respecting the native birds, and ascertained that the whitehead was numerous on the forest-clad ranges whence rise the tributaries of the Motu River, flowing into the Bay of Plenty. During the last two years I have also learned of its occurrence in several other localities, which should remain tapued against avaricious and merciless collectors. In former years the Maoris were great lovers of tamed and caged birds, but only once, after numerous inquiries, have I been able to learn of a caged saddleback having been kept in a Native kainga or village. The older Maoris of the present time also assert that the tieke, or saddleback, was a very difficult bird to snare. The rapid extinction of this beautiful species of native starling is to me more remarkable than those extinct and expiring species belonging to the New Zealand avifauna. Being strictly a forest-dwelling bird, subsisting on a variety of larvae and insects occurring only in the forest, it was apparently naturally unfitted to change its habits to search for and subsist on other varieties of larvae and insects procurable in the open country. Since improved methods of tillage were introduced by the Taranaki settlers, as in other provinces, several species of native cockchafer beetles (Odontria) have increased, as elsewhere in New Zealand, at an unprecedented rate. As the larvae increase in size, and the grass they attack withers, they attract flights of the introduced English starling and the Indian or Eastern minah (Acridotheres tristis). With the abundance of larval food on the rich grass lands in the extensive dairying country of Taranaki the starling has increased in such vast numbers as to materially affect the numbers and well-being of the minah. The starlings repair every evening, in flights of several thousands in each, to Moturoa Island, a rugged precipitous rock in the sea nearly a mile from the shore, situated about two miles south of New Plymouth. In the South Island the starlings roost during the night on Eucalyptus, or Australian gum-trees, and in fissures of limestone rocks in many districts. I observe that the minahs prefer to remain closer to the great forest belt or national forest reserve, an area of native forest six miles broad extending all around the base of the extinct volcanic cone of Mount Egmont, in Taranaki. Thus we note that, whilst these introduced species flourish on the abundant and excellent food procurable in the open country, the native tieke, or saddleback, seems to be naturally unfitted to do so, with the inevitable result that the beautiful species has become or is rapidly becoming extinct. As with other vanished and vanishing species of New Zealand's unique native birds, so with the tieke. All we can possibly do is to faithfully record all facts relating to their habits which have been and are procurable in our tie.