240 Transactions. — Zoology.. 



Maruroa Flat, not far from the homestead. One day his dogs ran down a 

 large bird, and on coming up he found it alive and unharmed. Taking the 

 bird from the dogs he deliberately killed it, took it to his tent and hung it 

 up to the ridge pole. On the following day the station manager (Mr. J. 

 Connor), in making his customary round, visited the camp. The rabbiter 

 had just struck his tent, and calling the manager's attention to the dead bird, 

 still suspended to the ridge pole, told him he might have it. Mr. Connor, 

 who was intelligent enough to suspect that he had found a Notornis, at once 

 accepted the offer and took the bird home to the station, where he carefully 

 and very successfully skinned it, preserving also all the bones of the body. 



The weather had been exceptionally severe, and it is supposed that this 

 was how the Notornis came to be found on the flats, having been driven 

 down from the high country. The man who caught it said that it seemed 

 quite tame, whereas Mantell's bird (as already mentioned) made a vigorous 

 resistance on being taken. 



Professor Parker having undertaken to describe the skeleton for our 

 " Transactions," Dr. Hector invited me to undertake the same duty in 

 regard to the skin, in order that, in default of the specimen itself, we might 

 have on record in the colony as complete a monograph as possible of this 

 interesting bird. I cheerfully undertook the task, and made a visit to 

 Dunedin specially for this purpose. 



On being introduced to this ra7-a avis I experienced again the old charm 

 that always came over me when gazing upon the two examples in the British 

 Museum — the lingering representatives of a race co-existent in this land 

 with the colossal Moa ! Then, retiring to the Museum Library, I shut 

 myself in with Notornis, handled my specimen with the loving tenderness of 

 a true naturalist, sketched and measured its various parts, and made a 

 minute description of its plumage. 



Like many other New Zealand forms of an earlier period, the Notornis 

 is the gigantic prototype of a well known genus of Swamp Hens. It is, in 

 fact, to all appearance a huge Pukeko (Porphyrio), with feeble or aborted 

 wings, and abbreviated toes, the feet resembling those of Tribonyx — a bird 

 incapable of flight, but admirably adapted for running. Similar, no doubt, 

 was the relation borne by the powerful Aiotornis to our present Woodhen 

 (Ocydromus) ; but in that case the prototype has disappeared, leaving only 

 its fossil bones for the study of the scientist, and its place in nature to be 

 filled by its existing diminutive representatives. 



The interest attaching to Notornis has been greatly enhanced by the dis- 

 covery that the white Swamp Hen, of Norfolk Island, belongs to the same 

 genus, as this has an important bearing on the study of geographic dis- 

 tribution. 



