472 



KAGU 



them an affinity to Eurypyga (Sun-Bittern), and in due time 

 anatomical investigation sheAved him to be right. The Kagu, 

 however, would not strike the ordinary observer as having much 

 outward resemblance to the Sun-Bittern, of which it has neither 

 the figure nor posture. It is rather a long-legged bird, about as 

 large as an ordinary Fowl, walking quickly and then standing 

 almost motionless, with bright red bill and legs, large eyes, a full 

 pendent crest, and is generally of a light slate-colour, paler beneath, 

 and obscurely barred on its longer wing-coverts and tail v/ith a 

 darker shade. It is only when it spreads its wings that these are 

 seen to be marked and spotted Avith white, rust-colour, and black, 



Kagu. (After Wolf.) 



somewhat after the pattern of those of the Sun-Bittern. Like that 

 bird too, the Kagu will, in moments of excitement, give up its 

 ordinary placid behaviour and execute a variety of violent gesticu- 

 lations, some of them even of a more extraordinary kind, for it will 

 dance round, holding by the bill the tip of its tail or of one of its 

 wings in a way that no other bird is known to do. Its habits in 

 its own country were described at some length in 1863 by M. 

 Jouan {Mini. Soc. Sc. Nat. Cherbourg, ix. pp. 97 and 235), and in 

 1870 by M. Marie (Ades Soc. Linn. Bordeaux, xxvii. pp. 323-326), 

 the last of whom predicts the speedy extinction of this interesting 

 form, a fate foreboded also by the statement of Messrs. Layard 

 {lUs, 1882, pp. 534, 535) that it has nearly disappeared from the 

 neighbourhood of the more settled and inhabited parts. 



