[ 50 J 



quill portion was very small and short, and overlapped by the 

 down, when the feathers were removed from the skin. Above and 

 below the eye, at the base of the beak, and on the forehead were 

 gi'oups or pencils of long whisker-like hairs. As the kiwi, as the 

 natives called it, was noctm-nal in its habits and lived among the 

 fern beds, boring into the ground and seeking shelter in deep 

 excavations, these hairs might serve the same purpose as the 

 whiskers of the cat ; and supplement the eye, which, unlike that of 

 the other nocturnal birds, was small. So small was the organ of 

 vision, while the cornea was very convex, and the olfactory system 

 so much larger than in other birds, that Professor Owen remarked, 

 " The nocturnal habits of this bird, combined with the necessity for 

 a highly developed organ of smell, which chietiy compensates for 

 the low condition of the organ of vision, produce the most singular 

 modifications which the skull presents, so that it may be said that 

 those cavities which in other birds are devoted to the lodgment of 

 eyes are in the apterix almost exclusively devoted to the nose." The 

 nostrils externally were very narrow, very small, ard set on each 

 side of the tip of the long cuiwed beak, which at this point was 

 somewhat swollen. The internal olfactory appai-atus and the 

 pituitory surface, on which the olfactory nerve freely ramified, was 

 complex and extensive. Like all the Cursores the legs were very 

 strong and muscular, the tarsi short and stout, the toes, four in 

 number, without intervening webs, the three anterior strong and 

 armed with powerful claws, the hinder one short and terminated 

 by a sort of spur, with which it was said to defend itself very 

 vigorously by striking very vapidly, and with great force. The 

 eggs, for so small a bird, were of great size, and showed the 

 absurdity of judging of the size of an animal from the size of the 

 egg. The eggs weighed on an average Hh ounces, while the adult 

 bird weighed 60 ounces ; the proportion being about l-4th, while 

 in the common fowl it was l-48th, and in the case of the ostrich 

 1-lOOth ; with some animals, such as the alligator and crocodile it 

 was much less. 



GIGANTIC BIEDS. 



There ai-e, or. if extinct, were, birds of far more gigantic 

 proportions, viz., the dinornis and notornis of New Zealand, and 

 JEpiornis of Madagascar. The Dinor.nin gigunteus stuod from 14ft. to 

 16ft. high. Two portions of bone in the Brighton Museum would quite 



