Order APTEEYGIFOEMES.] 



[Family APTEEYGIM1. 



I 



APTERYX AUSTRALXS. 



(SOUTH-ISLAND KIWI.) 



Apteryx australis, Shaw, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, yoL ii., p. 322. 



Befobe leaving New Zealand, I received a live example of this species from Milford Sound, 

 in the South Island, and kept it for a time in my enclosure. At a glance, its distinctness from 

 Apteryx lawryi was apparent. Its white-horn-coloured bill and its fleshy-white feet, the streaky 

 character of the plumage, caused by the light-brown stripe down the centre of each feather, 

 irrespective of its smaller size, make it readily distinguishable from the last-named species. On 

 placing the bird in the Kiwi-yard it was at home at once, retiring into the empty cask provided 

 for it. In disposition this bird differs entirely from my other captive Kiwis — Apteryx lawryi, 

 Apteryx haasti, and Apteryx oweni — being far more fierce and aggressive. On approaching the 

 cask, soon after it had taken up its quarters there, the bird came out and gave battle at once, 

 even in the daylight, grunting angrily and striking forward with his feet, which are armed with 

 very sharp claws. 



This bird, although in excellent condition, died suddenly without any apparent cause. 

 Possibly it accidentally got at some poison which had been deposited in a rat-hole. It gave the 

 following measurements : Extreme length, to end of tail, 28 in. ; to end of outstretched legs, 

 34'5 in. ; culmen (measuring from anterior edge of fleshy cere), 5'25 in. ; along edge of lower 

 mandible, 6 in. ; tarsus, 3 in. ; middle toe and claw, 3"5 in. ; hallux, 0'75 in. ; largest circum- 

 ference of foot, 3'75 in. ; rudimentary wing, from flexure to end of spur, 1'4 in. The spur on 

 each wing was a mere claw 0'25 in. in length, and white, with a greyish point. As already 

 mentioned, the feet are white, but there are small brown scales on the heel and hind part 

 of tarsus. The tarsus presents a regular line of angular scutella in front, and the claws are 

 perfectly white. In all these points this species differs from Apteryx lawryL In addition to the 

 features already recorded, which distinguish this bird from Apteryx mantelli, there is another 

 which is worth mentioning : the feathers of the under-parts have the peculiar silvery or shining 

 shafts characteristic of the Moa-feathers which Mr . Taylor White collected many years ago, at 

 Queenstown, and exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886. 



Erom the body of one captured in Dusky Sound, Sir James Hector took a tick-parasite, 

 which was characterised as a new species by Mr. Maskell under the name of Ixodes aptericola* 



Mr. Henry, the caretaker of Eesolution Island, writes : " We had put several pairs of these 

 birds on Parrot Island, which is only a couple of hundred acres in extent, and on the 15th 

 November I went to see how they were getting on, and found one hatching a fresh egg. In 

 the same hole with him was a chicken only a week or two old. This was a plain case of 

 breeding twice." 



Sir Eichard Owen, in his treatise on the anatomy of Apteryx, says : "On a review of the 

 details of the muscular system above recorded, it will be seen that the analogies of the muscles on 

 the dorsal aspect of the spine with those of Man and the Mammalia are, in consequence of their 

 unusually strong and distinct development in the Apteryx, more closely traceable than their con- 

 dition in other birds perhaps admits of." 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxix., p. 292. 





