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look for them they would have all jumped away. Of course, there are hosts of other insects, including cockroaches in plenty and monster earthworms, which they may catch at night, for they are often out on mild nights, and always active late in the evening. Yet they seem to prefer the scraps from our table to anything they have on their own, and soon learn to eat everything we have. They may have acquired their taste for fish by finding some stranded on the beach, but where they learned to eat bread and butter is a mystery, for they take to it like a robin. There is a little plant with a white bulb like a marble which they know well, and like to eat, but it is watery and quite tasteless. I threw my hat at one of them one day for being in some mischief, and it is quite comical how long and how well he remembers it, for whenever I take my hat off now he is under cover like a flash. And, again, a young one came to us at the clearing, and after dinner we brought it some food; and in that one lesson it learned the motion of the hand in throwing the food, so that some days after when I pretended to throw it something it ran towards me and looked for it on the ground. Thus they appear to be strikingly sensible, because they learn at once by experience; and if every living thing did that there would be hardly any fools after a few years' experience. Though their brain may be very small, it is probably of fine quality ; or perhaps a host of fancies are absent in their case, and only the useful faculties are developed. I found Scrag's nest on the 7th September, with two eggs in it, but they laid another after that, and brought out the chickens on the Bth October, so that the period of incubation was about twenty-seven days. They took turns at hatching, for when I saw the hen on the beach I found the male on the nest, and vice versa; and in this they show their sense also, for it is easy for two compared with one doing it all, as in the case of the kiwi and kakapo. In July, when out at the clearing, I heard a woodhen screaming in distress down in a gully, and as it continued I called to Burt, who was nearer the spot, to see what was the matter. Guided by the sound, he went down quickly and found a sparrow-hawk holding on to a woodhen under a log. He caught the hawk, and the hen ran away. When I went over I saw that the hawk's beak was full of the inner down of the hen, so that she had a narrow escape that time, and by calling for help exchanged places with her enemy. They have a special note to indicate the presence of a sparrow-hawk, and generally let us know when there is one about. The tuis, mokos, and robins can also sing out "Sparrow-hawk!" in their own language, and all the others understand; so that he is proclaimed everywhere he goes, which is just what he does not want, and he must have a very vexatious time of it trying to get a living. On another occasion I hung a fishing-net on the clothes-lines to dry, and when we came home a little male sparrowhawk was caught in the net about 1 ft. from the ground. Our tame weka was in a great state of agitation, yet bold enough to come up and peck at the hawk in defence of her chickens, who was probably stooping for one of them when the net caught him. In seven weeks the three chickens grew up nearly as big as their parents, but very soft, of course. And then one of them disappeared, with a hawk, I suppose, though we had killed six, and thought we were doing a good turn, because we saw one hunting a pigeon. When the tide is low and the wekas are tempted away out on the beaches I think the hawks take 90 per cent, of the young ones, which may be quite desirable, because from recent developments the wekas appear to be the worst enemies of the ducks. Our goose made her nest right before the window, and only 10 yards from the house. In gathering material she took a little straw, but preferred more substantial stuff. When leaving the nest she carefully covered up the egg, so that I was surprised to find it so deep among the sprigs and chips. I covered it up again as I got it, but next morning the nest was opened, and only a few scraps of eggshell remained. I was not sure whether it was the dog or the weka, but intended to find out. The weka was evidently interested in the nest, for we saw him walking round while the goose was on it. We knew, also, that he would break an egg at sight, for we tried him with a penguin's egg ;he had also stolen a roa's egg-shell and destroyed it. This was a strong shell, and I saved part of it to show how he could punch holes in it. He could pick up a penguin's egg and run away with it so quickly that I could hardly get it from him. We got several gooseeggs by going at once and taking them away, until one morning I was busy with log-fires and did not go at once. I heard when the goose came off, because her mate gave her a noisy greeting, and a few minutes afterwards I found the nest torn about and the weka and his family around the broken egg some yards away. Next time the goose was on the nest the weka waited about there all the time, though the gander tried to drive him away, and I went out and threw soft things at him, yet he flipped about and defied me, so that I took a dislike to him for his outrageous cunning. When the goose came away Burt went at once and found the weka digging up the nest in search of the egg ; and when she started to hatch, though there were no eggs, she regularly covered up the nest when leaving it, and the weka never failed to rake it out when he found her absent, and, of course, a goose could never hatch an egg where there was such an artful and patient thief as that. Long ago I knew they were egg-eaters, but I never dreamed that they were half so bad as this shows them to be. We have had this weka since it was a chicken, and he has only a small domain where there are no penguins. Probably he never saw a duck's nest in his life, and certainly not a goose's, for this was the first in the sound, yet he seemed to know all about it, and that the eggs would be covered up. ' The ducks cover theirs until they start to hatch, and then also when they leave the nest of their own accord; and that is evidently where this weka's forefathers learned the habit, and faithfully handed it down to this promising youngster. To this small matter hangs a very long, old story, which we will never hear in full, about the ducks watching and fighting for their eggs, and the wekas successfully robbing them year after year until it became a flexed habit for transmission, the result of which we saw plainer and truer than by writing.