Zoological Society. 233 



speed, and upon being captured uttered loud screams, and fought 

 and struggled violently ; it was kept alive three or four days on 

 board the schooner and then killed, and the bo'dy roasted and ate by 

 the crew, each partaking of the dainty, which was declared to be de- 

 licious. The beak and legs were of a bright red colour. My son 

 secured the skin, together with very fine specimens of the Kakapo or 

 Ground Parrot {Strigops), a pair of Huias {Neomorpha), and two 

 species of Kiwi-kiwi, namely Apteryx Australis and Ap. Oweni ; the 

 latter very rare bird is now added to the collection of the British 

 Museum. 



Mr. Walter Mantell states, that, according to the native traditions, 

 a large Rail was contemporary with the Moa, and formed a principal 

 article of food among their ancestors. It was known to the North 

 Islanders by the name of *' il/oAo," and to the South Islanders by 

 that of " Takahei' but the bird was considered by both natives and 

 Europeans to have been long since exterminated by the wild cats and 

 dogs, not an individual having been seen or heard of since the arrival 

 of the English colonists. That intelligent observer, the Rev. Richard 

 Taylor, who has so long resided in the islands, had never heard of a 

 bird of this kind having been seen. In his * Leaf from the Natural 

 History of New Zealand*,' under the head of " JfoAo," is the follow- 

 ing note : *' Rail, colour black, said to be a wingless bird as large 

 as a fowl, having a long bill and red beaks and legs ; it is nearly ex- 

 terminated by the cat : its cry was * keo, keo.' " The inaccuracy and 

 vagueness of this description prove it to be from native report and 

 not from actual observation. To the natives of the pahs or villages 

 on the homeward route, and at Wellington, the bird was a perfect 

 novelty and excited much interest. I may add, that upon comparing 

 the head of the bird with the fossil cranium and mandibles, and the 

 figures and descriptions in the * Zoological Transactions' (pi. 56), 

 my son was at once convinced of their identity ; and so delighted was 

 he by the discovery of a living example of one of the supposed extinct 

 contemporaries of the Moa, that he immediately wrote to me, and 

 mentioned that the skull and beaks were alike in the recent and fossil 

 specimens, and that the abbreviated and feeble development of the 

 wings, both in their bones and plumage, were in perfect accordance 

 with the indications afforded by the fossil humerus and sternum 

 found by him at Waingongoro, and now in the British Museum, as 

 pointed out by Professor Owen in the memoir above referred to. 



It may not be irrelevant to add, that in the course of Mr. Walter 

 Mantell's journey from Banks' Peninsula along the coast to Otago, 

 he learnt from the natives that they believed there still existed in that 

 country the only indigenous terrestrial quadruped, except a species 

 of rat, which there are any reasonable grounds for concluding New 

 Zealand ever possessed. While encamping at Arowenua in the di- 

 strict of Timaru, the Maoris assured him that about ten miles inland 

 there was a quadruped which they called Kaureke, and that it was 

 formerly abundant, and often kept by their ancestors in a domestic 



* Published at Wellington, 1848. 



