BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 21 



in the adult it becomes curved. I have a very fine series of the adult 

 A. australis, one of very large size, picked out of many ; the beaks present 

 no particular characters, the difference in length being sexual. In the young 

 of A. owenii, as may be seen, the bill is straight, and continues so always, or 

 is very slightly curved in the adult. Looking at the little flightless creature 

 here depicted, it cannot surprise any one if told that dogs will shortly, with 

 the aid of man, exterminate the species. Mr. Potts states that Mr. Docherty 

 the Kiwi-hunter informed him "that up to the close of 1871 he had killed 

 about 2200 of these and the Rowi" (J. owenii and A. australis^ ! 



Mr. Keulemans has drawn the adult Apteryx owenii from an example in 

 my own collection, a male bird, taken in May 1872 at Martin's Bay, under 

 the Humboldt Mountains (near the Wakatipu Lake, which is fifty-two miles 

 in length and two or three in width), on the west coast, in the province of 

 Otago, South Island. Here only a few settlers struggle to make a home. 

 I have one very dark A . owenii, said to be a male, but unfortunately without 

 locality. A.fuscus is spoken of; but I cannot say what that may be. This 

 specimen instead of grey is nearer black. 



The coloured illustration which appeared in the ' Transactions of the 

 Zoological Society,' vol. iii. p. 380, together with Mr. Gould's first paper on 

 the discovery of the bird, has, to the eye of an Apterygist, a somewhat 

 paradoxical air about it, as the beak is curiously short and curved, whereas 

 Apteryx owenii has received the name of " straight-billed " from the cir- 

 cumstance of its bill not being curved as in A. australis. We must, 

 however, take into consideration at what an early period this was done, and 

 how little was then known of the species. 



In the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' 1850 (plates xxx. 

 & xxxi.), the heads, feet, &c. of Apteryx australis and A. mantelli are well 

 done. In Gray's ' Genera of Birds,' vol. iii., there is a fine plate of 

 A. australis ; but the beak is not curved as it ought to be. Dr. Buller has 

 figured A. mantelli and A. owenii ; all these are adults, as are also those in 

 the two fine and large plates of Gould's ' Birds of Australia,' vol. vi. In 



