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NOTES ON NEW ZEALAND.
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served, as it kills young rabbits and devours slugs. English duck and teal are plentiful, also wild swans and geese. Pheasants are numerous in some parts, also jack snipe. Game of this kind is abundant. Sparrows were imported from England to destroy the caterpillars, slugs and other insects, which do so much damage to field and garden produce; but these birds have multiplied so extensively since their introduction that it is a question if the cure is not worse than the disease. The starling would have been a much more useful importation for the purposes required, and would have proved harmless to the grain
