240 Transactions.—Zoology. 
Maruroa Flat, not far from the homestead. One day his dogs ran down a 
large bird, and on coming up he found it alive and unharmed. Taking the 
bird from the dogs he deliberately killed it, took it to his tent and hung it 
up to the ridge pole. On the following day the station manager (Mr. J. 
Connor), in making his customary round, visited the camp. The rabbiter 
had just struck his tent, and calling the manager's attention to the dead bird, 
still suspended to the ridge pole, told him he might have it. Mr. Connor, 
who was intelligent enough to suspect that he had found a Notornis, at once 
accepted the offer and took the bird home to the station, where he carefully 
and very successfully skinned it, preserving also all the bones of the body. 
The weather had been exceptionally severe, and it is supposed that this 
was how the Notornis came to be found on the flats, having been driven 
down from the high country. The man who caught it said that it seemed 
quite tame, whereas Mantell’s bird (as already mentioned) made a vigorous 
resistance on being taken. 
Professor Parker having undertaken to describe the skeleton for our 
“Transactions,” Dr. Hector invited me to undertake the same duty 
regard to the skin, in order that, in default of the specimen itself, we might 
have on record in the colony as complete a monograph as possible of this 
interesting bird. I cheerfully undertook the task, and made a visit to 
Dunedin specially for this purpose. 
On being introduced to this rara avis I experienced again the old charm 
that always came over me when gazing upon the two examples in the British 
Museum—the lingering representatives of a race co-existent in this land 
with the colossal Moa! Then, retiring to the Museum Library, I shut 
myself in with Notornis, handled my specimen with the loving tenderness of 
a true naturalist, sketched and measured its various parts, and made @ 
minute description of its plumage. : 
Like many other New Zealand forms of an earlier period, the Notorn's 
is the gigantic prototype of a well known genus of Swamp Hens. It is, 2 
fact, to all appearance a huge Pukeko (Porphyrio), with feeble or aborted 
wings, and abbreviated toes, the feet resembling those of Tribonyw—® bird 
incapable of flight, but admirably adapted for ranning. Similar, no doubt, 
was the relation borne by the powerful Aptornis to our present Woodhen 
(Ocydromus) ; but in that case the prototype has disappeared, leaving only 
its fossil bones for the study of the scientist, and its place in nature t be 
filled by its existing diminutive representatives. ; 
The interest attaching to Notornis has been greatly enhanced by the dis- 
covery that the white Swamp Hen, of Norfolk Island, belongs to the ease 
genus, as this has an important bearing on the study of geographic a 
tribution. 
