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amusing to note tlieiv treatment of the liuhu.' This grub, the larva of a large 

 nocturnal beetle (Pt'ionojjlus reticidm'is), which constitutes their principal food, 

 infests all decayed timber, attaining at matiirity the size of a man's little finger. 

 Like all grubs of its kind, it is furnished with a hard head and horny mandibles. 

 On offering one of these to the Huia, he would seize it in the middle and, at once 

 transferring it to his perch and placing one foot firmly upon it, he would tear off" 

 the hard parts, then throwing the grub upwards to secvire it lengthwise in his bill, 

 would swallow it whole. For the first few days these birds were compara- 

 tively quiet, remaining stationary on their joerch as soon as their hunger was 

 appeased. Bnt they afterwards became more lively and active, indulging in 

 play with each other and seldom remaining more than a few moments in one 

 position. I sent to the woods for a small branched ti'ee, and placed it in the 

 centre of the room, the floor of which was spread with sand and gravel. It 

 was most interesting to watch these graceful birds hopping from branch to 

 branch, occasionally spreading the tail into a broad fan, displaying themselves 

 in a variety of natural attitudes and then meeting to caress each other with 

 their ivory bills, uttering at the same time a low affectionate twitter. They 

 generally moved along the branches by a succession of light hops after the 

 manner of the kokako {Callceas cinerea), and they often descended to the floor 

 where their mode of jjrogression was tlie same. They seemed never to tire of 

 probing and chiselling with their beaks. Having discovered that the canvas 

 lining of the room was pervious, they were incessantly piercing it, and 

 tearing off" large strips of paper till, in the course of a few days, the walls were 

 completely defaced. 



But what interested me most of all was the manner in which the 

 bii'ds assisted each other in their search for food, because it appeared 

 to explain the use, in the economy of nature, of the differently formed bills in 

 the two sexes. To divert the birds I introduced a log of decayed wood 

 infested with the liuhu grub. They at once attacked it, carefully probing the 

 softer parts with their bills, and then vigorously assailing them, scooping out 

 the decayed wood till the larva or pupa was visible, when it Avas carefully 

 drawn from its cell, treated in the way described above, and then swallowed. 

 The very clifliei-ent development of the mandibles in the two sexes enabled them 

 to perfonn separate ofiices. The male always attacked the more decayed 

 portions of the wood, chiselling out his prey after the manner of some wood- 

 peckers, while the female probed with her long plient bill the other cells, Avhere 

 the hardness of the surrounding parts resisted the chisel of her mate. Some- 

 times I observed the male remove the decayed portion without being able 

 to reach the grub, when the female would at once come to his aid, and accom- 

 lolisli with her long slender bill what he had failed to do. I noticed, howevei-, 

 that the female always appropriated to her own use the morsels thus obtained. 



For some days they refused to eat anything but liuhu, but by degrees they 



