312 Mr. Cunningham on the Habits of the Apteryx Australis. 



XXXVI. — On the Habits of the Apteryx Australis, a Bird 

 of New Zealand, closely allied to the Struthionidae, and 

 named by the native Inhabitants Kiwi. By the late Allan 

 Cunningham, Esq.* 



This most remarkable bird inhabits the densest and darkest forests. 

 In those near the Kerikeri and Waimate missionary stations, a few 

 miles from the shores of the Bay of Islands, it was formerly frequently 

 observed and taken, as it is still to be found in the woods of the 

 Hokianga river. It is however by no means confined to any par- 

 ticular district, for it is to be met with in all the wooded parts of the 

 northern island. In these humid forests it reposes during the day, 

 either beneath the tufts of long sedgy grass, a species of Carex every- 

 where abounding in the woods, or it hides itself, shunning the light, 

 in the hollows at the base of the " Rata" tree, (Metrosideros robusta 

 A. C. — N. s.f) In these situations it constructs a very simple nest, 

 laying, as all agree, but a solitary egg, which is about the size of a 

 duck's, or as some natives assert, nearly as large as that of a goose, 

 with which bird they are now familiar, the missionaries and other 

 Europeans having some time since introduced It to their poultry- 

 yards. Its period of incubation could not be ascertained from the 

 natives. No sooner are its native woods darkened by the presence 

 of night, than it ranges about in quest of food, which (as all ac- 

 counts inform us) is exclusively worms, procured by burrowing with 

 its feet, and perforating slightly the soft humid subsoil with its at- 

 tenuated bill ; and doubtless it is directed in the night by powerful 

 instinct to the spots where these abound ; for its eyes are very small, 

 and its upper mandible, with the nasal orifices at its extremity or tip, 

 possesses doubtless an acute sense of smelling. 



It is not gregarious, and but very seldom indeed to be seen in 

 small numbers : generally they are in pairs (a male and female) ; 

 and in the larger forests, less frequented by the natives, these pairs 

 may be met with at distances of about a quarter of a mile. 



The cry of the Kiwi at night is similar to the whistling made by 



* Read before the Zoological Society, May 14, 1839. The communica- 

 tion was entitled " Hough Notes collected from the New Zealanders (by aid 

 of the Missionaries), on the habits of the Apteryx australis," dated Sydney, 

 N. S. Wales, 26th Nov. 1838, and accompanied the skin of an Apteryx, and 

 also the body, preserved for dissection, which Mr. Cunningham had procured 

 during a visit to New Zealand. — Our readers will learn with deep regret the 

 loss which science has sustained by the death of Mr. Cunningham, who has 

 so greatly contributed to our knowledge of the Natural History of Australia 

 and New Zealand; and those valuable Flora of the latter country has just 

 been completed in o\ir pages. — Ed. 



t Ann. Nat. Hist. Vol. iii. 112. 



