128 Transactions. — Zoology . 



pointed out (Ann. Nat. Hist., 1872, p. 477), so that I have only to record my 

 total dissent from Dr. Buller's views. Dr. Duller also states that this * bird 

 is known to be a ground-feeder, with a voracious appetite, and to subsist chiefly 

 on mosses.' That it may sometimes eat moss is probable ; but T have tried in 

 vain to induce it to do so in captivity, and one that escaped in a garden in 

 Auckland remained for a fortnight in a clump of pine trees feeding on the 

 flowers, and was never seen to desceud to the ground. He also states that 

 ' there is no physiological reason why the Kakapo should not be as good a 

 flier as any other Parrot.' I should have thought that the small pectoral 

 muscles, almost total absence of keel on the sternum, and soft primary feathers 

 of the wing, were quite sufficient physiological reasons." * 



[Captain Hutton ought to have quoted the whole of the sentence, for I 

 stated that " in all the essential characteristics of structure it is a true Parrot." 

 My statement that this species subsists chiefly on mosses rests on the authority 

 of Dr. Haast, who has collected and dissected far more specimens than any 

 other person in the colony, and whose close study of the bird in its native 

 haunts is sufficiently manifest from the paper which appeared in " The Ibis " 

 (1864, pp. 340 — 346). Captain Hutton does not inform us what particular 

 kind of moss he ofiered in vain to his captive bird. My statement that "there 

 is no physiological reason why the Kakapo should not be as good a flier as any 

 other Parrot," must of course be read with the context. My argument was, 

 that disuse, under the usual operation of the laws of nature, had, in process of 

 time, occasioned this physical disability of wing.] 



" Nestor occidentalis. 



" I agree with Dr. Pinsch that this species must be united with 

 N. meridionalis." 



[I am very doubtful myself about this species, and Dr. Finsch may, there- 

 fore, be right in uniting it to Nestor meridionalis. (See my remarks " Birds 

 of New Zealand," p. 50.) I have in my possession, however, a note from 

 Captain Hutton, declaring himself in favour of N. occidentalis as a species 

 distinguishable from N. meridionalis " by having the upper mandible more 

 compressed and flat on both sides, with the tooth further out, and the lower 

 mandible not reaching it." 



Por my own part, I attach very little importance to these variations in the 

 character of the bill, for tliat member is more or less variable in all the members 

 of the genus iVestor.] 



" Heteralocha acutirostris. 



" The tongue of this bird is not, accoi'ding to my observations, ' bifurcate 

 at the tip,' nor is it ' furnished with minute barbs,' but is deeply fringed at the 

 tip, and slightly so down each side for about a third of its length." 



