29 



We are naturally led to ask how it is that a bird possessing large and well-formed wings 

 should be found utterly incapable of flight. On removing the skin from the body it is seen that 

 the muscles by means of which the movements of these anterior limbs are regulated are very 

 well developed, but are largely overlaid with fat. The bird is known to be a ground-feeder, with 

 a voracious appetite, and to subsist chiefly on vegetable mosses, which, possessing but little nutri- 

 ment, require to be eaten in large quantities ; and Dr. Haast informs us that he has sometimes 

 seen them with their crops so distended and heavy that the birds were scarcely able to move. 



These mosses cover the ground and the roots or trunks of prostrate trees, requiring to be 

 sought for on foot ; and the bird's habit of feeding at night, in a country where there are no 

 indigenous predatory quadrupeds, would render flight a superfluous exertion, and a faculty of no 

 special advantage in the struggle for existence. Thus it may be reasonably inferred that disuse, 

 under the usual operation of the laws of nature, has occasioned this disability of wing ; for there 

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



Conformably also with the doctrine of natural selection, we have here another striking 

 instance of the law of assimilative colouring, which obtains more or less in every department of 

 the animal kingdom. Nature has compensated this bird for its helplessness when compelled to 

 leave its hiding-place in the daytime, by endowing it with a mottled plumage so exactly harmo- 

 nizing with that of the green mosses among which it feeds, that it is almost impossible to 

 distinguish it. 



Although the existence of a large ground-Parrot was known to the early colonists of New 

 Zealand from the reports of the natives, who set a high value on the feathers for purposes of 

 decoration, it was not till the year 1845 that a skin of this bird reached Europe ; and this was 

 purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum for the sum of £24. 



According to native tradition, the Kakapo was formerly abundant all over the North* and 

 South Islands ; but at the present day its range is confined to circumscribed limits, which are 

 becoming narrower every year. In the North Island it is rarely heard of, — although I may state, 

 on the authority of Dr. Hector and Mr. Mair, that it still exists in the Kai-Manawa ranges, and, 

 as I have been assured by the chief Herekiekie, it is still occasionally met with in various parts 

 of the Taupo districtf . 



The first published account of this singular bird is that given by Dr. Lyall, K.N., in a paper 

 read before the Zoological Society of London, on the 24th of February, 1852, and which I have 

 transcribed from the ' Proceedings ' of that year : — " Although the Kakapo is said to be still 

 found occasionally on some parts of the high mountains in the interior of the North Island of 

 New Zealand, the only place where we met with it during our circumnavigation and exploration 

 of the coasts of the islands in H.M.S. ' Acheron,' was at the S.W. end of the Middle Island. 



* Te Heuheu's father, Ngatoroairangi, a renowned Maori naturalist of former times, was a successful Kakapo-hunter. 

 He was (so the natives relate) accustomed to lie in ambush near the beaten tracks of these birds, and capture them, in the 

 early dawn, on their way to their hiding-places. This good old chief is said to have attempted the introduction of the 

 Snapper into the Taupo Lake. He planted the island of Mokoia, in the Rotorua Lake, with totara, and left behind him 

 other evidences that he was a " scientific man " far in advance of his time. 



t Through the kindness of Mr. White, R.M., I obtained a native-prepared skin of the Kakapo from Taupo, for compa- 

 rison with examples from the South Island. It was a very small specimen, measuring only 21 inches in length, and 8-5 

 in the wing ; but I was able to satisfy myself of the real identity of the species in both islands. 



