128 Transactions.— Zoology. 
pointed out (Ann. Nat. Hist., 1872, p. 477), so that I have only to record my 
total dissent from Dr. Buller's views. Dr. Buller also states that this “Ыга 
is known to be a ground-feeder, with a voracious appetite, and to subsist chiefly 
on mosses.’ That it may sometimes eat moss is probable ; but I have tried in 
vain to induce it to do so in captivity, and one that escaped in a garden in 
Auckland remained for a fortnight in a clump of pine trees feeding on the 
flowers, and was never seen to descend to the ground. He also states that 
* there is no physiological reason why the Kakapo should not be as good a 
flier as any other Parrot.’ I should have thought that the small pectoral 
muscles, almost total absence of keel on the sternum, and soft primary feathers 
of the wing, were quite sufficient physiological reasons." 
[Captain Hutton ought to have quoted the whole ef the sentence, for I 
stated that “in all the essential characteristics of structure it is a true Parrot.” 
My statement that this species subsists chiefly on mosses rests on the authority 
of Dr. Haast, who has collected and dissected far more specimens than any 
other person in the colony, and whose close study of the bird in its native 
haunts is sufficiently manifest from the paper which appeared in “The Ibis” 
(1864, pp. 340—346). Captain Hutton does not inform us what particular 
kind of moss he offered in vain to his captive bird. My statement that “there 
is no physiological reason why the Kakapo should not be as good a flier asany 
other Parrot," must of course be read with the context. My argument was, 
that disuse, under the usual operation of the laws of nature, had, in process of 
time, occasioned this physical disability of wing.] 
t NESTOR OCCIDENTALIS. 
“I agree with Dr. Finsch that this species must be united with 
NV. meridionalis." 
[I am very doubtful myself about this species, and Dr. Finsch may, there- 
fore, be right in uniting it to Nestor meridionalis. (See my remarks “ Birds 
of New Zealand," p. 50.) I have in my possession, however, a note from 
Captain Hutton, declaring himself in favour of X. occidentalis as a species 
distinguishable from N. meridionalis “by having the upper mandible more 
compressed and flat on both sides, with the tooth further out, and the lower 
mandible not reaching it." 
For my own part, I attach very little importance to these variations in the 
character of the bill, for that member is more or less variable in all the members 
of the genus Nestor. ] 
* HETERALOCHA ACUTIROSTRIS. 
“The tongue of this bird is not, according to my observations, *bifurcate 
at the tip,’ nor is it ‘furnished with minute barbs,’ but is deeply fringed at the 
tip, and slightly so down each side for about a third of its length." 
