366 



founded under the specific name of Apteryx australis. Mr. Bartlett stated, at this meeting, 

 that an Apteryx belonging to the late Dr. Mantell having been placed in his hands by that 

 gentleman, he had remarked its dissimilarity to ordinary examples, and that, after a careful 

 comparison with a number of other specimens, he had come to the conclusion that it was a new 

 species. On comparing Dr. Mantell's bird, however, with the original specimen in the Earl of 

 Derby's collection, he had found that they were identical. He accordingly referred his supposed 

 new species to Apteryx australis, and distinguished the more common bird as Apteryx mantelli, 

 for which he proposed the following characters : — " its smaller size, its darker and more rufous 

 colour, its longer tarsus, which is scutellated in front, its shorter toes and claws, which are horn- 

 coloured, its smaller wings, which have much stronger and thicker quills, and also its having 

 long straggling hairs on the face " (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1850, p. 276). 



Mr. Bartlett stated further, that the Apteryx belonging to Dr. Mantell was collected by his 

 son in Dusky Bay, whence the original bird, figured and described by Dr. Shaw, was also obtained, 

 and that, so far as he had been able to ascertain, all the known specimens of Apteryx mantelli 

 were from the North Island. 



In a " Report on the present State of our Knowledge of the Species of Apteryx" by 

 Drs. Sclater and Hochstetter, read at a meeting of the British Association in September 1861, 

 and published for general information in the 'New-Zealand Gazette ' in May 1862, the following 

 observation occurs respecting Apteryx australis : — " In fact, the species is so closely allied to the 

 Apteryx mantelli as to render it very desirable that further examples of it should be obtained, 

 and a rigid examination instituted between the two. For the present, however, we must regard 

 this form of Apteryx as belonging to the southern portion of the Middle Island." 



Mr. Gould, in the Appendix to his ' Handbook to the Birds of Australia' (p. 568), retains 

 the original name for the species, but remarks : — " If Mr. Bartlett's view be correct, it is probable 

 that the bird figured by me is the one he has named Apteryx mantelli." 



In a paper read before the Wellington Philosophical Society on the 12th November, 1870*, 

 I pointed out that the characters by which Mr. Bartlett had distinguished the species would not 

 stand. I showed that the sexes differed from each other both in size and in the tone of their 

 plumage, that the arrangement of the tarsal scutella differed according to age and other circum- 

 stances, that the peculiarity in the cubital quills was not a specific character, the "soft slender 

 quills " indicating only immaturity, and that the length of the " straggling hairs on the face " 

 varied in almost every individual. I stated further that an inspection of the drawings illustrative 

 of the supposed specific distinctions (published by the Zoological Society) had only tended to 

 confirm me in the opinion expressed above. 



Since that paper was written I have had an opportunity of examining a fine series of South- 

 Island Apteryges hi the Canterbury Museum, and of comparing them with examples from the 

 North Island ; and I am now convinced that there are in reality two species of brown Apteryx, 

 readily distinguishable from each other by a very remarkable difference in the structure of their 

 plumage. In the South-Island Kiwi the feathers of the upper parts are soft and yielding when 

 stroked against the grain, whereas in the North-Island bird [Apteryx mantelli), owing to a 



* Trans. N.-Z. Instit. 1870, vol. iii. pp. 37-5G. 



