Sept. 21, i38S.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS, 



3i5 



Natural ^tgtorg* 



THE KAGU. 

 The Kagu, a small bird by r.o means as imposing as its 

 dignified appellation, Rhinocetus jubatus, has given rise 

 to some discussion as to its true position in ornitholo- 

 gical classification. Professor Parker, F.R.S., published 

 a long paper on its osteological formation, in the Trans- 



the herons, cranes, rails, and plovers, an opinion which 

 is, we believe, now universally accepted. 



The Kagu (to call it by its native name) was first 

 described by some French naturalists, about the middle 

 of the present century, in a memoir on the Ornithology 

 of New Caledonia, an island in the South Pacific, east of 

 Australia, which had then been recently colonised by 

 the French. In December, 1861, Dr. George Bennett, 

 of Sydney, New South Wales, received a present of a 



actions of the Zoological Society, in which he asserted 

 that it constituted a type of a distinct family belonging 

 to Professor Huxley's order, Geranomorpluz, closely 

 allied to the Psophia (trumpeters) and Eurypygae 

 (bitterns). A writer in the " Standard Natural History " 

 makes it the type of an entire family, Rhinocetidae, but 

 Mr. Bartlett, Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, 

 agreed with Professor Parker in ranking it with the sun 

 bittern (Eurypyga helias), whence he allied it again to 



living Kagu from his friend, M. D. H. Joubert, one of 

 the settlers in New Caledonia, who had had it in his 

 possession for a short time. This bird, together witli 

 another which was subsequently presented to him, Dr. 

 Bennett forwarded to the Zoological Society in London, 

 where they arrived safe and well on the 22nd of April, 

 1862, the first specimens of their kind to reach this 

 country alive. At that time the Kagus were very 

 numerous in New Caledonia, and Mr. Ferdinand 



