76 CRITICAL NOTES. 
largest Kiwi yet procured. It was caught in 1868, by a party of 
diggers, near the sources of the Aorere River, during the time of the 
“ Bergoo” rush. The bird, which was, of course, eaten, was described 
by the captors as having been as large as a turkey, and to have weighed 
nearly 14lbs. Whatever truth there may be in this, it is evident that 
the bird must have been a remarkable one, or the diggers would never 
have thought, during the excitement of a new rush, of keeping the legs 
and taking them to the Resident Magistrate at Collingwood. The length 
of the tarsus is 3in., circumference 1:85in. ; inner toe and claw, 2-4in. ; 
middle toe and claw, 3:25in. ; outer toe and claw, 2:25in. ; hind toe and 
claw, lin. The feathers of this bird are not known. Possibly it may 
have been a specimen of A. australis, but I am inclined to think it is 
of the same species as the two large spotted Kiwis in the Canterbury 
Museum, which I have referred to A. maaima, because they live on the 
mountains, above the regions of the forest, and because Dr. Haast 
informs me that as soon as the Maoris saw them they called them the 
Roa-roa. 
67. STREPSILAS INTERPRES. 
A specimen of this bird has been sent to the Colonial Museum by 
Dr. Haast. It does not appear to be uncommon in the South Island, for 
there are several other specimens in the Canterbury Museum. All are 
in the winter or autumn plumage. 
80. HIMANTOPUS MELAS. 
T cannot agree with Dr. Finsch that this bird is the summer plumage 
of H. Nove Zealandic, for last August I saw it on the sea shore at 
Collingwood. Neither do I think that one is the immature plumage of 
the other, for Mr. Fuller, of Christchurch, has proved that the young of 
melas, soon after hatching, has the plumage, as described in the catalogue, 
and a specimen in the Colonial Museum shews, that they keep their 
plumage until they are nearly full grown. But Mr. Potts has a skin of 
a young Himantopus, which is smaller than the one in the Colonial 
Museum, and yet has the head and neck white, and the lower abdomen 
black. This bird I believe to be the young of Nove Zealandie. I have 
seen birds in this plumage in the Waikato in March. There can, 
however, be no doubt but that mature specimens of melas are met 
with having the throat white, and, occasionally, a few white feathers on 
other parts of the body, but these may be albino varieties, or, possibly, 
hybrids, as suggested by Mr. Blyth, in his notes on Jerdon’s Birds of 
India, (‘“ Ibis,” 1865, p. 35.) 
