6G 



length, with a breadth of nearly 6 lines. Locality, slopes with manuka scrub, 

 in Ohinitahi, Governor's Bay. The Whistler is a great insect eater, and 

 appears especially fond of the well-known ladybird ; we are not without 

 certain suspicions that it devours or destroys the eggs of other birds. 



No. 60. — Coturnix Nov^e Zelandi^e, Quoy. 

 Koreka. 

 Quail. 



This excellent game bird is almost extinct, but a few years since it 

 existed in the utmost abundance ; bush fires, extending often for many miles, 

 must have been the active agent in destroying a bird possessing such limited 

 powers of flight, as our handsome little Quail. 



A very slight nest, composed of a few bents of grass twisted into a 

 depression of the ground, was all the artificial shelter this bird relied on, for 

 the purpose of incubation. The eggs were very numerous ; we have been told 

 that as many as ten or twelve have been found in a nest, oval in shape, colour 

 buffy-white suffused with rich brown splashes, with a remarkably glossy 

 varnish ; length 1 inch 3 lines, by 1 1 lines in diameter. We have not heard 

 its call-note, or seen a bevy of Quail, for years. The sheltered valleys round 

 Lake Coleridge, and about the head-waters of the Rakaia, were the last places 

 in which it lingered, to our knowledge. They bred more than once in the 

 season, as we have a note of abundance of young Quail so late as the 9th and 

 10th of April (this was in 1857). We have seen it escape the talons of the 

 Quail-hawk, by dropping perpendicularly, just when about to be struck, when 

 all hope of escape from its relentless pursuer was quite abandoned. The 

 flight of the Quail is low, and it used to be said that it would not rise after 

 being flushed the third time : numbers were killed by sheep and cattle-dogs in 

 the early days, when it abounded. In style of flight, our bird must resemble 

 the Quail of Taberah and Kibroth-hattaavah, that fed the Children of Israel, 

 in the wilderness : — 'And there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought 

 quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey 

 on this side, and as it were a clay's journey on the other side, round about the 

 camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth." Our bird 

 is not migratory as we believe. The young, with the exception, perhaps, of 

 that of Apteryx Owenii, undergoes less change in plumage than that of any 

 other bird ; the young, when it assumes its feathers, exactly resembles the adult 

 female, with the white streak along the shaft of the feathers, which adds so 

 much to its beauty. 



No. 61. — Apteryx australis. 

 Kiwi. 



We have not enjoyed an opportunity of acquiring, from personal observa- 

 tion, any knowledge of the breeding-habits of the curious family of Apterygidas : 

 a description of the eggs of the different species may be thought not out of 

 place in the present paper. We believe this species is peculiar to the Middle 

 Island. 



An egg received at the Canterbury Museum from Okarito, or its neigh- 

 bourhood, is believed to be an undoubted specimen of this species, — it 

 arrived, in a fresh state, in November. It was white, much blunted at each 

 end, and presenting a very smooth surface ; this enormous egg gives the fol- 

 lowing measurements : through the axis 5 inches 1 line, with a breadth of 

 3 inches 4 lines. 



Rev. J. G Wood, in his "Nat. Hist. Birds," wi-ites of the eggs laid by the 

 Kiwi at the Zoological Gardens, London : " These eggs are indeed wonderful, for 

 the bird weighs j ust a little more than four pounds, and each egg weighs between 



