TINAMOUS. 51 



it nppenrs to mo that both souses nro cnlloil into action. It is probnhlo that, in addi- 

 tion to a highly dovelojiod olfactory j)owcr, tliorc is a dolicato nervous sensitiveness in 

 the terminal enlargement of the upper mandible. It is interesting to watch the bird, 

 in a state of freedom, foraging for worms, which constitute its principal food; it 

 moves about with a slow action of the biidy, and the long, flexible bill is driven into 

 the soft ground, generally home to the very root, and is either immediately with(ha\vn 

 with a worm held at the extreme tip of the mandibles, or it is gently moved to and 

 fro, by an action of the head and neck, the body of the bird being perfectly steady. 

 On getting the worm fairly out of the ground, it llnows up its head with a jerk, and 

 swallows it whole. 



The enormous size of the kiwi's egg h.-is often been the subject of speculation and 

 comment, for, until the fact was established beyond all cjuestion, it seemed almost 

 impossible that the very large eggs occasionally brought m by the natives were the 

 produce of this bird. The evidence has been furnished by eggs laid in the Zoological 

 Gardens, and by another taken in utero. One of the former is stated to have weighed 

 14^ ounces, or about one fourth of the bird's own weight. The probability is that the 

 male alone sits on the ejCEr. The kiwis are monomimic. 



^03' 



Order IV. — CRYPTUEI. 



Even the older authors were aware of some of the Struthious features of these 

 small South American ground-birds, which usually arc referred to the Gallinaceous 

 order. lUiger remarked as early as 1811 that " the bill is wonderfully conformable with 

 that of Ji/iea,'" and later on (1835) Sundevall stated that they " recall small ostriches." 

 Their small size, and a certain superficial resemblance to the gallinaceous birds pre- 

 vented the recognition of their true nature until Parker's celebrated anatomical 

 monogra]ih a]ipcared in 1865. The jiresence of a crest on their breast-bone, however, 

 seemed to Huxley to be so strong a character, that he would not admit them to the 

 division including the ostriches, and so he made of them a separate order, the distinc- 

 tive feature of which was the predominance of Struthious characters. We have 

 stated above, why the presence or absence of a keel to the sternum seems to us to be 

 a matter of only slight consequence, particularly when seeing that most of the other 

 characters of imjtortance are chiefly struthionine. That certain birds of other orders 

 for instance, Dendrortyx, Hemipodius, Sijn-liaptes, the rails, and the plovers, present 

 characters to a certain degi-ee also found in the Crypturi, is quite natural, as these 

 forms arc compar.itively generalized and therefore possess the reptilian features of 

 the common ancestors less obscured than their more specialized relatives of the 

 Euornithic series or super-order. It is therefore not quite correct to say that the 

 Crypturi are interinediate between the Struthious and the Gallinaceous birds, when 

 the fact is that the latter are intennediate between their own and the Dronueog- 

 nathous birds' common ancestors, on the one hand, and those of the rest of the 

 Euornithes on the other. 



Xot only is the bill struthionine, but still more so the palatal arrangement, for the 

 broad coalescing vomer in front joins the end of the broad maxillo-])alatines, receiving 

 behind the hinder end of the palatines (which do not arlicidate with the basisphenoid), 

 and the anterior ends of the pterygoids. Another struthious feature is that the head 

 of the quadrate bone is single. Xotwithstanding the fact tliat the wings of the 

 tinanious, as the birds of this order arc called, are functional, the shoulder-girdle and 

 the sternum present enough characters to show that they have " not escaped from the 



