558 PASSERIFORMES CHAP. 
the male courts the female hke a Pigeon. The nest, a sort of basin 
of mud with a straw lining, is fixed on a horizontal branch, and 
contains from four to seven yellowish-white eggs with olive and 
purphsh-brown markings. Struthidea frequents pine tracts,and has 
sunilar habits and nest, the eggs being white with red-brown and 
erey blotches. In Heteralocha' acutirostris, the New Zealand Huia, 
the female has a remarkably long, curved bill, that of the male 
being short, stout, and nearly straight. The plumage is greenish- 
black, with a white-tipped tail; the bill is whitish, the feet are blue- 
erey, the large rictal wattles orange. This bird frequents wooded 
gullies in the North Island, seldom flying above the foliage, but 
bounding or hopping along the ground or upon the branches. 
Natives attract and noose it by imitating the whistling note. 
The cock chisels away the decayed bark, and the hen probes the 
crevices for insects; “huhu” caterpillars and berries varying the 
main diet. The nest, of dry grass, leaves, and stalks, is placed in 
hollow trees, the eggs being apparently whitish, with or without 
brown and grey spots. Creadion carunculatus, the Saddle-back 
of the same country, is black, with chestnut back, rump, wing- 
and tail-coverts, and small yellow or red gape-wattles. It haunts 
wooded hills, hopping actively or moving spirally up the trunks and 
branches, while the flight is short, rapid, and laboured. |The notes 
may be soft and sweet, or noisy and shrill; the food resembles 
that of Heteralocha. The nest of dry leaves, ferns, fibres, moss, 
and bark is built in hollow trees or large ferns, the three or four 
greyish-white eggs shewing purplish-brown markings. 
Podoces includes four desert species, with elongated, strong, 
curved, and pointed bills; long, stout legs; short, rounded wings ; 
and moderate square tails. The colour is fawn, grey, and brown, 
generally with black and white wings and black tail; P. hender- 
sont and P. biddulphi have a black cap, the former shewing white 
spots on it, P. panderi has a black throat-patch, P. humilis is 
brown with whitish nape and lower parts. They haunt sand- 
hills covered with saxaul (Anabasis ammodendron) or tamarisk, 
from Transcaspia to Tibet, running swiftly, occasionally flying 
like a Jay, feeding on the ground upon insects, their larvae, and 
seeds, uttering harsh reiterated Woodpecker-hke cries, and making 
a nest of twigs lined with bark, grass, and hair in low trees, bushes, 
or rarely holes in the ground. The four eggs are greenish-grey 
1 This genus and the two next perhaps belong to the Sturnidae. 
