﻿HuTTON. — On the New Zealand Chitonidse. 173 



are all quite fresh in appearance, and the colouring is as bright as if just plucked 

 from the bird, but unfortunately all are moi'e or less broken, and only one (in 

 the Otago Museum) shows the tube that enters the skin. In this feather the 

 length of the tube is 0*25 of an inch, and it contains two plumes or feathers. 

 The main plume is unbroken, and is 4 '75 inches in length, and 0*5 of an 

 inch broad at the tip; the other, or accessory plume, is 2-75 inches long and 

 broken off, but in size it almost equals the main plume. The greater number 

 of the feathers have a very peculiar shape, gradually enlarging from the tube 

 to the apex, where they are rather bluntly rounded off; some, however, 

 especially the more downy ones, have the sides more parallel. The largest T 

 have measured was 7 inches long, and 0"75 of an inch broad at the apex. The 

 barbs are unconnected and rather distant, but not so much so as in most 

 Struthious birds. They are furnished with barbules up to the very tips of the 

 feathers, except in a few cases where for a short distance the barbs are simple. 

 No barbicels exist on any part of the feathers, the downy portion being 

 simply formed by the barbules being more elongated and set closer together. 

 The shafts are slender and flexible, and do not project beyond the barbs. 



In colour the feathers are brown for about the basal two-thirds, the more 

 downy ones being of a redder brown than the others. This brown gradually 

 shades off into black, which colour is kept as far as the rounded portion of the 

 tip, which is pui-e white. The shaft is of the same colour as the feather. 



The structure of the feathers, therefore, is decidedly of the Struthious type, 

 but owing to the nearness of the barbs, and the presence of barbules to the 

 tips, it is not so typical of that order as some living species. The long after 

 shaft and the numerous barbs in the feathers of the Moa show an affinity to 

 the Emu, while the egg, as I have previously remarked, shows an affinity to 

 the Rliea, thus connecting the Moa more nearly with the Strutldones of South 

 America and Australia than with the Ostrich of Africa. (PI. IX). 



Art. XXIIT. — On the New Zealand Chitonidse. 

 By Capt. F. W. Hutton, F.G.S. 



(With Illustrations.) 



{Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 25th November, 1871]. 



The Chitons form a very distinct family of the Mollusca, easily recognised by 

 their oval or oblong form, covered by several shelly plates or valves, which give 

 them something the appearance of those Isopod crustaceans commonly known 

 as Wood-lice (Oniseus). The shell is composed of eight transverse moveable 

 valves, the anterior edge of each being covered by the posterior edge of the 



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