530 



XATLn.lL lIIsrOIlY OF BIRDS. 



of being absolutely wanting on the Australian continent, though occurring in Xew 

 Zealand and in several of the Polynesian Islands. A light is thrown uj>on this sin- 

 gular circumstance by the fact that the New Zealand forms are quite peculiar, and 

 that Madagascar also possesses peculiar sfurnine genera. 



One of these remarkable New Zoalanrl starlings is the huia-bird (Ifeteralocha 

 acutirostris), as depicted in the accompanying fine cut. It will be well at the outset 

 to assure the reader that the two birds there figured really belong to the same 



Fio. 263. — Slumru vulgaris, European slarllug ; a. unicolor, Sardinian starling. 



species, being in fact, the one with. the str.aight bill the male, the other the fem.ale. 

 Characteristic of both is the wattle at the mouth angle. They occujiy now a very 

 limited space in a few densely- wooded mountain ranges, and like the many other 

 abnornual tyjics — that is, types diverging greatly from the more modern avian forms 

 — they seem to be doomed to an early extinction. Tlie huia was often in the systems 

 associated with the foregoing family, but an anatomical examination which Garrod 

 was enabled to make on a specimen which died in the London Zoological Gardens 



