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they sit on a root in the gloom all day, and only come out in the dusk of the evening. So well does their colour accord with the yellow and green of the ferns that it is impossible to see them unless they move. Of this they are well aware, and often keep perfectly still even when within arm's length. They are simple, poor things that know nothing of enemies. Once when without a dog I met one sitting on a stick under a fern a few feet from the ground, and went up to have a talk with it. It looked at me more in wonder than fear, until I chucked it under the chin, when it assumed a fierce attitude and protested in its hoarse voice, but made no attempt to go away, and when I let it alone for a few moments it coolly put its head under its feathers and went to sleep again. They have their family quarrels, of course, and sometimes scandalous fights, for I have found both males and females with their eyes seriously injured and old scars on their heads, and it is by no means a very rare thing to find a female with only one eye, for it is their misfortune to have powerful beaks and claws. I must never put two in one cage, for they seem to blame each other for their trouble, and start fighting at once. The tail of the female is longer than that of the male, and she is greener in colour, with less yellow on the head and breast. She is also less in size, and seldom very fat like her lazy mate—if ever she has a mate in the ordinary sense of the term, for they are the most solitary of birds. She makes her nest on the ground in some of the mossy dens, and lays from two to four white eggs like those of the harrier hawk. I never found two birds in the one den at any season, though there is room for a dozen, and I think that the male never goes near a nest, and knows nothing about it. They only breed every second year—not independently, but all breed one season and none the next —and it is a great puzzle to naturalists why some do not breed in the off season, or how they ail come to such a unanimous agreement about it. Months before the appointed breeding season the male is developing an air-sac in his throat, which he can puff up like a drum, and which may act like a sounding-board to assist in making the curious drumming notes in the spring. This note is not unlike the boom of the bittern, but is repeated five or six times in succession, and can be heard at a great distance. It excites curiosity not easily satisfied, and has caused some discussion and difference of opinion. A surveyor of large experience denied that it was a kakapo at all, and asserted that it was the rare Notornis ; and a high authority laid it down that the air-sac was just outside the windpipe, and therefore not connected with the voice; but it is not necessary for air to pass through a drum to make a sound. A whole party of bushmen set themselves the task of finding out what it was, and came to the conclusion that it was not a kakapo, for when they followed up the sound and got quite close to it at night there was. a moment's silence, and then it began again half a mile away, so they were certain it could fly. But it was only another kakapo, while the first one may have been at their elbows. I was twelve years on the dry side of the mountains, near Te Anau Lake, and had ample opportunities for observing their habits. I heard their drumming every alternate year until 1892, which was their due season, but they did not breed that year, and skipped two years in succession. Now, they must have held a meeting about the projected alteration in their programme, and a wonderful meeting it was, no doubt, regarding its decision, for not a drummer was heard that year. To realise the wonder of it we must remember that they had to come to a decision about six months previously, for the preparation of their drums; so that it could not have been the effect of the fruit and the flowers of that season. This is my second year on the wet side of the mountains in Dusky Sound, and now I find that the seasons here and at Te Anau coincide, so that delegates were needed from both sides of the Southern Alps, and they all agreed. I have exhausted all my speculations about flowers and fruit and physical conditions to account for this intermittent season, but all in vain, and generally have to fall back on the idea that they have useful social laws as mysterious as those of ants or bees. This idea would be acceptable if they lived in close communities, but it is difficult to understand when we know that they are solitary birds, living in a rough country so dense with undergrowth that it is all the time like getting through a hedge. About 1886, in company with a gentleman now in Dunedin, I found about a score in a few hundred yards, and there may have been about a hundred within a mile —but only on one occasion since have I known a number to congregate in so small a space ; so the idea of a meeting may not be altogether fanciful. It appears as if the breeding season was controlled by the males, for when there is no drumming in the early summer there are no eggs or young ones. And if they willingly missed two years in succession what a vision of self-denial and forethought it opens up ! But should it be the density of population, and consequently the supply of food during the previous winter, that influences their conduct, it is a very beautiful arrangement to save a waste of life and labour. This would also be the most acceptable theory if it were not for the fact that every valley on the wet and dry sides of the mountains could not be in the same position as to food, so that we have to come back again to "social law"—even to the idea of a captain or a queen to adjudge population and order their conduct accordingly. The simple fact that all breed together and none independently proves that they are under discipline of some sort, and, as law implies law-giver, why not a captain ? If the lordly homo could learn a lesson like this it would abolish the " dismal science " and save half a world of misery. There are considerable areas in the bottoms of valleys and around landslips where berries are produced in great plenty, and such places are called " kakapo gardens." Then there may be miles of beech forest which apparently produce very little food; yet the birds wander away anywhere after the breeding season, even out on the grass on the mountain-tops. When the breeding season comes round again the males take up their places in the gardens, and about the