THE ZooLocist—May, 1872. 8055 
the bill to be an accidental deformity ; again, it has in some way 
been confused with C. bicinctus, from which it differs materially, 
in habits as well as structure. 
A consideration of the natural features of its favourite haunts 
permits us to indulge in surmises as to the convenience and 
adaptability of its remarkable form of beak for obtaining its food. 
Where we have seen it has never been far from water, and if, as we 
presume, this bird is peculiar to this country, we can point to our 
larger river beds as affording it admirable feeding grounds. These 
rapid shallow streams are perpetually wandering and shifting in 
their course, cutting new channels after each freshet, whether 
occasioned by heavy rain-falls or by the melting of snow from the 
alpine crests of the “back country.” Anyone acquainted with our 
“plains” must have observed, here and there, how certain parts 
(termed by geologists “ fans”) are thickly covered with stones—as, 
for instance, some miles below the gorges of the Rakaia or Rangi- 
tata; however unpromising or useless they may appear to the 
inexperienced, the practical grazier is aware that those stones assist 
in keeping the ground cool, and in retaining beneath them a certain 
amount of moisture which, during the drier portion of the year 
(when the parching north-west winds prevail), thus invigorates the 
thirsty rootlets of many valuable grasses, and the result is the 
maintenance of a fair number of sheep on this rather barren-looking 
stretch of country. When any of these stones are disturbed from 
their bed, who can have failed to notice the commotion produced 
amongst the insect community thus suddenly disclosed to view; 
what scuttling ensues to gain fresh concealment from the garish 
jight of day. In a somewhat similar manner, after a stream has 
deserted its temporary bed, in all probability numerous forms of 
aquatic insect life, attracted by the moisture, are to be found in the 
sand in which the shingle lies half imbedded. The horny point of 
the bill of this bird, from its peculiar form, is sufficiently strong to 
be used for thrusting between and under stones and pebbles. 
The flexibility of the upper mandible derived from the long 
grooves and flattened form (extending to nearly half its length), 
tends materially to assist the bird in fitting its curved bill close to 
a stone, and thus aids it in searching or fossicking around or 
beneath the shingle for its food, while at the same time the closed 
mandibles would form a tube through which water and insects 
could be drawn up, as water is sucked up by asyringe. As the 
