Teavers. — On Organic Productions of Neiv Zealand. 463 



remains, that whilst the conditions of life under which both birds are 

 placed appear to be identical, so great an amount of modification should 

 have occurred in one or other of the forms, assuming either of them to 

 retain the ancestral characters. Take next the two species of Turnagra. 

 Now, whilst in these we do not find the same marked differences in plumage 

 as in Orthonyx, there can nevertheless be no confusion of the two, and yet 

 with respect to these birds also, there is absolutely nothing in their habits, 

 or modes of life which would enable us to distinguish between them. The 

 distinction in the next instance, — that of the two species of Glaucojris, 

 — is still less marked, but affords, when we consider their habits 

 of life, even a more peculiar case in connection with the question 

 of distribution. The North Island bird is a little the more robust 

 of the two, and its wattles are unicolor, varying from bright blue 

 to purple, whilst the South Island bird has the tail, only, blackish at 

 the tip, and its wattles are bicolor, the point of attachment being blue, 

 whilst the rest is red or orange. Wattles are what is termed a secondary 

 sexual character, and why such a variation as that which appears in 

 this case should have taken place, seeing that they are not confined to 

 one sex only, is certainly very unaccountable. As in the other cited cases 

 the habits of three bird species are absolutely identical, this similitude ex- 

 tending so far, that in each, the bird, when feeding upon the leaf of some 

 succulent herb, such as that of the sow-thistle, holds it in its foot after the 

 manner of a parrot. 



The differences between the two species of Apteryx peculiar to the South 

 Island, and the one peculiar to the North Island, are also well marked, 

 whilst we have, in regard to this genus, the singular fact, that the fourth 

 and remaining species (Apteryx oiveni) is common to both habitats. This 

 rests, as yet, upon the authority of a single specimen only, alleged to have 

 been found in some part of the Tararua Eange. The person by whom the 

 specimen is said to have been obtained, was engaged in surveys which 

 required him to pass some time upon elevated parts of the range, and as he 

 had no apparent motive for practising deception in the matter, and was not 

 sufficiently conversant with the avi-fauna of these islands to see the full 

 significance of his discovery, I am disposed to accept his statement as true 

 until some cogent reasons for distrusting it have been brought forward. 

 The circumstance that two or three specimens of Stringops habropUlus have 

 .been found in the Kaimanawa Eange, lends, as I think, some colour to 

 the probability that Apteryx oiveni is still an inhabitant of the North 

 Island. 



The difference between the species of Petroica, and those of Ocydromus 

 peculiar to the North Island, and the species of the same genera in tbe 



