THE GREY KIWI 347 



lia If -pronounced variation in tone, or tint of diseoloiiration, which 

 calls for the nice discrimination of the practised ornithologist 

 when questions of age have to be settled. In winter and summer 

 alike, they adhere to their sober colours with quaker-like 

 pertinacity. ' ' 



It is thought that the separate lodging is set up until the young 

 are well able to forage for themselves, under the giiidance and 

 protection of the old birds, so that the family party is not 

 necessarily broken up because all its members do not abide 

 together in one place of hiding and rest. There does not seem 

 to be any reason for believing that kiwis are great travellers, 

 as ample supplies of food may be obtained by fossicking around 

 their homes. Judging by the tracks made, they resort to the 

 same holes for some time, probal:)ly till the family has consumed 

 the more favourite kinds of food in the vicinity. These kiwis 

 seem to adopt the same squatting posture as the rowi, and are 

 cjuite as lethargic, allowing themselves to be captured without 

 further resistance than a feeble struggle, in which, at worst, a 

 scratch or two would punish incautious handling. 



This species has been found very high up on the ranges, not 

 far below the snow; but, it is stated, always in the bush. Mr. 

 Potts took one from a deep hole beneath a fragment of rock, just 

 within the scrub bush, about a mile westward of the Franz Joseph 

 Glacier. 



Dogs readil.y follow the scent of Apter\'x. Very large numbers 

 of the birds have been needlessly destroyed by hunters. Bushmen, 

 it is stated, do not dislike the tiesh of the kiwi, and the meat, 

 though coarse, has a gamey flavour. The eggs afford excellent 

 food. 



This bird is especially abundant in the wild and mountainous 

 south-western portions of the South Island, and numbei's of them 

 are kept at the Government sanctuary at Resolution Island. At 

 one time a large demand sprang up for kiwi skins, which were 

 used for making muffs, and the hunting of the birds became 

 almost a vocation. One kiwi hunter told Mr. Potts that up to the 

 close of 1871 he had killed about two thousand two hundred 

 specimens of Apteryx oweni and A. australis. 



