A WONDERFUL FIND

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2492, 19 June 1915, Page 11

A WONDERFUL FIND

HUNDREDS OF BIG KIWIS THOUSANDS OF KAKAPOS A remarkable discovery of bird life was made by Mr. R. Ji. Olouston, mining engineer, of Bockyille, iu the Coiliiigwood (Nelson) district recently. Mr. Olouston knows a great deal about the bird-life of New Zealand, and it fell to his lot whilst exploring the hinterland of his district in a wild country (of poor laud), known as the Uouland Downs, some twenty-six miles front Hockville, to discover an entire colony of birds of the 6pecies that are becoming admittedly rare, and in some cases wero believed to be extinct. He could hardly believe his senses on coming into contact with a rookery of the great kiwi (Apteryx Haasti), not a few stray families, but thousands of them, sporting and grubbing about in the patches of tussock land which alternated with- clumps of virgin bush. And not only kiwis (big mottled fellows, but thousands of kakapos (the night parrot, so rare that an advertisement appeared in an Auckland paper a few months ago offering £80 for a pair of them). Mr. Olouston arrived here on Thursday morning with 25 of the big kiwis, and the excitement created on the wharf was something to be remembered.. "I've been a bird man all my life," said Mr. Olouston, "and have travelled all over New Zealand, and have never seen anything like it.. It is really a wonderful discovery from a scientific point of view, and will mean the preservation of the various species. These birds I have with me are to be liberated 011 the Little Barrier Island, which, of course, is a sanotuary. "Not only are there kiwis and ka<papos 011 the block, but there are blue mountain duck by the ,dozen, saddlebacks (worth £10 each), New Zealand robins, wrens, owls, Cook's petrels (rain bird), keas, kakas, tui, makomakos, warblers, riflemen, . creepers (very rare), Maori hens, fantails, tomtits,' and pigeons. It was a harvest of rarities. The kiwis are there because the feed is good. We found great worms from 4ft. to sft. in length. The longest one I measured was 4tt. lOiu. "As soon as I found them I communicated with Sir Francis Bell, and asked him to have the block—it is Crown land —declared a sanctuary, and that has been done. It was gazetted some ten days ago. In the meantime the find had cot about, and the place has been visited by men interested in bird-life, among them Mr. James Drummond and Mr. Edgar Stead, of Christchurch, Professor Cotton, Dr. Thompson (of the Dominion Museum), and Mr. Fred. Sparrow, and they, are all as enthusiastic as I am. "I have made a pet of one of the big kakapos. He stands 3ft. high,, weighs 221b., and has got ail enormous beak, but he allows the children to feed him out of hand. He's a beauty—pale green plumage with long whiskers, and when he's up a tree you can't tell him from moss on the trunks —natural protection again." Mr. Olouston says that the birds are so valuable that the sanctuary will have to be given adequate protection at onco, else there will bo wholesale poaching by those prepared to trade on Mr. j Clouston's discovery.