190 
NATURE 
[Fan. 5, 1871 

NEW ZEALAND ANIMALS IN THE ZOO- 
LOGICAL SOCIETY’S GARDENS 
ae a recent examination for the Natural Science tripos 
at Cambridge, one of the pieces of information 
asked for in vain by the examiners was, I am told, “some 
account of the chief peculiarities of the Fauna of New 
Zealand.” It so happens that the series of animals of our 
antipodean colony in the Zoological Society’s Gardens is at 
the present moment unprecedentedly complete, and had the 
young gentlemen of Cambridge paid them an attentive 
visit, would have furnished ample materials for a proper 
answer to the examiners. I propose, therefore, to offer a 
few remarks upon them, and to make them the basis of 
some sort of answer to the question above mentioned, 
Mammals in New Zealand there are none, exceptintro- 
duced species and bats, so it is not inthis class of the animal 
kingdom that the visitor to the Society’s gardens will find 
examples of New Zealand animals, There are, it is true, tra- 


ditions and reports of some sort of “native rat”* having been 
occasionally met with, but no one has yet been able to pro- 
duce a specimen of it, and after all, when captured, it may 
turn out to be only a stray individual of that cosmopolitan 
errant Mus decumanus, There are also marine mammals, 
both seals and whales, to be met with in the surrounding 
seas. But no terrestrial mammals, except bats, are indige- 
nous to New Zealand, and for a country of such size, and 
situated in such latitudes, this is certainly a very remark- 
able and indeed unparalleled peculiarity. 
With the next class of Vertebrates, however, the Case is 
quite different. Bird-life, although according to the 
general evidence of the settlers not individually abundant, 
cannot be said to be badly represented in New Zealand. 
Dr. Otto Finsch, to whom we are indebted for the most 
recent summary of the birds of these islands,t gives 155 
as the number of well-determined species hitherto met 
with, and there are, doubtless, a few more still to be made 
out, which will probably not long escape the grasp of 
KAKAPO, OR GROU®D PARROT 
several excellent naturalists who are now at work on the 
fauna of their adopted country. Of these 150 species, 
one third, or perhaps rather more, are found only in New 
Zealand. But what makes its bird-life still more peculiar, 
is that the greater part of these 50 species belong to some 
17 or 18 generic forms which are quite unknown else- 
where. And several of these forms (such as He/eralocha, 
Strigops, Apteryx, and Anarhynchus) are of the most 
bizarre and extraordinary character. 
Of the Huia bird (Heteralocha gouldi) 1 have already 
given a notice and figure in the pages of NaTURE.* Iam 
not aware that there is any other instance in the class of 
birds in which the difference between the bill of the two 
sexes is so great, though something of the same sort is 
exhibited in the Humming-birds of the genera Grypus 
and Anzdrodon, The Huia bird in the Zoological 
Society’s Gardens has recently moulted off its worn and 
injured plumage, and is now in excellent health and 
condition, 
* Vol ii. p. 146, June 23, 1870. 

Of the very singular Kakafo, or Ground Parrot of New 
Zealand (Strigops habroptilus), I regret to say we have at 
present no example in the Society’s Gardens. In the 
summer of last year one of these birds was successfully 
brought home from the Hokatika district, and was tem- 
porarily deposited by its owner in the Regent’s Park 
Gardens, where it remained several months. But we were 
not able to come to terms as to its fair value, and the 
bird was consequently removed. The chief peculiarities 
of the Aakafo are its nocturnal habits, its abortive wings 
(which are nearly incapable of flight), the corresponding 
non-development of the crest of the sternum, and the 
possession of a facial disc, which gives it somewhat of an 
owl-like appearance. It is, however, a true parrot in the 
most essential part of its structure, and its food is strictly 
vegetable. During its sojourn in the Zoological Society’s 
Gardens, it was fed principally upon corn and seeds of 
* See ‘‘ Dieffenbach’s New Zealand,” vol. ii., Aop. p. 185. 
+ Ueber die Vogel Neu-Seelands. Von Dr, O, Finsch in Bremen, Journ, 
f. Ornith., 1870, p. 241. 
