BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 5 



the Swifts got no food, while the Martins found abundance, or, at least, 

 enough. This little incident is a key to much greater events. 



The dates of the several species of Apteryx are as follows : — An A. 

 australis, Shaw, then the only one, or part of one, in Europe, was in the 

 Earl of Derby's Museum at Knowsley, 1833, and described in an elaborate 

 memoir, ad hoc, by Professor Owen (Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. ii. p. 257). Mr. 

 Gould says, in his ' Handbook to the Birds of Australia,' a work which is 

 a great saving of time to an author (vol. ii. p. 567) : — " For our first 

 knowledge of the existence of an Apteryx we are indebted to the late Dr. 

 Shaw, to whom the specimen figured by him in the ' Naturalist's Miscellany ' 

 was presented by Captain Barclay of the ship ' Providence,' who brought it 

 from New Zealand about 1812. Dr. Shaw's figure was accompanied by a 

 detailed drawing of the bill, foot, and rudimentary wing, of the natural size. 

 After Dr. Shaw's death, his at that time unique specimen passed into the 

 possession of the late Earl of Derby, then Lord Stanley. His Lordship's 

 being a private collection, and no other specimen having been seen either on 

 the continent or in England, the existence of the species was doubted by 



naturalists generally for upwards of twenty years Li June 1833 



Mr. Yarrell published a paper on it, in the Transactions of the Zoological 

 Society." 



Mr. Gould, on the 8th June, 1847, in the Transactions of the Zoological 

 Society, vol. iii. p. 379, figured and described Apteryx owenii, adult; and in 

 the 'Proceedings' of the same Society, January 12, 1864, Mr. Leadbeater 

 is stated to have exhibited the young of that bird. 



Apteryx mantelli was specifically differentiated from A. australis by Mr. 

 A. D. Bartlett (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850, p. 274). 



Lastly, A. haastii, Potts, was described by Mr. T. H. Potts in a paper 

 read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 2nd August, 1871 ; 

 and a series of adult and young of both sexes was exhibited in London at 

 the Zoological Society's first Meeting of the present Session (3rd November, 

 1874), by myself. 



