166 



there is much fluffy down still adhering to the plumage, especially on the head, lower part of back, and 

 flanks. 



Chick. Covered with soft down of a brownish-black colour; bill dark brown, with a small white speck near 

 the tip of the upper mandible. 



Obs. Individuals vary considerably in the general tone of their plumage, as well as in the details of their 

 colouring, seldom two specimens being found exactly alike. The ground-colour of the upper parts 

 varies from a dingy rufous brown to a bright reddish fulvous. In some specimens the soft overlapping 

 plumage of the wings is banded on both webs with light fulvous brown. The extent of the rufous 

 colouring on the breast likewise varies very much, and in some specimens is entirely wanting, while in 

 others in which this feature is conspicuous the rufous bands on the under tail-coverts are absent. This 

 individual variability of colour, although due in some measure to conditions of age and sex, is character- 

 istic of the genus. 



Partial albino. The following is the description of a very singular specimen obtained in the Manawatu 

 district, and presented to me by Mr. J. T. Stewart, the Provincial Engineer : — Ground-colours as in the 

 ordinary bird, but the whole body covered with straggling pure white feathers, especially on the crown, 

 back, wings, breast, and sides ; primaries black, with numerous regular bars of chestnut-brown on both 

 webs ; under tail-coverts obscurely barred with pale brown • bill pale yellow, greyish at the tip of upper 

 mandible • legs pale yellowish brown. 



The Weka Rail or Woodhen is one of the few New-Zealand birds that already possess a litera- 

 ture. Cook mentions it in his ' Voyages ; ' the naturalists who accompanied him figured and 

 described it, but without being able to discriminate the different species*; and nearly every 

 general writer on New Zealand since that time has honoured it with, at any rate, a passing notice ; 

 while by some of them, as well as in the columns of various periodicals, its habits have been 

 more or less fully narrated. No connected history of this bird, however, has yet been attempted ; 

 and lest the present one should appear of unnecessary length, it must be borne in mind that this 

 is one of those doomed species whose habits and economy I am bound, as a faithful historian, 

 to describe in detail — not so much on account of then* intrinsic importance as for the benefit of 

 naturalists of a future day, who will seek in vain for the birds themselves, and to whom, as we 

 may readily imagine, every recorded particular of this sort will possess the same interest that now 

 attaches to Leguat's rude account of the Didine bird of Rodriguez. 



The range of this species is strictly confined to the North Island. Speaking generally, it is a 

 rare bird in the country lying north of Auckland, is sparingly dispersed over the Waikato district, 

 and is very abundant in the southern parts of the Island. In former times, according to the 

 accounts of the natives, it was extremely plentiful in every part of the country ; but for a period 

 of more than twenty years it has never been met with in some of the districts far north. Its last 

 refuge in the Kaipara was a small marshy island near Mangawhare, where in 1855 a few of them 

 still existed ; and in the Whangarei district they were known to linger on the mangrove-flats near 

 the present settlement as late as the year 1866. A specimen procured for me in this locality by 



* Forster's description of Ocydromus australis, in his MS. account of the Voyage, was published by Sparrman in 1786. 



