A WONDERFUL FIND.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 June 1915, Page 6

A WONDERFUL FIND.

lIITXIffiE.as OF BIG KIWIS. THOUSANDS OiF KAKAPOS. A remarkable discovery of bird life was made by Mr. R. E. Clouston, mining engineer, of Rockville, in the Ollingwood, Kelson, district, recently. 'Mr. Clouston knows a great deal about, tlie bird life of New Zealand, and it fell tc his lot whilst exploring the hinterland of Ills district in a wild country (of pool land), known as the Gouland Downs, some. 20 miles from Ropkville, to discover an entire colony of birds of the species that are becoming admittedly rare, and Jn some rases were believed ! tri be extinct, lie could hardly believe his senses on coming into contact with a rookery of the great kiwi, Apteryz 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 hush. And not only kiwis, big mottled fellows, but thousands of kakapos, the niglit parrot, so rare that an advertisement appeared in an Auckland paper a'few months ago offering £BO for a pair of them. 'Mr. Clouston arrived on Thursday morning at Wellington with twenty-five of the big kiwis, and the excitement created on the wharf was something to be rememibered. "I've teen a bird man all my life,"' said Mr. Clouston, "and have travelled all over New Zealand, anil 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. Thnsc birds I have with me are to bo liberated on the Little Harrier Island, which, ol course, is a sanctuary. ' " Kot only are there kiwis and kakaj pos on the block, but there are blue mountain duck by tJlie dozen, saddlebackts (worth £lO eacli). Xew Zealand robins, wrens, owls, Cook's petrels (rain, bird), Iceas, kakas, tui, makomakos, warblers, riflemen, creepers (very rare), Maori hens, fantails, tomtits and pigeons. It was a -harvest o1 rarities. The kiwis are there because the feed is good. We found great worms from 4ft to slt in length. The longest one I measured was 4ft lOin. " 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 tliat has been done. It was gazetted some ten days ago. In the meantime, the find had got about, and the place has been visited l>y men interested in bird life, among them facing Mr, James Drummond and Mr. Edgar Stead, of Qhrlstcliurdh; Professor Cotton, Dr. Thompson (of the Dominion Museum),, and Mr. Frederick Sparrow, and they are all as enthusiastic as I am. "I lvave made a pet of one of the big kakapos. He stands 3ft high, weighs 221'b, and has got an enormous beak, fcut he allows the children to feed him out of hand. He's a beauty pale green plumage with long whiskers, and wlien lie's up a tree you c>an't tell him from moss on the trunks—natural protection again." Mr. Clouston says that the birds are so valuable tliat the sanctuary will have to be given adequate protection at onee. else there will be wholesale poaching by those prepared to trade on Mr. Clouston's discovery.