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a gull saw one in shallow water where it could not dive out of sight, let it be ever so clever it was doomed, because the gull would hover over it and meet it when it was forced to come up for breath. I have seen one swallow a young paradise duck as big as my hand, and I found the " casts " at their nests consisted mostly of the down of young ducks (in the season), with sometimes an undigested little webbed foot. But here they never trouble a family of young teal that are often about, and the parents show no resentment towards these gulls, which is the best of proof that they do not take their young ones. This shows how easily a visitor may take notes about many things and be cocksure of what is not a general rule, for the duck-catching art at Te Anau may also be a bit of a trade secret, like the cockles at Cooper Island. I brought a young gull about twenty miles down Te Anau Lake, and it escaped from my hut in the night. I thought it would starve when I could not find it, but about a week after I found it on a beach with a whole party of old gulls that were very anxious to protect it, and it was just full of food. Ido not think its parents were amongst them, because I left them one to take care of away up the lake. Thus they are not such a bad lot, and I thought more of them after that—" Charity covers a multitude of sins." Here at Oke Island I saw them assisting to protect the young oyster-catchers, which are very like young gulls both in colour and shape, for they have no sign of long beaks when they are little. When we went near them the big gulls gathered up and protested just as they would with their own young ones. I have often seen three eggs in a nest at Te Anau when dead rabbits were very plentiful, but I have not seen more than two here, and they rear very few young ones in Dusky Sound. There was a mixed party breeding at Oke Island. The big gulls and the oyster-catchers had their nests on the beach, while a few terns and little gulls had theirs up on a big stone inaccessible to the wekas. We could see eggs and woolly young ones up there that would have been easy prey for the big gulls if they were so inclined. In Dusky Sound they generally build their nests out on a rock that has a little grass on it, but at Te Anau they were content with the high side of the beach. These gulls used to have a great breeding-place on top of the Blue Mountains, over Tapanui. I got a basket of eggs there on the 20th November, 1877, around the bog-holes, but I think they got most of their food from dead rabbits at that time. It is curious that they never learned to dive, though it would be of great use to them, and they are always on the water. When I throw my tame one a little fish and it sinks in 2 ft. of water the gull cannot get it. If it was only 18 in. deep he might get it by hovering over and plunging down with a great effort; even then he is never able to get his tail under water. A Maori-hen is a much better diver when occasion requires, though it is not web-footed and does not pretend to be a waterfowl at all. The little red-legged gulls congregate at the big cliff in Facile Harbour, and with a few other little gulls and terns have a great courting party there about the 14th November, but only a few' of them make their nests there. Some of these nests were close to the water, but most of them were high up the cliff which overhangs and faces the south. I could only see into one nest, which contained two eggs of an olive-green colour mottled with dark-brown spots. The nest was formed by a handful of dried grass arranged round a little hollow on the mossy rock. The birds are bold little fellows that resent intrusion, and evidently build in company for mutual protection. On the 10th January I saw a young red-legged gull there, nearly able to fly. It was a beautiful little thing, both in manner and appearance, with different markings to the mother. It was so pretty that I think nothing could be hard-hearted enough to hurt it; and I have often thought that the prettiness of very young things may be a part of their defence or protection. This was notably so with this little thing; otherwise it was utterly helpless either for flight or defence, for its parents were harmless as defenders. We only saw one pair of skuas (Lestris parasiticus) when we first came here, and I think they had a nest on Seal Rocks ; but I blamed them for eating the terns' eggs, and shot one of them. Afterwards its mate came looking for it with its startling call, but after a while it went away, and I have seen nothing of them now for a couple of years. Yet I think they are common about Stewart Island and Ruapuke. THRUSHES (TVRNAGRA). There was a native thrush about my house before I went away (Bth October, 1898), quite tame; but since my return it has become almost too tame, for it comes into the house every chance it gets. It is generally whistling outside before I get up, and when I am at breakfast I lift the window and answer its call, when it comes hopping in, and about the table, tastes the tea and the milk several times and licks its lips with a critical air. It will eat a little bread-and-butter or porridge, but it likes oats or oatmeal best. It can shell the oats like a sparrow, though Ido not know any native seed very like oats. It flies on the mantelpiece and studies the clock closely, then on to the carpenters' bench, where it looks into everything, even down the spout of an old tea-pot; flies up under a shelf and pulls down a spider's web, eats the spider, unfolds the nest and eats the eggs or young ones. That is why it is so inquisitive, because it likes spiders. I do not kill spiders, because they catch great nets full of sandflies ; but the thrush has cleared them nearly all out of the house, and outside also. I often notice it with a bit of web about its feathers. However, it is good company on account of its singular tameness, or ignorance of these progressive times; and if it does not get a lesson from a sparrow it will not last long in the new company of boys and cats. 19—C. 1 Al>i>.