92 Transactions. — Zoology. 



or dwarfed to mere rudiments, as in the case of the Kiwi. 

 The obvious answer is that, allowing the necessary time, — in 

 how many generations it is impossible to say, — the same 

 results would naturally come about. How long it may have 

 taken for the Kiwi to become practically wingless since the 

 process of degeneration commenced we have no means of even 

 guessing. But our pestilent civilization has, of course, put a 

 stop to all that, and within measurable time the Kakapo will 

 disappear altogether, — passing out of existence, in full posses- 

 sion of its wings, but feeble in their quills, and crippled by the 

 atrophy of their muscular mechanism. * 



This incidental reference to the Kakapo and its protective 

 colouring leads me into another very interesting field of observa- 

 tion — namely, the gradual adaptation, by natural selection 

 of course, of certain species to their habitual environment by 

 the acquisition of protective colours. The olive-green Bell- 

 bird is almost invisible to the eye as it clings to the leafy 

 climbing tawhiwhi (Mctrosideros scandcns), and inserts its 

 brush-tongue into the corolla of the crimson flower ; the 

 grey-and -white Ground-pipit eludes the most practised eye as 

 it perches on a dry log, or nestles by the wayside ; the Bronze- 

 winged Cuckoo so harmonizes with its surroundings as it rests 

 silently on a low bough that you may be within a yard of it 

 without detecting its presence ; the Dottrel and the Godwit 

 squat on the sands without being seen ; the Wry-billed 

 Plover hides itself among the loose pebbles and shingles of 

 its own grey colour ; the green Parrakeets are undistinguish- 

 able from the bright evergreen vegetation among which they 

 feed ; the Kaka, but for its discordant cry, would generally 

 be safe from observation in the midst of the brown branches 

 among which it loves to climb and explore for insects ; the 

 Rifleman, the smallest of our native birds, is quite invisible as 

 it clings to the lichen-covered bark ; and the Bush-wren hops 

 in safety among the moss and vegetation of the forest to which 

 its own colours so closely assimilate. And so one might go on 

 selecting examples almost without end, in illustration of the 

 well-known law to which 1 have referred as being almost 

 universal in its application and effects. 



Leaving birds, however, for one moment, let us consider 

 the remarkable correlation of colour with its surroundings in 



* I think there is a manifest advantage in questions of this kind being 

 investigated and discussed by ourselves on the spot. In illustration of 

 this I may refer to a very curious mistake made by Mr. Alfred Russel 

 Wallace, the great apostle of the creed of natural selection, — to whom, 

 indeed, we all metaphorically doff our hats in respectful admiration. In 

 writing of the New Zealand avifauna he confounds the Kakapo with the 

 Kea, declaring that the moss-eating Striiigops had become carnivorous, 

 and is most destructive to the settlers' sheep ! 



