New Zealand Birds

Abstract

DURING the past twenty-five or thirty years many reports have been published in regard to the extinction of New Zealand birds, and an impression has gone abroad that our avifauna, with its striking peculiarities and its wealth of interest to ornithologists, will soon be lost. Some time ago, when I was inquiring into the results of the acclimatisation of English birds, I had thousands of circulars distributed in all parts of the colony, and on those circulars I placed questions dealing with the position of the native birds. When the circulars were returned to me I found that every native bird was accounted for, in some cases in many different districts.