190 Transactions. — Zoology. 



"kurr, kurr, kurr." These calls were heard through the night, commencing 

 sometime after sundown and ceasing about three o'clock in the morning ; we 

 never heard a call after dawn. 



The breeding season extends over several months; eggs have been obtained 

 on the West Coast during a great part of the yea,r. The home is to be found 

 usually beneath the spreading roots of trees, in logs, or under rocks, and 

 will contain sometimes one or two eggs or young, but never more. The 

 nests are found on the bare soil, and are never constructed of dried fern 

 and grasses. The pair of birds usually remain together during some months 

 and share the labours of incubation, but the male apparently allows much 

 of the labour of rearing the young to devolve on the female. The young 

 have been found at a short distance from the family abode — in a nursery in 

 fact. They are quaint looking little animals, with not too much of the savour 

 of youth about them, being nearly exact miniatures of the adult ; that well 

 known ornithic characteristic — change of colour — troubles them not ; there is 

 no young state of plumage with them, none of that half-pronounced variation 

 in tone, or tint of colouration, which calls for the nice discrimination of the 

 practised ornithologist when questions of age have to be settled. They 

 assume not seasonal distinctions of dress ; in winter and summer they adhere 

 to their sober colours with quaker-like pertinacity. 



The separate lodging is probably not set up till the young are well able to 

 forage for themselves under the guidance and protection of the old birds ; the 

 family party is not necessarily broken up, because all its members do not 

 abide together in one place of hiding and rest. There does not appear to be 

 any reason for believing kiwis to be great travellers, ample supplies of food 

 are to be obtained by fossicking around their homes. Judging from tracks, 

 they appear to resort to the same holes for some time, probably till the family 

 has consumed the more favourite kinds of food in the vicinity. Kiwis seem to 

 adopt the same squatting posture as the rowi, and are quite as lethargic,/ 

 suffering themselves to be captured without any other resistance than a feeble 

 struggle, in which, at worst, a scratch or two would punish incautious 

 handling. As for defence, the domestic cock or hen would be terrible as " a 

 raging lion " compared to this harmless bush fowl. 



They suffer from at least two races of parasites. 



Note. — December 17th. Took a kiwi out of a log, very white skin, legs, 

 and feet ; it was infested with a species of Pediculus, sandy in colour, and 

 remarkably active in its movements ; immediately below the chin hung a 

 slatish coloured species of Acarus, which maintained a very firm hold, and was 

 dislodged with difficulty. 



Sometimes the kiwi has been found very high up on the ranges, not very 

 far below the snow it is said, but always in the bush. 



