachycephalus macrocephalus, i, 42.
Pachyptila banksi, ii, 211.
Pachyptila cærulea, ii, 214.
Pachyptila forsteri, ii, 212.
Pachyptila vittata, ii, 212.
pachyrhyncha, Eudyptes, ii, 287.
pachyrhynchus, Chrysocoma, ii, 287.
pachyrhynchus, Eudyptes, ii, 287, 289, 290, 291, 296, 299, 303, 335.
Pacific Parrot, Roller, i, 118.
pacifica, Coracias, i, 118.
pacifica, Hirundo, i, 116.
pacifica, Scolopax, ii, 38.
pacificus, Aplonis, i, 25.
pacificus, Galgulus, i, 118.
pacificus, Larus, ii, 47.
Pakahaa, ii, 236.
Pakura, ii, 79.
Palæeudyptes antarcticus, xxvi.
Palapterygidæ, xxvi.
Palapteryx, ingens, xxi.
Pallas’s Sand-Grouse, i, 140.
Palmerston Frigate Pelican, ii, 182.
palmerstoni, Pelecanus, ii, 182.
palmerstoni, Tachypetes, ii, 182.
palpebrata, Diomedea, ii, 205.
palustris, Ortygometra, lvi, ii, 103.
Pandion haliaëtus, i, 222.
Pandionidæ, liv.
pannosa, Ardea, ii, 129.
pannosa, Herodias, ii, 129.
Papaunguungu, ii, 269.
papua, Chrysocoma, ii, 304.
papua, Eudyptes, ii, 304.
papua, Pygoscelis, ii, 304.
papua, Spheniscus, ii, 304.
papuæ, Apterodita, ii, 304.
Papuan Penguin, ii, 304.
paradoxus, Corvus, i, 106.
paradoxus, Syrrhaptes, i, 140.
parasiticus, Lestris, ii, 66.
parasiticus, Stercorarius, ii, 66.
Parera, ii, 251.
parissima, Athene, i, 247.
Parrakeet, Antipodes Island, i, 148.
Parrakeet, Australian Ground-, i, 149.
Parrakeet, Australian Rosehill, i, 196.
Parrakeet, Ground-, lvii.
Parrakeet, New-Zealand, i, 244.
Parrakeet, Rowley’s, i, 147.
Parrakeet, Warbling, xlii.
Parrot, Blue Mountain-, i, 171.
Parrot, Brown, i, 217.
Parrot, Buff-crowned, i, 146.
Parrot, Grass-, i, 171.
Parrot, Ground-, i, 176.
Parrot, Mountain, i, 166.
Parrot, Owl-billed, i, 180.
Parrot, Pecquet’s, i, 157.
Parrot, Sheep-killing, i, 244.
Parrot, Southern Brown, i, 150.
Parson bird, lix.
Parson bird, Tui or, i, 94.
Parsonia albiflora, i, 3.
Partridge, i, 226.
Parus macrocephalus, i, 42.
Parus novæ seelandiæ, i, 51.
Parus novæ zealandiæ, i, 51.
Parus senilis, i, 53.
Parus urostigma, i, 51.
Parus zelandicus, i, 51.
parva, Sterna, ii, 75.
parvirostris, Æstrelata, ii, 224.
parvissima, Athene, i, 205.
patachonica, Aptenodytes, ii, 306.
patachonica, Pinguinaria, ii, 306.
patagiatus, Podiceps, ii, 283.
Patagonian Penguin, ii, 306.
Patake, ii, 257.
Pateke, ii, 269.
Pateketeke, ii, 283.
pecqueti, Dasyptilus, i, 157.
Pecquet’s Parrot, i, 157.
pedestris, Totanus, ii, 38.
Peho, i, 192.
Pekapeka, ii, 98.
pelagica, Procellaria, ii, 250.
Pelagodroma, fregata, ii, 248.
Pelagodroma, marina, ii, 248.
Pelecanoides, lxiviii.
Pelecanoides, berardii, ii, 208.
pelecanoides, Pelecanopus, ii, 78.
Pelecanopus pelecanoides, ii, 78.
Pelecanus aquilus, ii, 182.
Pelecanus carunculatus, ii, 155.
Pelecanus cirrhatus, ii, 157.
Pelecanus graculus, ii, 146.
Pelecanus leucocephalus, ii, 182.
Pelecanus minor, ii, 185.
Pelecanus nævius, ii, 164.
Pelecanus palmerstoni, ii, 182.
Pelecanus pica, ii, 149.
Pelecanus punctatus, ii, 164.
Pelecanus varius, ii, 149.
Pelican, Frigate, ii, 182.
Pelican, Lesser Frigate, ii, 186.
Pelican, Palmerston Frigate, ii, 182.
Pelican, White-headed Frigate, ii, 182.
Penguin, Black, ii, 296.
Penguin, Blue, ii, 300.
Penguin, King, ii, 306.
Penguin, Little Blue, ii, 302.
Penguin, Macaroni, ii, 297.
Penguin, Patagonian, ii, 306.
Penguin, Royal, ii, 298.
Penguin, Sclater’s, ii, 289.
Penguin, Thick-billed, ii, 299.
Penguin, Tufted, ii, 290.
Penguin, Yellow-crowned, ii, 294.
pennantii, Platycercus, i, 171.
pennantii, Spheniscus, ii, 306.
Perdix cinerea, i, 226.
Peregrine, ii, 183.
peregrinus, Falco, i, 217.
personatus, Lobivanellus, ii, 39.
Petrel, Antarctic, ii, 229.
Petrel, Banks’s Dove, ii, 211.
Petrel, Bérard’s Diving-, ii, 208.
Petrel, Black, ii, 242.
Petrel, Black-bellied Storm-, ii, 249.
Petrel, Blue, ii, 214.
Petrel, Broad-billed, ii, 212.
Petrel, Broad-billed Dove, ii, 212.
Petrel, Brown, ii, 241.
Petrel, Cook’s, ii, 217.
Petrel, Doubtful, ii, 220.
Petrel, Dusky, ii, 238.
Petrel, Frigate, ii, 248.
Petrel, Gould’s Dove, ii, 212.
Petrel, Grey-backed Storm-, ii, 247.
Petrel, Grey-faced, ii, 245.
Petrel, Mottled, ii, 223.
Petrel, Pintado, ii, 215.
Petrel, Schlegel’s, ii, 224.
Petrel, Silvery-grey, ii, 228.
Petrel, Soft-plumaged, ii, 222.
Petrel, Sooty, ii, 221.
Petrel, White-faced Storm-, ii, 248.
Petrel, White-headed, ii, 219.
Petrel, Wilson’s Storm-, ii, 250.
Petrochelidon, lxv.
Petrochelidon, nigricans, i, 74.
Petroica australis, i, 33.
Petroica toitoi, i, 39.
Petroica traversi, i, 38.
Pezoporus formosus, i, 149.
Pezoporus novæ zeelandiæ, i, 137.
Phaëthon, lxxviii.
Phaëthonidæ, lxxviii.
Phaeton, aethereus, ii, 186.
Phaeton, demersus, ii, 299.
Phaeton, phœnicuros, ii, 186.
Phaeton, phœnicurus, ii, 186.
Phalacrocorax, brevirostris, ii, 148, 154, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 335.
Phalacrocorax, carbo, ii, 146.
Phalacrocorax, carboides, ii, 145.
Phalacrocorax, colensoi, ii, 161.
Phalacrocorax, featherstoni, lvii, ii, 166.
Phalacrocorax, flavirhynchus, ii, 173.
Phalacrocorax, glaucus, ii, 163.
Phalacrocorax, huttoni, ii, 174.
Phalacrocorax, hypoleucus, ii, 149.
Phalacrocorax, leucogaster, ii, 149.
Phalacrocorax nœvius, ii, 164.
Phalacrocorax purpuragula, ii, 171.
Phalacrocorax purpurascens, ii, 167.
Phalacrocorax sarmientonus, ii, 167.
Phalacrocorax stictocephalus, ii, 171.
Phalacrocorax sulcirostris, xiii.
Phalacrocorax verrucosus, ii, 156.
Phalarope, Grey, ii, 30.
Phalaropus, lxxii.
Phalaropus, asiaticus, ii, 30.
Phalaropus, glavialis, ii, 30.
Phalaropus, griseus, ii, 30.
Phalaropus, lobatus, ii, 30.
Phalaropus, platyrhynchus, ii, 30.
Phalaropus, platyrostris, ii, 30.
Phalaropus, ruficapillus, i, 68.
Phalaropus, rufus, ii, 30.
pharoides, Creadion, i, 18.
Phasianus colchicus, i, 226.
Phasianus torquatus, i, 226.
Pheasant, i, 55.
Pheasant, Chinese, i, 226.
Pheasant, Common, xlvii.
Pheasant, English, 226.
Philedon dumerilii, i, 85.
Philedon sannio, i, 85.
Philemon cincinnatus, i, 94.
Philepitta, i, 110.
Philepittidæ, i, 110.
philippensis, Eulabeornis, ii, 95.
philippensis, Hypotænidia, ii, 95.
philippensis, Platycercus, lvii.
philippensis, Rallina, ii, 95.
philippensis, Rallus, lvi, lviii, lxxv; ii, 95, 97, 100, 111, 118, 122, 123, 336.
Philippine Rail, ii, 95.
Phœbetria fuliginosa, ii, 205.
Phœnicuros rubricauda, ii, 186.
phœnicuros, Phaetos, ii, 186.
phœnicurus, Phaeton, ii, 186.
pica, Pelecanus, ii, 149.
Picariæ, lxvii.
picata, Leucosarcia, i, 250.
picatus, Hæmatopus, ii, 16.
Pie à pendeloques, i, 106.
Pied Shag, ii, 149.
Pigeon, New-Zealand Wood-, lviii.
Pigeon, Nicobar, i, 250.
Pihipihi, i, 113.
Pihoihoi, i, 63.
Pikari, i, 94.
Pimiromiro, i, 39.
Pingirungiru, i, 39.
Pinguinaria cristata, ii, 299.
Pinguinaria patachonica, ii, 306.
Pintado Petrel, ii, 215.
Pipiauroa, i, 132.
Piping-Crow, i, 4.
Pipipi, i, 51.
Pipit, ii, 338.
Pipitori, i, 39.
Pipiwarauroa, i, 132.
Pipridæ, i, 110.
Pirairaka, i, 69.
Piripiri, i, 113.
piscator, Dysporus, xiii.
Pitakataka, i, 69.
Pitta, i, 110.
Pi-tui, i, 94.
Piwaiwake, i, 69.
Piwakawaka, i, 69.
Piwauwau, i, 108.
Platalea, lxxvii.
Platalea, latirostrum, ii, 144.
Platalea, melanorhyncha, ii, 144.
Platalea, melanorhynchos, ii, 144.
Platalea, regia, ii, 144.
Plataleidæ, lxxvii.
Platycercus, auriceps, xiii, lix; i, 96, 142, 145, 147, 149.
Platycercus, novæ guineæ, i, 137.
Platycercus, novæ zealandiæ, xlii, xliii, lix; i, 32, 137, 138, 145, 146, 147, 149, 244; ii, 338.
Platycercus, novæ zelandiæ, i, 142.
Platycercus, pennantii, i, 171.
Platycercus, philippensis, lvii.
Platycercus, rowleyi, i, 147.
Platycercus, saisetti, i, 139.
Platycercus, semitorquatus, i, 171.
Platycercus, ulietanus, i, 145.
Platycercus, viridis unicolor, i, 148.
platyrhynchus, Phalaropus, ii, 30.
platyrostris, Phalaropus, ii, 30.
Plover, Australian Masked, ii, 13.
Plover, Chestnut-breasted, ii, 3.
Plover, Dusky, ii, 1.
Plover, Fulvous, ii, 6.
Plover, Masked, ii, 39.
Plover, New-Zealand, ii, 11.
Plover, New-Zealand, Shore-, ii, 11.
Plover, Stilt, ii, 2.
Plover, Wry-billed, xxxvii, ii, 9, 39.
plumbea, Crex, ii, 101.
Pluvialis fulvus, ii, 6.
Pluvialis longipes, ii, 6.
Pluvialis taitensis, ii, 6.
Pluvialis xanthocheilus, ii, 6.
pluvialis, Charadrius, ii, 6.
Pluviorhynchus obscurus, ii, 1.
Podioeps, lxxxiii.
Podioeps, australis, ii, 283.
Podioeps, hectori, (var.), ii, 283.
Podioeps, longirostris, ii, 283.
Podioeps, mitratus, ii, 283.
Podioeps, nestor, ii, 281.
Podioeps, patagiatus, ii, 283.
Podicipedidæ, lxxxiii.
Poë Bee-eater, i, 94.
pœciloptera, Ardea, ii, 141.
pœciloptila, Botaurus, ii, 141.
pœciloptilus, Botaurus, lvi.
Pohoriki, ii, 261.
Pohowera, ii, 3.
poiceloptera, Ardea, ii, 141.
poicilopterus, Botaurus, ii, 141.
poiciloptila, Ardea, ii, 141.
poiciloptilus, Botauurus, ii, 141.
Pokotiwha, ii, 287.
polaris, Thalassoica, ii, 228.
polynesia, Totanus, ii, 38.
pomare, Bruchigavia, ii, 61.
pomare, Gavia, ii, 58.
pomare, Larus, ii, 59.
pomarre, Gavia, ii, 61.
Poporohe, i, 81.
Popotai, ii, 95.
Popotea, i, 53.
Porere, i, 137.
Porphyrio, cyanocephalus, ii, 79.
Porphyrio, melanonotus, xiii, lvi, lvili; ii, 89, 90, 92, 338.
Porphyrio, stanleyi, ii, 80.
Porzana affinis, ii, 103.
Porzana immaculata, ii, 101.
Porzana tabuensis, ii, 101.
Poupoutea, i, 53.
Powhaitere, i, 137.
pratensis, Crex, ii, 98.
Priocella antarctica, ii, 229.
Priocella garnotti, ii, 228.
Priofinus brevicaudus, ii, 230.
Priofinus cinereus, ii, 241.
Prion, australis, ii, 212.
Prion, rossii, ii, 211.
Prion, turtur, lxxix; ii, 64, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 220, 227.
Prionoplus, i, 129.
pritchardi, Mogapodius, ii, 333.
Procellaria adamastor, ii, 241.
Procellaria antarctica, ii, 229.
Procellaria ariel, ii, 212.
Procellaria atlantica, ii, 221.
Procellaria banksii, ii, 211.
Procellaria bérard, ii, 208.
Procellaria brevipes, ii, 217.
Procellaria cœrulea, ii, 214.
Procellaria capensis, ii, 215.
Procellaria carneipes, ii, 234.
Procellaria chlororhyncha, ii, 235.
Procellaria cinerea, ii, 241.
Procellaria cookii, ii, 217.
Procellaria gavia, ii, 236.
Procellaria gigantea, ii, 225.
Procellaria glacialis, ii, 228.
Procellaria grallaria, ii, 249.
Procellaria grisea, ii, 232.
Procellaria griseus, ii, 234.
Procellaria gularis, ii, 223.
Procellaria hæsitata, ii, 241.
Procellaria hasitata, ii, 241.
Procellaria incerta, xiii; ii, 220.
Procellaria latirostris, ii, 212.
Procellaria lessoni, ii, 219.
Procellaria leucocephala, ii, 219.
Procellaria leucoptera, ii, 217.
Procellaria marina, ii, 248.
Procellaria melanogastra, ii, 249.
Procellaria neglecta, ii, 224.
Procellaria nereis, ii, 247.
Procellaria nugax, ii, 239.
Procellaria obscura, ii, 238.
Procellaria oceanica, ii, 250.
Procellaria ossifraga, ii, 225.
Procellaria pelagica, ii, 250.
Procellaria punctata, ii, 215.
Procellaria similis, ii, 214.
Procellaria smithi, ii, 228.
Procellaria sphenura, ii, 235.
Procellaria tridactyla, ii, 207.
Procellaria trisis, ii, 232.
Procellaria turtur, ii, 209.
Procellaria urinatrix, ii, 207.
Procellaria vittata, ii, 212.
Procellaria wilsoni, ii, 250.
Procellariæ, ii, 233.
Procelsterna albivitta, ii, 78.
Prosthemadera, concinnata, i, 94.
Pseudoprion arid, ii, 213.
Pseudoprion banksii, ii, 211.
Pseudoprion turtur, ii, 209.
Psittaci, lxviii.
Psittacidæ, i, 245.
Psittacus, i, 180.
Psittacus, australis, i, 150.
Psittacus, hypopolius, i, 150.
Psittacus, meridionalis, i, 150.
Psittacus, nestor, i, 150.
Psittacus, novæ zeelandiæ, i, 137.
Pterodroma atlantica, ii, 221.
Pterodroma fuliginosa, ii, 221.
Pterodroma macroptera, ii, 245.
Ptilonorhynchinæ, i, 30.
Ptilotis, auritus, i, 101.
Ptilotis, oarunculata, i, 249.
Ptilotis, cincta, i, 101.
Puano, i, 108.
Pueto, ii, 101.
Puffinuria urinatrix, ii, 207.
Puffinus, lxxx.
Puffinus, anaurosoma, ii, 232.
Puffinus, brevicaudatus, ii, 230.
Puffinus, brevicaudus, ii, 230.
Puffinus, chlororhynchos, ii, 235.
Puffinus, cinereus, ii, 241.
Puffinus, kuhlii, ii, 241.
Puffinus, major, ii, 232.
Puffinus, melanogaster, ii, 238.
Puffinus, opisthomelas, ii, 236.
Puffinus, sphenurus, ii, 235.
Puffinus, stricklandi, ii, 232.
pulverulentus, Gambetta, ii, 38.
pulverulentus, Tetanus, ii, 38.
punctata, Acanthisitta, i, 113.
punctata, Anas, ii, 262.
punctata, Ardetta, ii, 136.
punctata, Gallinago, ii, 40.
punctata, Sitta, i, 113.
punctata, Synallaxis, i, 59.
punctata, Procellaria, ii, 215.
punctatus, Graucalus, ii, 164.
punctatus, Graucalus, ii, 164.
punctatus, Megalurus, i, 59.
punctatus, Pelecanus, ii, 164.
punctatus, Rallus, ii, 103.
punctatus, Sticticarbo, ii, 164.
Punua, ii, 47.
Puohotata, ii, 95.
Purourou, i, 18.
purpuragula, Graucalus, ii, 171.
purpuragula, Phalacrocorax, ii, 171.
purpurascens, Carbo, ii, 155.
purpurascens, Leucocarbo, ii, 155.
purpurascens, Phalacrocorax, ii, 167.
pusilla, Ardea, ii, 136.
pusilla, Ardeola, ii, 136.
Putaitsi, ii, 269.
Putakitaki, ii, 264.
Putangitangi, ii, 264.
Putoto, ii, 101.
pygmœa, Ortygometra, ii, 103.
Pygoscelis antipoda, ii, 294.
Pygoscelis antipodes, ii, 294.
Pygoscelis papua, ii, 304.
Pygoscelis tœniata, ii, 304.
Pygoscelis tœniatus, ii, 304.
pyrrhonota, Herse, i, 74.
pyrrhonota, Hirundo, i, 74.
Quail, Australian, i, 226.
Swamp-, i, 226.
Quebranta-huesos, ii, 227.
Querquedula gibberifrons, ii, 261.
Rail, lvii.
Rail, Dieffenbach’s, ii, 121.
Rail, Hutton’s, ii, 123.
Rail, Marsh-, ii, 103.
Rail, New-Caledonia, ii, 122.
Rail, Philippine, ii, 95.
Rail, Swainson’s, ii, 100.
Rail, Tabuan, ii, 101.
Rail, Troglodyte, ii, 116.
Rail, Weka, i, 24.
Rainbird, ii, 236.
Raipo, ii, 273.
Râle rayé des Philippines, ii, 95.
Rallina philippensis, ii, 95.
Rallus, assimilis, ii, 95.
Rallus, australis, ii, 116.
Rallus, brachipus, ii, 100.
Rallus, brachypus, lvii.
Rallus, crepitans, i, 209.
Rallus, hypotœnidia, ii, 95.
Rallus, lewinii, ii, 100.
Rallus, minor, ii, 101.
Rallus, minutus, ii, 101.
Rallus, modestus, ii, 123.
Rallus, philippensis, lvi, lviii, lxxv; ii, 95, 97, 100, 111, 118, Rallus, 122, 123, 336.
Rallus, punctatus, ii, 103.
Rallus, rufus, ii, 105.
Rallus, striatus, ii, 97.
Rallus, taluensis, ii, 101.
Rearea, i, 85.
Recurvirostra, lxxii.
Recurvirostra, novæ hollandiæ, ii, 20.
Recurvirostra, rubricollis, ii, 20.
Red Kiwi, ii, 331.
Red-necked Avocet, ii, 20.
Redpoll, xlvii.
Red-tailed Tropic-bird, ii, 18.
Red-throated Widow-bird, i, 71.
regia, Platales, ii, 144.
Reunion Harrier, i, 206.
Rhantistes cooki, ii, 217.
Rhantistes lessoni, ii, 219.
Rhantistes mollis, ii, 222.
velox, ii, 217.
Rhea, ii, 325.
Rhipidura, macrocephala, i, 42.
Rhipidura, melanura, i, 72.
Rhipidura, motacilloides, xiii.
Rhipidura, sombre, i, 72.
Rhipidura, tristis, i, 72.
Rhipogonum scandens, i, 3.
Rhynchaspis, lxxxii.
Rhynchaspis, rhynchotis, ii, 271.
rhynchotis, Anas, ii, 269.
rhynchotis, Rhynchaspis, ii, 271.
rhynchotis, Spatula, ii, 269.
richardsonii, Lestris, ii, 66.
Richardson’s Skua, ii, 66.
Ring-Dove, Australian, i, 28.
Ring-eye, i, 82.
Riroriro, i, 44.
River-Shag, Large Brown, ii, 146.
Roa, ii, 330.
Roaroa, ii, 330, 831.
Robin, Chatham-Island, i, 38.
Rock-Dove, xvi.
Rock-hopper, ii, 304.
Roller, Pacific, i, 118.
Rollier à masque noir, i, 66.
Rook, ii, 336.
rosii, Prion, ii, 211.
rosii, Thinornis, ii, 11.
Rough-faced Shag, ii, 155.
rowleyi, Platycereus, i, 147.
Rowleys Parrakeet; i, 147.
Royal Penguin, ii, 298.
Royal Spoonbill, ii, 144.
rubricauda, Phaeton, i, 68 ii, 186.
rubricauda, Phœnieuros, ii, 186.
rubricollis, Recurvirostra, ii, 20.
rubritorques, Vidua, i, 71.
Rubus, australis, i, 3.
rufa, Limosa, ii, 40.
rufa, Tringa, ii, 35.
rufescens, Canutus, ii, 35.
rufescens, Megalurus, i, 62.
rufescens, Numenius, ii, 45.
ruficapilla, Hiaticula, ii, 5.
ruficapillus, Ægialophilus, ii, 5.
ruficapillus, Charadrius, ii, 5.
ruficapillus, Phalaropus, i, 68.
rufipennis, Aplonis, i, 25.
rufus, Crymophilus, ii, 30.
rufus, Phalaropus, ii, 30.
rufus, Rallus, ii, 105.
rufusater, Ieterus, i, 18.
Ruru-whekau, i, 198.
rutila, Casarea, ii, 266.
sacra, Alcedo, i, 121.
sacra, Halcyon, i, 126.
sacra, Herodias, ii, 129.
Sacred Heron, ii, 129.
saisetti, Cyanorhamphus, i, 139.
saisetti, Platycercus, i, 139.
scisseti, Cyanorhamphus, i, 137.
saltator, Chrysoeoma, ii, 290.
sancta, Dacelo, i, 121.
sactus, Halcyon, i, 121.
Sand-Grouse, Pallas’s, i, 140.
Sandpiper, ii, 37.
Sandpiper, Grey, ii, 38.
Sandpiper, Grisled, ii, 35.
Sandpiper, Southern, ii, 35.
sandwichensis, Anas, ii, 252.
sannio, Certhia, i, 85.
sannio, Philedon, i, 85.
sarmientonus, Phalacrocorax, ii, 167.
Satin-bird, i, 4.
Saxicolinæ, i, 37.
scandens, Rhipogonum, i, 3.
scupulatus, Aprosmictus, i, 171.
Scaup, ii, 274.
Scaup, New-Zealand, ii, 273.
Sceloglaux, lxix.
schillingii, Sterna, ii, 73.
schlegeli, Eudyptes, ii, 298.
Schlegel’s Petrel, ii, 224.
Schœniclus australis, ii, 37.
selateri, Eudyptes, ii, 289.
Sclater’s Penguin, ii, 289.
Scolopacidae, lxxii.
Scolopax holmesi, ii, 32.
Scolopax incanus, ii, 38.
Scolopax pacifica, ii, 38.
Scolopax solitarius, ii, 38.
Scolopax undulata, ii, 38.
Scops, i, 246.
Scops, morotensis, i, 247.
scopulinus, Larus, outer primaries of, ii, 62.
scopulinus, Lestris, ii, 55.
scopulinus, major, Larus, ii, 61.
Sea-Eagle, White-bellied, i, 212.
Sea-Gull, ii, 64.
Sea-Gull, Common, i, 210.
Sea-Swallow, ii, 68.
semitorquatus, Platycercus, i, 171.
senilis, Certhiparus, i, 53.
senilis, Parus, i, 53.
serrator, Dysporus, ii, 177.
Mergus, ii, 279.
Sula, ii, 177.
Shag, feeding young, ii, 152.
Shag, Auckland-Island, ii, 161.
Shag, Brown, ii, 163.
Shag, Campbell-Island, ii, 167.
Shag, Chatham-Island, ii, 166.
Shag, Emperor, ii, 153.
Shag, Frilled, ii, 173.
Shag, Gray’s ii, 162.
Shag, Hutton’s, ii, 174.
Shag, Large Brown River-, ii, 146.
Shag, New-Holland, ii, 145.
Shag, Pied, ii, 149.
Shag, Rough-faced, ii, 155.
Shag, Spotted, ii, 164.
Shag, Tufted, ii, 157.
Shag, White-threated, ii, 168.
Shearwater, Allied, ii, 239.
Shearwater, Bonaparte’s, ii, 230.
Shearwater, Buller’s, ii, 240.
Shearwater, Dusky, ii, 238.
Shearwater, Flesh-footed, ii, 233.
Shearwater, Forster’s, ii, 236.
Shearwater, Sombre, ii, 232.
Shearwater, Wedge-failed, ii, 235.
Sheep-killing Parrot, i, 244.
Sheldrake, Common, ii, 266.
Shining Cuckoo, xli, liv, lv, lix; i, 48, 129, 132, 136, 248, 338.
Shore-Plover, New-Zealand, ii, 11.
Shoveller, lvi.
Shoveller, New-Zealand, ii, 269.
Shrike, Australian, i, 66.
Shy Albatros, ii, 203.
Silvery-grey Petrel, ii, 228.
similis, Procellaria, ii, 214.
sinclus, Charadrius, ii, 14.
Sitta chloris, i, 113.
Sitta punctata, i, 113.
Sittidæ, liv.
Skua, Richardson’s, ii, 66.
Skua, Southern, ii, 61.
Small Frigate bird, ii, 185.
smaragdineus, Chrysococcyx, i, 131.
smithi, Procellaria, ii, 228.
Snipe, lvii.
Snipe, Ash-coloured, ii, 38.
Snipe, Auckland-Island, ii, 32.
Snipe, Chatham-Island, ii, 33.
Society Cuckoo, i, 127.
Soft-billed Duck, ii, 276.
Soft-plumaged Petrel, ii, 222.
Solitaire, li.
solitarius, Seolopax, ii, 38.
sombre, Rhipidura, i, 72.
Sombre Shearwater, ii, 232.
Sooty Albatros, ii, 205.
Sooty Petrel, ii, 221.
South Tomtit, i, 239.
South-Island Woodhen, ii, 116.
Southern Black-backed Gull, ii, 45.
Southern Brown Parrot, i, 150.
Southern Godwit, ii, 40.
Southern Sandpiper, ii, 35.
Southern Skua, ii, 61.
spadicea, Carpophaga, i, 231.
spadicea, Columba, i, 229.
spadicea, leucophœa, Columbs, i, 229.
sparmanii, Lathamus, i, 137.
sparrmannii, Ardea, ii, 139.
Sparrow, ii, 336.
Sparrow, Fern-, ii, 98.
Sparrow, Hedge-, ii, 336.
Sparrow, Swamp-, i, 60.
Sparrow, Cooper’s, i, 128.
Spatula clypeata, ii, 271.
Spatula rhynchotis, ii, 269.
Spatula variegata, ii, 269.
Spheniscus antipoda, ii, 294.
Spheniscus chrysocome, ii, 200.
Spheniscus diadematus, ii, 298.
Spheniscus minor, ii, 300.
Spheniscus papua, ii, 304.
Spheniscus pennantii, ii, 306.
Spheniscus undina, ii, 302.
sphenura, Procellaria, ii, 235.
sphenura, Thiellus, ii, 235.
sphenurus, Puffinus, ii, 235.
spicatus, Himantopus, ii, 28.
Spiloglaux, lxix.
Spiloglaux, novæ seelandiæ, i, 192.
spilonota, Zapornia, ii, 101.
spinicauda, Orthonyx, i, 58.
Spoon-bill Duck, ii, 269.
Spoonbill, Royal, ii, 144.
Spotted Heron, ii, 136.
Spotted Shag, ii, 164.
stanleyi, Porphyrio, ii, 80.
Stare, Wattled, i, 18.
Starling, xlvii.
stellaris, Botaurus, ii, 142.
Stercorarius, lxxiii.
Stercorarius, catarrhactes, ii, 65.
Stercorarius, chilensis, ii, 65.
Stercorarius, crepidatus, ii, 66.
Stercorarius, parasitious, ii, 66.
Sterna, lxxiv.
Sterna, albifrons, ii, 68.
Sterna, atripes, ii, 68.
Sterna, caspia, ii, 73.
Sterna, fissipes, ii, 77.
Sterna, leucoptera, ii, 77.
Sterna, longipennis, ii, 68.
Sterna, megarhynchos, ii, 73.
Sterna, melanotis, ii, 73.
Sterna, minuta, ii, 75.
Sterna, nereis, ii, 75.
Sterna, parva, ii, 75.
Sterna, schillingii, ii, 73.
Sterna, tschegrava, ii, 73.
Sterna, vulgaris, ii, 73.
Sternidæ, lxxiv.
Sternula, antarctica, ii, 70.
Sternula, nereis, ii, 75.
Sticticarbo punctatus, ii, 164.
stictocephalus, Graucalus, ii, 171.
stictocephalus, Phalacrocorax, ii, 171.
Stilt, chick of White-headed, ii, 23.
Stilt-Plover, White-necked, ii, 27.
“Stink-pot,” ii, 226.
stolidus, Anous, xiii.
Storm-Petrol, Black-bellied, ii, 249.
Storm-Petrol, Grey-backed, ii, 247.
Storm-Petrol, White-faced, ii, 248.
Storm-Petrol, Wilson’s, ii, 250.
Straw-tail, ii, 188.
strenuus, Sylochelidon, ii, 73.
strenuus, Zosterops, lviii.
Strepsilas, lxxi.
Strepsilas, borealis, ii, 14.
Strepsilas, collaris, ii, 14.
Strepsilas, liltoralis, ii, 14.
Strepsilas, minor, ii, 14.
striatus, Aplonis, i, 25.
striatus, Rallus, ii, 97.
stricklandi, Puffinus, ii, 232.
Striges, lxix.
Strigopsis habroptilus, i, 176.
Striogops, habroptilus, xxxvii, xxxix, lix; i, 167, 172, 176, 246.
Stringopinæ, i, 180.
Stringopsis habroptilus, i, 176.
Strix delicatula, i, 205.
Strix fulva, i, 192.
Strix haasti, i, 200.
Strix novæ seelandiæ, i, 192.
Struthiolithus, li.
Struthious Warblers, i, 37.
Sturnus, carunculatus, i, 18.
Sturnus, crispicollis, i, 94.
subniger, Falco, i, 212.
Sula australis, ii, 177.
Sula cyanopus, ii, 838.
Sula serrator, ii, 177.
sulcirostris, Phalacrocorax, xiii.
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, i, 160.
superba, Menura, i, 6.
superbus, Nestor, i, 152.
superciliosa, Anas, xlii, xlvii, lvi; ii, 251, 255, 259, 260, 272, 338.
Supercilious Duck, ii, 251.
Swainaon’s Rail, ii, 100.
Swallow, Common, i, 76.
Swallow, Dun-rumped, i, 74.
Swallow, New-Holland, i, 116.
Swamp-hen, ii, 79.
Swamp-Quail, i, 226.
Swan, Australian Black, xlvii.
Sylochelidon balthica, ii, 73.
Sylochelidon caspia, ii, 73.
Sylochelidon melanotis, ii, 73.
Sylochelidon strenuus, ii, 73.
Sylvia citrina, i, 113.
Sylvia lateralis, i, 77.
Sylvia longipes, i, 108.
Sylvia versicolora, i, 132.
Synallaxis punctata, i, 59.
Synoïous australis, i, 226.
syrmatophora, Ardea, ii, 124.
syrmatophorus, Herodias, ii, 124.
Syrnium aluco, xlvii.
Syrrhaptes parudoxus, i, 140.
Tabuan Rail, ii, 101.
tabuensis, Aplonis, i, 25.
tabuensis, Corethrura, ii, 101.
tabuensis, Porzana, ii, 101.
tabuensis, Rallus, ii, 101.
tabuensis, Zapornia, ii, 101.
tachetée, Maubèche, ii, 35.
Tachypetes, lxxvii.
Tachypetes, aquilus, ii, 182.
Tachypetes, leucocephalus, ii, 182.
Tachypetes, minor, ii, 185.
Tachypetes, palmerstoni, ii, 182.
tœniata, Aptenodytes, ii, 304.
tœniata, Pygoscelis, ii, 304.
tœniatus, Pygoscelis, ii, 304.
tahitiensis, Eudynamis, i, 127.
tahitiensis, Numenius, ii, 45.
tahitius, Eudynamys, i, 127.
Taihoropi, ii, 280.
Taiko, ii, 242.
taitensis, Charadrius, ii, 6.
taitensis, Cuculus, i, 127.
taitensis, Eudynamis, lv, lvi, lviii, lix; i, 37, 44, 45, 127, 131; ii, 338.
taitensis, Pluvialis, ii, 6.
taitius, Cuculus, i, 127.
Takahe, ii, 85.
Takapu, ii, 177.
Takupu, ii, 177.
Tanagra capensis, i, 31.
Tanagra macularia, i, 31.
tanagra, Keropia, i, 26.
tanagra, Otagon, i, 26.
Tara-iti, ii, 75.
Tara-nui, ii, 73.
Tarapo, i, 176.
Taratimoho, ii, 280.
Tarawhatu, ii, 257.
tarda, Otis, xxv.
Tarepo, i, 176.
tataupa, Crypturus, ii, 333.
Tau-hou, i, 81.
Tawaka, i, 213.
Tawaki, ii, 287.
Te Ariki, i, 8.
Teal, Black, ii, 273.
Teal, Green-winged, ii, 183.
tenuirostris, Acanthisitta, i, 113.
tenuirostris, Acanthiza, i, 113.
tenuirostris, Thalassoica, ii, 228.
tephropleurus, Zosterops, lviii.
Tern, Caspian, ii, 73.
Tern, Cayenne, ii, 183.
Tern, Little White, ii, 75.
Tern, White-fronted, ii, 68.
Tern, White-winged Black, ii, 77.
Tete-moroiti, ii, 261.
Tetepango, ii, 273.
Tete-whero, ii, 257.
Thalasseus caspius, ii, 73.
Thalasseus imperator, ii, 73.
Thalassidroma fregata, ii, 248.
Thalassidroma hypoleuca, ii, 248.
Thalassidroma marina, ii, 248.
Thalassidroma melanogastra, ii, 249.
Thalassidroma melanogastra, ii, 220.
Thalassidroma oceanica, ii, 250.
Thalassidroma wilsoni, ii, 250.
Thalassites melanotis, ii, 73.
Thalassoeca, lxxx.
Thalassoeca, antarctica, ii, 229.
Thalassoeca, glacialis, ii, 228.
Thalassoeca, glacialoides, ii, 228.
Thalasaoica antarctica, ii, 229.
Thalasaoica polaris, ii, 228.
Thalasaoica tenuirostris, ii, 228.
Thick-billed Penguin, ii, 299.
Thick-billed Thrush, i, 31.
Thiellus chlororhyncha, ii, 235.
Thiellus sphenurus, ii, 235.
Thinornis, frontalis, ii, 9.
Thinornis, novæ seelandiæ, ii, 11.
Thinornis, novæ zealandiæ, xxxvii.
Thinornis, novæ zelandiæ, ii, 11.
Thinornis, rossii, ii, 11.
Thrush, Common, xlvii.
Thrush, New-Zealand, i, 27.
Thrush, Thick-billed, i, 81.
Thrush, White-fronted, i, 36.
tibicen, Gymnorhina, i, 209.
Tihe, i, 101.
Tihe-kiore, i, 101.
Tiheora, i, 101.
Timelia, i, 30.
Tinamou, ii, 333.
Tinamus, ii, 109.
Tinnunculus, i, 219.
Tiora, i, 101.
Tirairaka, i, 69.
Tirauweke, i, 18.
Tiraweke, i, 18.
Titapu, i, 85.
Titimako, i, 85.
Titiporangi, ii, 273.
Tititipounamu, i, 113.
Titmouse, Great-headed, i, 42.
Titmouse, New-Zealand, i, 51.
Tiutiukata, i, 26.
Tiwaiwaka, i, 69.
Tiwakawaka, i, 69.
Todirhamphus vagans, i, 121.
Todus, i, 110.
Toitoi, i, 51.
toitoi, Muscicapa, i, 39.
toitoi, Petroiea, i, 39.
Tokepiripiri, i, 113.
Tokohea, ii, 85.
Tomtit, Black, ii, 339.
Torea-tai, ii, 16.
Torote, i, 137.
Toroa-haoika, ii, 177.
Toroa-pango, ii, 205.
torquatula, Charadrius, ii, 11.
torquatus, Phasianus, i, 226.
Totanua, lxxiii.
Totanua, acuminatus, ii, 37.
Totanua, brevipes, ii, 38.
Totanua, fuliginosus, ii, 38.
Totanua, griseopygius, ii, 38.
Totanua, oceanicus, ii, 38.
Totanua, pedestris, ii, 38.
Totanua, polynesiæ, ii, 38.
Totanua, pulverulentus, ii, 38.
Totokipio, ii, 280.
Toucan, i, 16.
Toucan, American, i, 15.
Toutou, i, 33.
traversi, Petroica, i, 38.
Tree-Swallow, i, 116.
Tribonyx, gouldi, xiv.
Tribonyx, ventralis, xlii.
tridaetyla, Procellaria, ii, 207.
Tringa, lxxii.
Tringa, calidris, ii, 35.
Tringa, cinerea, ii, 35.
Tringa, crassirostris, ii, 36.
Tringa, ferruginea, ii, 35.
Tringa, fulicaria, ii, 30.
Tringa, glacialis, ii, 30.
Tringa, grisea, ii, 35.
Tringa, hudsonica, ii, 14.
Tringa, interpres, ii, 14.
Tringa, islandica, ii, 35.
Tringa lobata, ii, 13.
Tringa, morinella, ii, 14.
Tringa, nœvia, ii, 35.
Tringa, rufa, ii, 35.
Tristan d’Acunha Rail, ii, 104.
tristis, Rhipidura, i, 72.
tristrami, Halcyon, i, 126.
Troglodyte Rail, ii, 116.
Tropic bird, Red-tailed, ii, 186.
Tropidorhynchi, i, 128.
Tropidorhynchus, xl.
Trynga glareola, ii, 38.
tschegrava, Sterna, ii, 73.
Tuarahia, ii, 24.
Tufted Penguin, ii, 290.
Tufted Shag, ii, 157.
Tui, lix; i, 14, 27, 54, 89, 94, 238, 242, 249; ii, 336, 338.
Tui, or Parson bird, i, 94.
Turdiformes, i, 37.
Turdus, i, 30.
Turdus, albifrons, 36.
Turdus, australis, i, 33.
Turdus, crassirostris, i, 31.
Turdus, minutus, i, 42.
Turdus, ochrotarsus, i, 36.
turdus, Loxia, i, 31.
turdus, Otagon, i, 31.
turdus, Turnagra, i, 31.
Turnagra, turdus, i, 31.
Turnstone, ii, 14.
turtur, Prion, lxxix; ii, 64, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 220, 227.
turtur, Procellaria, ii, 209.
turtur, Pseudoprion, ii, 209.
Tutumata, ii, 21.
Tuturipourewa, ii, 21.
Tuturiwhati, ii, 1, 3.
Tuturiwhatu, ii, 1, 3.
Tuturuatu, ii, 11.
typica, Halobæna, ii, 209.
typus, Adamastor, ii, 241.
Tyrannidæ, i, 110.
ulietanus, Platycercus, i, 145.
umbrata, Zapornia, ii, 101.
umbrina, Zapornia, ii, 101.
undina, Aptenodytes, ii, 302.
undina, Spheniscus, ii, 302.
undulata, Scolopax, ii, 38.
undulatus, Melopsittacus, xlii.
unicolor, Cyanoramphus, i, 148.
Upokotea, i, 53.
Upupa, i, 16.
Upupidæ, i, 8.
urinator, Colymbus, ii, 283.
urinatrix, Halodroma, ii, 207.
urinatrix, Procellaria, ii, 207.
urinatrix, Puffinuria, ii, 207.
uropygialis, Limosa, ii, 40.
urostigma, Parus, i, 51.
utopiensis, Charadrius, ii, 35.
vagans, Alcedo, i, 121.
vagans, Todirhamphus, i, 121.
Vanellus gallinaceus, ii, 13.
Vanellus lobatus, ii, 13.
Vanellus novæ hollandiæ, ii, 13.
Variable Warbler, i, 132.
variegata, Anas, ii, 264.
variegata, Anser, ii, 264.
variegata, Spatula, ii, 269.
Variegated Goose, ii, 264.
varius, Gracalus, ii, 149.
varius, Graucalus, ii, 149.
varius, Hypoleucus, ii, 149.
varius, Pelecanus, ii, 149.
varius, Phalacrocorax, ii, 174.
velox, Cookilaria, ii, 217.
velox, Rhantistes, ii, 217.
venatica, Noctua, i, 192.
ventilabrum, Muscioapa, i, 69.
ventralis, Tribonyx, xlii.
verrucosus, Phalacrocorax, ii, 156.
versicolor, Cuculus, i, 132.
versicolora, Sylvia, i, 132.
Vestaria coccinea, i, 105.
Vidua rubritorques, i, 71.
Virago castanea, ii, 261.
Viralva leucoptera, ii, 77.
virginianus, Cardinalis, i, 30.
virginianus, Charadrius, ii, 6.
virginious, Charadrius, ii, 6.
viridigriseus, Aplonis, i, 25.
viridis unicolor, Platycercus, i, 148.
vitiensis, Aplonis, i, 25.
vittata, Cypselus, i, 116.
vittata, Eudyptes, ii, 299.
vittata, Micropys, i, 116.
vittata, Pachyptila, ii, 212.
vittata, Procellaria, ii, 212.
vociferus, Larus, ii, 47.
vulgaris, Sterna, ii, 73.
Warbler, Bush-, i, 50.
Warbler, Cærulean, i, 77.
Warbler, Chatham-Island, i, 49.
Warbler, Citrine, i, 113.
Warbler, Long-legged, i, 108.
Warbler, Variable, i, 132.
Warblers, Struthious, i, 37.
Warbling Parrakeet, xlii.
Wattle-bird, Australian, xlii.
Wattle-bird, Cinereous, i, 5.
Wattled Bea-eater, i, 106.
Wattled Crow, i, 106.
Wattled Stare, i, 18.
Wax-eye, i, 82.
Wedge-tailed Shearwater, ii, 235.
Weka, North-Island, ii, 116.
Weka, Rail, i, 24.
Weka-pango, ii, 112.
Wetawetangu, ii, 269.
Wewcia, ii, 280.
Whekau, i, 198.
Whioi, i, 63.
Whiroia, ii, 209.
Whistling Duck, ii, 268.
White Crane, Heron, ii, 124.
White Crane, Tern, Little, ii, 75.
White-bellied Sea-Eagle, i, 212.
White-eyed Duck, ii, 275.
White-faced Storm-Petrel, ii, 248.
White-fronted Heron, ii, 134.
White-fronted Tern, ii, 68.
White-fronted Thrush, i, 36.
White-headed Frigate Pelican, ii, 182.
White-headed Petrel, ii, 219.
White-headed Stilt, chick of, ii, 23.
White-necked Stilt-Plover, ii, 27.
White-shafted Flycatcher, i, 135.
White-throated Shag, ii, 168.
White-winged Black Tern, ii, 77.
White-winged Duck, lvi.
Widgeon, ii, 273.
Widow-bird, Red-throated, i, 71.
Wild Duck, i, 55.
wilsoni, Callæas, i, 1, 2.
wilsoni, Glaucopis, xlii, liii, lix; i, 1, 5, 10, 237; ii, 316.
wilsoni, Oceanites, ii, 250.
wilsoni, Procellaria, ii, 250.
wilsoni, Thalassidroma, ii, 250.
Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, ii, 250.
Winter-migrant, i, 82.
Wio, ii, 276.
Wongawonga, i, 250.
Woodhen, Brown, ii, 115.
Woodhen, Buff, ii, 119.
Woodhen, New-Zealand, lvii.
Woodhen, South-Island, ii, 116.
Wood-Pigeon, New-Zealand, lviii.
Wood-Teal, ii, 261.
xanthocheilus Charadrius, ii, 6.
xanthocheilus Pluvialis, ii, 6.
Xanthornus carunculatus, i, 18.
Xema, ii, 59.
Xema, jamesonii, ii, 61.
Xenicus, haasti, i, 111.
Yellow-crowned Penguin, ii, 294.
Yellow-headed Flycatcher, i, 56.
Yellow-nosed Albatros, ii, 202.
Young of New-Zealand Owl, i, 197.
Zapornia spilonota, ii, 101.
Zapornia tabuensis, ii, 101.
Zapornia umbrata, ii, 101.
Zapornia umbrina, ii, 101.
zealandica, Columba, i, 229.
zelandica, Noctua, i, 192.
zelandicus, Parus, i, 51.
Zosterops, xl, xli, liv, lv, lvi, lxv; i, 14, 45, 52, 114, 115, 242.
Zosterops, cœrulescens, liv, lviii, lix; i, 65, 77, 84, 135, 136; ii, 338.
Zosterops, dorsalis, i, 77.
Zosterops, strenuus, lviii.
Zosterops, tephropleurus, lviii.
THE END.