its way to Sir Richard Owen seventy years ago, and of his diagnosis therefrom of a walking bird about the size of an ostrich, is one of the romances of zoology. The earlier moas were far taller and more ponderous than any ostrich. Their relationship to the ancient moas of Madagascar, as well as their colossal stature, are further suggestions that New Zealand is what it looks--the relics of a submerged southern continent. After the discovery of moa skeletons there were great hopes that living survivors of some of the tall birds would yet be found, and the unexplored and intricate south-west was by common consent the most promising field in which to search. In 1848 a rail over three feet high--the takahé--was caught by sealers in Dusky Sound. Fifty years later, when hope had almost died out, another takahé was taken alive--the bird that now stands stuffed in a German museum. But, alas! this rail is the solitary “find” that has rewarded us in the last sixty years, and the expectation of lighting upon any flightless bird larger than a roa flutters very faintly now. All the more, therefore, ought we to bestow thought on the preservation of the odd and curious wild life that is left to us. The outlook for our native birds has long been very far from bright. Many years ago the Norway rat had penetrated every corner of the islands. Cats, descended from wanderers of the domestic species, are to be found in forest and mountain, and have grown fiercer and more active with each decade. Sparrows, blackbirds, and thrushes compete for Nature’s supplies of honey and insects. Last, and, perhaps, their worst enemies of all, are the stoats, weasels, and ferrets, which sheep-farmers were foolish enough to import a quarter of a century ago to combat the rabbit. Luckily, more effectual methods of coping with rabbits have since been perfected, for had we to trust to imported vermin our pastures would be in a bad case. As it is, the stoat and weasel levy toll on many a poultry yard, and their ravages among the unhappy wild birds of the forest are more deplorable still. In both islands they have found their way across from the east coast to the west: rivers, lakes, rock, snow, and ice have been powerless to stop them. Even the native birds that can fly lose their eggs and nestlings. The flightless birds are helpless. Weasels can kill much more formidable game than kiwi and kakapo; a single weasel has been known to dispose of a kea parrot in captivity. Pressed, then, by these and their other foes, the native birds are disappearing in wide tracts of the main islands. Twenty years ago this was sufficiently notorious; and at length in the ’nineties the Government was aroused to do something to save a remnant. Throughout the whole of the Great Reserve of the south-west shooting was, and still is, discouraged. But this is not enough. Only on islets off the coast can the birds be safe from ferrets and similar vermin, to say nothing of human collectors and sportsmen.