C.—6.

garden, for a week. It secured plenty of food amongst the plants of the senecio family, and, incidently, rid our garden of a few dozen woolly bears (Nyctemera annulata), that pest of cineraria growers. This cuckoo is one of the few birds that eat the woolly bears. " There are numerous young parakeets of the red-headed species. The yellow-headed species is scarce. The only nesting-site handy to Rangatira which I know remained empty during the nesting season, so that pair must either have sought new nesting quarters, or one or both birds died. (Parakeets usually resort to the same nesting-hole year after year.) " A particularly interesting feature of bird-life occurred during the last nesting season. For the last seven years a morepork has nested in a hollow kohekohe about half a mile from my house. On the 2nd January of this year I went along with a naturalist from Canada who particularly wanted to see a morepork's nest. On my climbing up to the site I was surprised to find that a kaka had appropriated the nesting-hole, and that a young kaka and three eggs were in the cavity. The young bird sucessfully reared, but the eggs were addled. It will be interesting to see if the morepork will regain possession of the nesting-site next season. " I have seen no sign of saddlebacks for some nine months now. They have evidently shifted away from Kahikatea, where they were often seen since they were liberated on Kapiti. It is hardly likely that they have died out, unless the competition for food with the whitehead has proved too much for them. It is possible, too, that the birds were old when placed on Ivapiti, and have not survived. Even so, three lots of young have been reared to my knowledge, which should have provided sufficient nucleus towards restocking the island. The well-known writer, Mr. James Cowan, says that the saddleback was once numerous on Kapiti. " The petrels that have always nested near the trig, station did not breed there during the past season. The fact of having several of their nests destroyed by fire the previous year evidently scared them away. This is a great pity, as they were increasing just about that spot. However, they are nesting north and south of the trig., and also on the cliff at Paripatea. In the last place they seem to have increased. The gulls and terns that nested at Paripatea last year, and left that place on account of having all their eggs destroyed, returned to the same place this season. Roughly, about eighty or one hundred birds nested on the cliffs, and successfully reared their young. " A blue heron that has nested in a cave at Paripatea for years was so persecuted by the terns that it never got a chance to lay. As soon as the gulls and terns finished nesting, and left the locality, the blue herons returned to their old nesting-place, but of course it was too late for them to start breeding then. " The paradise ducks still come to the house once every day for food. They live along the coast of the island, and have been seen round the western side by the fishermen. " The grey duck that always comes to Rangatira to nest reared a family, and brought them all to our house. Instead of keeping within the netted enclosure, where the ducklings would have been safe, she took them out on the flat, consequently she lost the lot, owing, probably, to wekas. She then flew over to the mainland, somewhere near the mouth of the Waikanae River, and made a nest. She used to fly back to our house once or twice a day for food. If no one answered her call for food she would come into the house. She turned up one day with some young ones about a fortnight old, which had swum all the way from the river—about five miles. These were successfully reared. The stilts and dotterells were about the lake at the northern end of the island in the usual numbers. " The parasitic jaeger (Stercorarius parasiticus) is still about the channel between Kapiti and the mainland, where it spends its time chasing the white-fronted terns until the tern drops its catch, which the jaeger seizes before it reaches the water. The jaeger breeds in the arctic and subarctic regions. " During the year I was able to add three more birds to the Kapiti Island list. On the 7th May I saw a pair of Buller's gulls (Larus Bulleri). Early in November I picked up a mollymawk, which proved to be Thalassarche chlororhynchus. The bird is now in the Dominion Museum. Previously there were only one record of this species, and that was found on the Muriwai Beach by the wellknown ornithologist, Mr. R. A. Falla, of Auckland. A few days ago I found another mollymawk, which I believe to be Thalassarche cauta. The Australian black magpie (Gyrnnorhina hypoleuca) was also seen about the sanctuary in August. This is the first record that I have of this bird being seen on Kapiti. I had found a skeleton of one on Rangatira Beach some years ago." Approximate Cost of Paper.—Preparation, not given ; printing (700 copies), £12.

G. H. Loney, Government Printer, Wellington.—l 933.

Price 6d.]

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