236 NATURAL HISTORY. 



I cannot safely say ; but it appears to me that both senses are called into action. That the sense of 

 touch is highly developed seems quite certain, because the bird, although it may not be actually 

 sniffing, will always just touch an object with the point of its bill, whether in the act of feeding or of 

 surveying the ground ; and when shut up in a cage or confined in a room, it may be heard all through the 

 night tapping softly at the walls. The sniffing sound to which I have referred is heard only when the 

 Kiwi is in the act of feeding or hunting for food ; but I have sometimes observed the bird touching 

 the ground close to, or immediately round, a worm which it had dropped, without being able to find it. 

 I have remarked, moreover, that the Kiwi will pick up a worm or piece of meat as readily from the 

 bottom of a vessel with water as from the ground, never seizing it, however, till it has just touched it 

 with its bill in the manner described. It is probable that in addition to a highly-developed olfactory 

 power, there is a delicate nervous sensitiveness in the terminal enlargement of the upper mandible. It 

 is interesting to watch the bird, in a state of freedom, foraging for worms, which constitute its prin- 

 cipal food : it moves about with a slow action of the body, and the long flexible bill is driven into the 

 soft ground, generally home to the very root, and is either immediately withdrawn with a worm held 

 at the extreme tip of the mandibles, or it is gently moved to and fro by an action of the head and 

 neck, the body of the bird being perfectly steady. It is amusing to observe the extreme care and 

 deliberation with which the bird draws the worm from its hiding-place, coaxing it out, as it wex-e, by 

 degrees, instead of pulling roughly or breaking it. On getting the worm fairly out of the ground it 

 throws up its head with a jerk and swallows it whole. The stomach of a recently-killed wild bird 

 which I dissected contained a hinau-berry (Elceocarpiis dentatus), and rounded fragments of white 

 quartz. Dr. Day writes me : ' In its very muscular stomach I have usually found the remains of 

 beetles, pebbles, and many kernels of the hinau-berry.' " 



The Apteryx has been known to lay in confinement, but up to the present time no young birds 

 have been hatched in a state of captivity. Mr. Bartlett contributed to the Zoological Society an 

 account of the Apteryx mantelli, and its attempts at nesting in the Zoological Gardens. " During last 

 year" (1867), writes Mr. Bartlett, " these birds showed symptoms of a desire to pair. This was known 

 by the loud calling of the male, which was answered by the female in a much lower and slower note. 

 They were particularly noisy during the night, but altogether silent in the daytime. On the 2nd of 

 January the first egg was laid, and for a day or more the female remained on the egg, but as soon as 

 she quitted the nest the male bird took to it, and remained constantly sitting. On the 2nd of 

 February the second egg was laid, the female leaving the nest as soon as the egg was deposited. The 

 two birds now occupied the two opposite corners of the room in which they were kept, the male on 

 the two eggs in the nest under the straw, the female concealed in her corner, also under a bundle of 

 straw placed against the wall. During the time of incubation they ceased to call at night, in fact, 

 were perfectly silent and kept apart. 



" I found the eggs in a hollow formed on the ground in the earth and straw, and placed lengthwise, 

 side by side. The male bird lay across them, his narrow body appearing not sufficiently broad to 

 cover them in any other way. The ends of the eggs could be seen projecting from the side of the bird. 

 The male continued to sit in the most persevering manner until the 25th of April, at which time he 

 was much exhausted, and left the nest. On examining the eggs, I found no trace of young birds. 

 Notwithstanding the failure of reproducing the Apteryx, I think sufficient has been witnessed to 

 show that this bird's mode of reproduction does not differ essentially from those of the allied Struthious 

 birds, in all cases of which that have come under my notice, the male bird only sits. I have wit- 

 nessed the breeding of the Mooruk, the Cassowary, the Emu, and the Rhea, and the mode of 

 proceeding of the Apteryx fully justifies me in believing the habits of this bird to be in no way 

 materially different from those of its allies." 



THE THIRD DIVISION OF BIRDS. THE LIZARD-TAILED BIRDS (SAURUR^). 



Only one representative of this division is known, and that a fossil one, the ArcJiaiopteryx 

 lithographic. The first evidence of the existence of a bird in strata of Oolitic age was furnished by 

 the discovery of the impression of a single feather in a slab of lithographic stone from Solenhofen in 

 Bavaria, described and figured by Hermann von Meyer in 1861, and named by him Archceopteryx. 

 Later on in that year, the greater portion of the skeleton of an animal was discovered in the samo 



