TINAMOUS. 51 



it appears to me that both senses are called into action. It is probable that, in addi- 

 tion to a highly developed olfactory power, there is a delicate nervous sensitiveness in 

 the terminal enlargement of the upper mandible. It is interesting to watch the bird, 

 in a state of freedom, foraging for worms, which constitute its principal food; it 

 moves about with a slow action of the body, and the long, flexible bill is driven into 

 the soft ground, generally home to the very root, and is either immediately withdrawn 

 with a worm held at the extreme tip of the mandibles, or it is gently moved to and 

 fro, by an action of the head and neck, the body of the bird being perfectly steady. 

 On getting the worm fairly out of the ground, it throws up its head with a jerk, and 

 swallows it whole. 



The enormous size of the kiw T i's egg has often been the subject of speculation and 

 comment, for, until the fact was established beyond all question, it seemed almost 

 impossible that the very large eggs occasionally brought in by the natives were the 

 produce of this bird. The evidence has been furnished by eggs laid in the Zoological 

 Gardens, and by another taken in utero. One of the former is stated to have weighed 

 14^ ounces, or about one fourth of the bird's own weight. The probability is that the 

 male alone sits on the egg. The kiwis are monogamic. 



ORDER IV. CRYPTURI. 



Even the older authors were aware of some of the Struthious features of these 

 small South American ground-birds, which usually are referred to the Gallinaceous 

 order. Illiger remarked as early as 1811 that " the bill is Avonderfully conformable with 

 that of JRhea" and later on (1835) Sundevall stated that they " recall small ostriches." 

 Their small size, and a certain superficial resemblance to the gallinaceous birds pre- 

 vented the recognition of their true nature until Parker's celebrated anatomical 

 monograph appeared in 1865. The presence of a crest on their breast-bone, however, 

 seemed to Huxley to be so strong a character, that he would not admit them to the 

 division including the ostriches, and so he made of them a separate order, the distinc- 

 tive feature of which was the predominance of Struthious characters. We have 

 stated above, why the presence or absence of a keel to the sternum seems to us to be 

 a matter of only slight consequence, particularly when seeing that most of the other 

 characters of importance are chiefly struthionine. That certain birds of other orders 

 for instance, Dendrortyx, Ilemipodius, Syrrhaptes, the rails, and the plovers, present 

 characters to a certain degree also found in the Crypturi, is quite natural, as these 

 forms are comparatively generalized and therefore possess the reptilian features of 

 the common ancestors less obscured than their more specialized relatives of the 

 Euornithic series or super-order. It is therefore not quite correct to say that the 

 Crypturi are intermediate between the Struthious and the Gallinaceous birds, when 

 the fact is that the latter are intermediate between their own and the Droirueog- 



O 



nathous birds' common ancestors, on the one hand, and those of the rest of the 

 Euornithes on the other. 



Not only is the bill struthionine, but still more so the palatal arrangement, for the 

 broad coalescing vomer in front joins the end of the broad maxillo-palatines, receiving 

 behind the hinder end of the palatines (which do not articulate with the basisphenoid), 

 and the anterior ends of the pterygoids. Another Struthious feature is that the head 

 of the quadrate bone is single. Notwithstanding the fact that the wings of the 

 tinamous, as the birds of this order are called, are functional, the shoulder-girdle and 

 the sternum present enough characters to show that they have " not escaped from the 



