KITTY—KIWI 



493 



their primaries not being tipped with white. The species occurs on 

 both sides of the Atlantic, breeding in great numbers in Spitsbergen 

 and Greenland, but in Baffin's Sea not going so far to the northward 

 as some of the other Gulls. It inhabits also the North Pacific, and 

 among those which frequent Bering's Sea, not a few examples have 

 the hind toe considerably developed, though not enough to be 

 functional. These have been named E. hotzebuii, but cannot be 

 regarded as forming a good species. The R. brevirostris, with red 

 legs and feet, from the same waters, seems to be distinct, but 

 whether it is justifiably placed in the genus is another matter. 



KITTY, a local nickname of the Wren. 



KIWI, or Kiwi-Kiwi, the Maori name — first apparently intro- 

 duced to zoological literature by Lesson in 1828 (Mem. d'Orn. ii. p. 

 210, or Voy. ' CoquilU,' Zool. p. 418), and now very generally adopted 

 in English — of one of the most characteristic forms of New-Zealand 

 birds, the Apteryx of scientific writers. This remarkable creature 

 was unknown till Shaw, as almost his latest labour, very fairly 

 described and figured it in 1813 [Nat. Miscellany, pis. 1057, 1058) 

 from a specimen brought to him from the southern coast of that 

 country by Capt. Barcley of the ship 'Providence.' At Shaw's 

 death, in the same year, it passed into the possession of the then 

 Lord Stanley, afterwards thirteenth Lord Derby, and is now Avith 

 the rest of his collection in the Liverpool Museum. Considering 

 the state of systematic ornithology at the time, Shaw's assignment 

 of a position to this new and strange bird, of which he had but the 

 skin, does him great credit, for he said it seemed " to approach more 

 nearly to the Struthious and Gallinaceous tribes than to any other " ' 

 And his credit is still greater when we find the venerable Latham, 

 who is said to have examined the specimen with Shaw, placing it 

 some years later among the Penguins {Gen. Hist. B. x. p. 394), being 

 apparently led to that conclusion through its functionless wings and 

 the backward situation of its legs. In this false allocation Stephens 

 also in 1826 acquiesced {Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 70). Meanwhile in 1820 

 Temminck, who had never seen a specimen, assorted it with the 

 Dodo in an Order to which he applied the name of Inertes {Man. 

 d'Orn. i. p. cxiv.) In 1831 Lesson, who had previously {locc. citt.) 

 made some blunders about it,^ placed it {TraiU d'Orn. p. 12), though 

 only, as he says, " par analogie etd, priori," in his first division of Birds 

 " Oiseaux Anomaux," which is equivalent to what we now call Ratitse, 

 making of it a separate Family "Nullipennes." At that time no 

 second example was known, and some doubt was felt especially on 



^ Before Merrem nearly all had held the "Struthious" birds to be "Gallin- 

 aceous," and his views were not published till 1813 (see Introduction). 



- iluch may be forgiven to Lesson for declaring that the sternum of Apteryx 

 would be " induhitablement " found to have no keel ! 



