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until, however, the “rats killed them, and ate the half of one away”. 99 On one occasion in 1884 he
recollects his attempt at taking several specimens from Dusky Sound in a roomy cage with a
darkened sleeping box, but his efforts are again thwarted, this time by the actions of a curious
onlooker on the Stella leaving the cage door open and allowing them to escape. Despite the crew
trying to recapture the birds, they climb to the top of the rigging and plunge to their death in the
sea. 100 In another instance following the suggestion of Little Barrier becoming a reserve,
Reischek sets off again into the Sounds in 1887 in order to collect live kiwi and kakapo.
However, when he places several male and female specimens together in a cage, to his horror he
finds the next morning that all the females have been killed by the males. On his second attempt
he loses another five overnight. On his third he collects sixteen kakapo only to have rats sneak
into the cage and kill two and wound at least one other “by biting their throats and eating parts of
their heads off”. 101 As a result, he ships the remaining kakapo in separate cages from Chalky
Sound to Cheeseman at the Auckland Museum, with the idea of having replacement cages sent
back for the next shipment. In the meantime he traps more live specimens of both in a pit while
he waits for the cages, albeit small ones as the larger cages he had ordered in Dunedin could not
be made in time. 102 However, after a number of weeks he decides to let them go as there is no
sign of the transport. As it happens, the boat had been caught in a storm and all the birds had
died. 103 Reischek’s last attempt involved bringing several live specimens, in particular kiwi,
kakapo and weka, to Vienna (although this is omitted from Priday’s version), and he did not
doubt that he would have succeeded had he used more spacious transport cages on the passenger
liner to Europe. However, they were only shipped in small cages and did not survive the long
journey, apart from several tuatara (which, however, gradually died in Austria due to the
99
Andreas Reischek, “Notes on Rats”, in: TPNZI 20 (1887): 126. Rats often proved to be a constant nuisance to his
collecting activities. However, as much of his time in Chalky Sound was spent killing rats, it would appear his love
of hunting in this instance would be met with more approval today: “It has taken five months’ shooting, poisoning,
and trapping before they seemed to lessen at all. Now there are only two, and they are too shrewd to go in the trap,
eat poison, or give me a chance to shoot them” (ibid., 126). His adventures were also offset by other natural pests,
such as sandflies, fleas, kea and weka (see SW, 49-51, 102, 108, 195, 219, 255, 264, 267, 303).
100
Interestingly, he contradicts this in 1890 when he states the intended destination of the specimens was Europe, and
implies that he found they had escaped just prior to departing the country (Andreas Reischek, “Der Kakapo,
Stryngops habroptilus in seinem Frei- und Gefangenschaftsleben”, in: MOVW 14:16/17 (1890): 222). However, in a
paper the following year, it states he had merely returned from a day’s excursion in 1884 (Andreas Reischek, “Die
flügellosen Vögel”, in: Jugendheimat 5 (1891): 173f.). Sterbende Welt, likewise, supports the latter, and states that he
had also promised several kakapo to Professor Thomas Jeffery Parker (263).
101
Reischek, “Notes on Rats”, 126; Reischek, “Letter to Cheeseman, 29 March 1887”, 163.
102
Reischek, “Letter to Cheeseman, 29 March 1887”, 163.
103
Reischek, “Kakapo”, 222.
245