140 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Art. XIII. — A Description of the curiously -deformed Bill of a 

 Huia, (Heteralocha acutirostris, Gould,) an endemic New 

 Zealand Bird. 



By William Colenso, F.E.S., F.L.S., etc. 

 [Bead before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 9th August. 1886.] 



Plate IX. 



A SHORT time ago I received from a kind correspondent, a 

 settler dwelling in the interior forest-land, the bead of a Huia 

 in a fair state of j)reservation, •which he had then recently 

 obtained from a Maori. This bead is that of a female bird ; 

 the upper mandible of its bill being greatly and strangely de- 

 formed. From about 1 inch, or one-fourth of the normal length 

 of the upper mandible from its base, it suddenly rises and 

 remains at an angle of 45°. forming a regular ascending and 

 sub-erect spiral of two large and equal curves, each being of 

 f -inch open interior diameter ; not unlike a gigantic corkscrew, 

 and reminding one of the horn of the Strepsiceros. (See Plate 

 IX.) 



The total length of this deformed mandible, following the 

 curves, is just 6 inches ; its breadth at the widest part about the 

 middle is 4 lines, which part is also flat above, and is devoid of 

 nostrils ; and its end or tip is sharply pointed, and vertical 

 upwards ; throughout its whole length it is much thicker, 

 rounded, and very obtuse on the right side or edge, while the 

 left edge is thin and sharp ; the lower thin marginal base of the 

 right edge of the mandible is also much produced and sharp, 

 evidently larger than ordinary, arising from, I think, not having 

 been worn away in use ; while the corresponding opposite edge 

 is much worn, being almost the only part of the upper mandible 

 that could possibly be brought into serviceable contact with the 

 lower mandible ; its colour, too, is not that sure ivory-white of 

 the healthy and normal bill, but more like that of common 

 whitish horn. 



The lower mandible is 2f inches loug, being very much 

 shorter and not so much curved as this portion of the bird's 

 bill is in the normal state. The tip, too, is much more blunt, 

 and is slightly worn or broken ; on the left edge near the base 

 is a tolerably large, worn depression or notch, where the upper 

 mandible must have closed upon it in the efforts of the bird on 

 receiving its food. 



There is not the least indication of the upper mandible ever 

 having been broken or bruised, and afterwards, in healing and 

 using, grown out of its common natural form, and thencefor- 

 ward assuming its present shape. The inference, therefore, is 



