196 Transactions.— Zoology. 
It is probable that other species will be added to this interesting genus ; 
for the past two or three years we have known of the existence of a white 
kiwi, information concerning it having been scantily furnished at intervals by 
some wandering miner or prospector. Specimens have at different times been 
obtained from the bush in the Martin Bay district. From the descriptions 
that have been gathered they are not albinos, and their occurrence has been too 
frequent for them to be classed amongst specimens showing a mere accidental 
and rare variation either of A. oweni or A. australis ; the plumage is stated 
to be remarkably loose, soft, and flocculent. It is suggested that the name of 
A. mollis would not be inappropriate as its specific designation. A specimen 
of this beautiful little Apteryx in the Dunedin Museum has the bill slightly 
curved, showing an arc elevated about one-fifteenth of its length. 
In. Lines. 
Bill from gape to point = dite ae fe ee 
Tarsus p a = ee Se 
Middle toe oF ae. A ee 
Plumage white, extremities of the ee more or less stained with 
yellowish ; bristly integument at the base of the mandibles yellowish; narrow 
yellowish stain round the eye ; irides brown ; feathers soft to the touch; habitat, 
bush about Martin Bay, west coast of Otago. 
Other specimens have been obtained at Greymouth. The men who 
seek a living in the wilds of the S.W. coast of the South Island are not 
given, as a class, to the study of natural history ; examples of the rarer 
species of our fauna are not the specimens they care to hunt for. Not long 
since the writer met with a man who had probably fed on the Notornis, and had 
lived for two or three weeks on the rare eggs of the crested-penguin. Inquiry 
made of a boatman at the Waitaroa concerning the eggs of a rare, perhaps 
unknown, petrel, or Puffinus, elicited the information that “ not being pretty 
at all they were hoved away.” A similar fate befel some eggs of the white 
heron, “because they would not go in the billy.” Auri sacra James, our 
noble motto, oft blunts‘the spirit of inquiry about all other objects. When 
' journeying along the West Coast the writer was informed by a very intelligent 
Teremakau native that far to the south a black kiwi was to be met with; he 
described it as “all the same as the kiwi, only black.” Probably this may be 
the bird which the Bruce Bay Maoris call the toko-weka ; Apteryx fusca 
would properly distinguish this sombre-plumed species. There seems to be 
some tendency to dusky colours along the S.W. coast as seen in this kiwi, 
Ocydromus, etc., the black shag, for a long distance at least, according to our 
observation, frequents such points as are occupied by P. punctatus on the 
eastern side, so also Hamatopus unicolor is there found in far greater 
abundance than H. longirostris. 
