KAGU. 117 



rivers and are said to be very shy. Nevertheless, they are easily tamed, and travelers 

 assert that they are often kept in captivity by the natives inhabiting the valleys of the 

 Amazon and Orinoco. They are therefore often found in the zoological gardens, 

 where they thrive very well. They bred first in the London Zoological Garden, and 

 from the account by the superintendent, Mr. A. D. Bartlett, we select the following 

 concerning this event: "Early in the month of May, 1865, they began to show signs 

 of breeding, by carrying bits of sticks, roots of grass, and other materials about ; they 

 were constantly walking round the pond, evidently in search of materials to compose 

 a nest, and appeared to try and mix wet dirt with bits of moss, etc. This suggested 

 the idea of supplying them with wet clay and mud, which they at once commenced to 

 use. After a short time they settled to make a nest on the top of a pole or tree about 

 ten feet from the ground, on which was fixed an old straw nest. One egg was laid, 

 but broken, but early in June another was found, resembling that of a woodcock rather 

 than any other bird. The two birds were very attentive, and took turns at incubation, 

 and in twenty-seven days the young bird was hatched. It is certainly one of the 

 prettiest young birds I ever saw. It is thickly covered with fine short tufts of down, 

 and much resembles the young of the plovers and the snipes, with the addition that 

 the head and body was thickly covered with rather longer hairs than are to be seen in 

 the former-mentioned birds. The young bird remained in the nest and was fed regu- 

 larly by both parents, the food consisting principally of small live fish, a few insects, 

 'etc. The mode of taking its food was somewhat peculiar: it did not gape and call or 

 utter any cry like most nestlings ; bnt as soon as the old birds flew upon the nest with 

 the food in their bills, the young one snapped or pecked it from them and swallowed 

 it at once. The young bird remained in the nest twenty-one days, by which time its 

 wings were sufficiently grown to enable it to fly to the ground. It was then fed as 

 before, and -never .afterward returned to the nest; it grew quickly, and at the end of 

 two months was indistinguishable from the old birds. Early in August the old birds 

 began to repair the nest, and added a fresh lining of mud and clay, and at the end of 

 August laid another egg. In remarking upon these interesting facts, I may observe 

 that the egg differs considerably from the eggs of any true Ardeine bird with which 

 I am acquainted, in its spotted and blotched markings, and jn this character bears a 

 strong resemblance to those of the plovers and snipes ; nor are these the only resem- 

 blances, its downy covering, color, and markings leading one to regard it as allied to 

 these forms." 



Kagu is the native name of a remarkable bird, which is only known from the 

 island of New Caledonia, forming a separate genus, Rhynochetos, the type of an en- 

 tire ' family,' RHYNOCHETID^E. Bartlett had already, from external characters, insisted 

 upon the relationship of this form with the sun-bittern, when Professor Parker, from 

 an osteological point of view, asserted that R. jubatus and the sun-bittern are very 

 closely allied, and that these are allied again to the cranes, rails, herons, and plovers, 

 though more generalized than any of these, regarding them, in fact, with Psophia, of 

 which more later on under the cranes, as indicating the way by which these* different 

 types have developed. We shall not go into details here concerning the anatomical 

 features of the kagu, referring as we do to the accompanying cut representing the 

 skeleton, but we wish to call attention to the weakness of the sternal girdle, the breast- 

 bone corresponding nearly to the embryonic stage of that bone in the crane, and to 

 the great height and steepness of the iliac crests of the pelvis, and the peculiar bend 

 downwards at the hinder part of the sacrum. A noteworthy difference between the 



