THE NOTORNIS MANTELLI.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 119, 12 July 1911, Page 7

THE NOTORNIS MANTELLI.

It was reported last February that two visitors from Loudon, Mr and Mrs I )river-Holioway, had seen on the Wakatipu-Tc Anau track a bird which was believed to be a notornis mantelli. They were accompanied by an experienced guide, Mr Iv. Wallis, who unfortunately did not see the bird, hot judged from the description that it was a specimen of the notornis.- Mr Driver-Holloway has now written from London to the “Otago Daily Times,” giving his own account of tire incident. Id is letter contains Ine following statement;—“On our trip from. Wakatipu to Milford Sound wo were accompanied by Wallis, and at the place described so accurately in the report of the Press Association, Mrs Drive-Holloway and I saw a striking looking bird, which was new to ns, with dark plumage of a bluish dme, under a bus aon I ;.e kfr. of the track. Wallis had gone ahead to got the hio going, and wars not with ns at the time. When we got up to Wallis we asked him what it could be, and he could not tell us, but. after describing it more exactly and talking it over, lie suggested it might have been a notornis we saw. On looking up the facts about the notornis I saw there was a skin of it in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and wont down to see it. Through the courtesy of Mr li.'dule; whom i found in the bird department, and a native of Christchurch, New Zealand, 1 was enabled to see the object of ray quest. Mrs Driver-Holloway has since been down to jjee it, ami we arc both agreed that the bird wo saw was a notornis.”