BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 33 



Apteryx ; in Nestor the feathers on the same region are round and soft. But 

 I have long been of opinion that to attempt, as systematists do, to place 

 a bird correctly by either internal or external characters alone, is rash. 

 Ornithic taxonomy requires us carefully to examine both, and, as regards 

 the internal, not the osteological only, but the myological as well. In 

 short, an aggregate of characters is the true ground — bearing also in mind 

 what St. George Mivart says (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1873, pt. ii. p. 606), " That 

 similarity of structure necessarily implies genetic affinity can no longer be 

 ranked as a biological axiom." 



Respecting the place of Nestor, and therefore of the present indi- 

 vidual, the Prosector to the Zoological Society, Mr. A. H. Garrod, F.Z.S., 

 says (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1872, p. 787) : — " As the tongue of Nestor does not in 

 reality resemble that of the Trichoglossi at all, it may be of interest to 

 describe it more fully." He then gives drawings of the tongues of Stringops, 

 Nestor, and Lorius, and states that "it is evident that the structure of 

 this organ " (the tongue) " would lead to the placing of Nestor among the 

 typical Parrots, though an aberrant one, and not with the Trichoglossinae ; 

 and other points in its anatomy favour this conclusion." This instructive 

 article of the Prosector's, however, should be read; I cannot do justice to it 

 here. Nevertheless I must always feel regret at the banishment of our bird 

 from a family composed of what Mr. A. R. Wallace calls " undoubtedly the 

 most highly organized form of Parrot." 



I forgot to mention that Rutherford, the Englishman who was captured 

 by the New-Zealanders in March 1816, and who lived among them till 

 January 1826, is said to have become very expert "in taking birds with a 

 noosed string, after the manner of the natives, and that he thus caught 

 thousands of Ground-Parrots with a line about fifty feet long " (' Library 

 of Entertaining Knowledge' — "The New-Zealanders," p. 187). What a 

 chance came to this man if he had only been an ornithologist ! 



