This sole representative of the "gamebirds" in New Zealand was in former days very numerous in both islands, but especially so in the South Island, wherever there was open grass-land, but is now evidently extinct. Its disappearance is apparently not due to excessive shooting, but rather to the introduction of rats, cats, and dogs, and last, but not least, to bush-fires and to the regular burning of the sheep-runs, according to Sir Walter Buller. No doubt the establishment itself of extensive sheep-farms in the once, more or less, uninhabited grass-land was ominous for the future of the Quail. It is not quite clear when the Quail disappeared. The last on the North Island was shot by Captain Mair at Whangarei in 1860. Specimens were recorded in 1867 and 1869, but were apparently not procured. In Haast's "Journal of Exploration in the Nelson Province" it is said to be still very abundant in 1861 on the grassy plains of the interior. Sir Walter Buller mentions two specimens said to be from an island in Blue Skin Bay, shot in "1867 or 1868." In his Second Edition of the Birds of New Zealand he informs us that it was found occasionally in the South Island down to 1875, but in the "Supplement" he speaks of a specimen said to have been shot in 1871, but adds, "There is no absolute evidence of it," and "if true, this individual bird must have been about the last of its race." Therefore, evidently the note about 1875 was erroneous. {184} The statement of Mr. Cheeseman, that he took eggs on Three Kings Islands is erroneous. The eggs belonged to a _Synoecus_, and the egg given to Sir Walter Buller is now in my collection. I have, however, also two eggs of _Coturnix novaezealandiae_, brought home by Dr. H. O. Forbes. They have a brownish-white shell, covered and washed all over with deep brown patches and lighter brown underlying markings. They show distinctly the character of Quails' eggs, but, besides being much larger, are easily distinguished from eggs of _Coturnix coturnix_. They measure 34.3 by 25 and 34.5 by 21.3 mm. Of birds I have in my collection: One [male] ad. Shot at Whangarei, North Island, by Major Mair, in 1860. (This is the specimen figured in the Second Edition of the "Birds of New Zealand." I bought it with Sir Walter Buller's collection eighteen years ago. By a curious _lapsus memoriae_ Sir Walter Buller, in the "Supplement," p. 35, in 1905, states that this bird was in his son's collection.) One [female] ad. and one [male] in the first year's plumage, shot by Messrs. Walter Buller and E. French near Kaiapoi, South Island, in the summer of 1859. Seven specimens are in the British Museum, the types in Paris, three in Cambridge, a pair in Christchurch in New Zealand, some in the Canterbury Museum, and doubtless many others, most of which have never been recorded. {185} DINORNITHIDAE. MOAS.