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NESTOR

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 407 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NESTOR , the name of a small but remarkable See also:

group of parrots See also:peculiar to the New See also:Zealand sub-region, of which the type is the Psittacus meridionalis of See also:Gmelin, founded on a See also:species described by J. Latham (Gen. Synopsis i. 264), and subsequently termed by him P. nestor, in allusion to its hoary See also:head, but now usually known as Nestor meridionalis, the " Kaka " of the Maories and See also:English settlers in New Zealand, in some parts of which it was very abundant, though its See also:numbers are fast decreasing. See also:Forster, who accompanied See also:Cook in his second voyage, described it in his See also:MSS. in 1773, naming it P. hypopolius, and found it in both the See also:principal islands. The See also:general See also:colour of the kaka is See also:olive-See also:brown, nearly all the feathers being tipped with a darker shade, so as to give a scaly See also:appearance to the See also:body. The See also:crown is See also:light See also:grey, the See also:ear-coverts and nape purplish-See also:bronze, and the rump and See also:abdomen of a more or less deep See also:crimson-red; but much variation is presented in the extent and tinge of the last colour, which often becomes See also:orange and some-times See also:bright yellow. The kaka is about the See also:size of a See also:crow; but a larger species, generally resembling it, though with plumage mostly dull olive-See also:green, the Nestor notabilis of J. See also:Gould, was discovered in 1856 by See also:Walter See also:Mantell, in the higher See also:mountain ranges of the See also:Middle See also:Island. This is the " Kea " of theMaories, and incurred the enmity of colonists by developing an extra-See also:ordinary See also:habit of assaulting See also:sheep, picking holes with its powerful See also:beak in their See also:side, wounding the intestines, and so causing See also:death. The See also:bird is admittedly an eater of carrion in addition to its ordinary See also:food, which, like that of the kaka, consists of fruits, seeds and the grubs of See also:wood-destroying See also:insects, the last being obtained by stripping the bark from trees infested by them. The amount of injury the kea inflicts on See also:flock-masters has doubtless been much exaggerated, for Dr Menzies states that on one " run," where the loss was unusually large, the proportion of sheep attacked was about one in three See also:hundred, and that those pasturing below the See also:elevation of 2000 ft. are seldom disturbed.

On the See also:

discovery of See also:Norfolk Island (See also:October 10 1774) a See also:parrot, thought by Forster to be specifically identical with the kaghaca. (as he wrote the name) of New Zealand—though his son (Voyage, ii. 446) remarked that it was " infinitely brighter coloured "—was found in its hitherto untrodden See also:woods, Among the drawings of See also:Bauer, the artist who accompanied See also:Robert Brown and See also:Flinders, is one of a Nestor marked " Norfolk Isl. 19 See also:Jan. 1805," on which Herr von Pelzeln in 186o founded his N. norfolcensis. Meanwhile Latham, in 1822, had described, as distinct species, two specimens evidently of the genus Nestor, one said, but doubtless erroneously, to inhabit New See also:South See also:Wales, and the other from Norfolk Island. In 1836 Gould de-scribed an example, without any locality, in the museum of the Zoological Society, as Plyctolophus produclus, and when some See also:time after he was in See also:Australia, he found that the See also:home of this species, which he then recognized as a Nestor, was See also:Phillip Island, a very small See also:adjunct of Norfolk Island, and not more than 5 M. distant from it. Whether the birds of the two islands were specifically distinct or not we shall perhaps never know, since they are all See also:extinct, and no specimen undoubtedly from Norfolksub-See also:family Nestorinae of the Trichoglossidae (see PARROT). Further knowledge of this very interesting See also:form may be facilitated by the following references to the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand See also:Institute, ii. 64, 65, 387, iii. 45-52, 81-90, v. 207, Vi.

114, 128, ix. 340, X. 192, xi. 377; and to See also:

Sir W. See also:Buller's Birds of New Zealand. (A.

End of Article: NESTOR

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