XIV 



INTRODUCTION. 



ranges (North Island), and a number of specimens collected by different persons on the west 

 coast of the South Island. Of the distinctness of his type I have no doubt whatever ; but I 

 am not quite prepared to follow him in uniting the others with it. They seem to me to 

 be a form intermediate between it and the Little Grey Kiwi (Apteryx oweni) with which 

 we are all so familiar. Here, in fact, we have an instance of the boundary-line between one 

 supposed species and another being so indistinct as to occasion constant doubt and confusion 

 in the discrimination of the forms. 



In fact, the dividing lines between these species, at certain points, are so indeterminate that 

 ornithologists are not yet agreed as to how many independent species should be recognised. 

 Dr. Otto Finsch, the well-known German authority, contends that the North Island bird cannot be 

 separated from Apteryx australis, except as a local yariety, although in this view he now stands 

 alone ; Professor Newton, whose opinion always carries great weight with me, declares his 

 inability to distinguish the former as a species distinct from Apteryx lawryi of Stewart Island, 

 although he recognises Apteryx australis, which occupies an intermediate range of country. 

 But the Professor is also in some doubt as to the propriety of admitting Apteryx haasti as a 

 species. 



Mr. Eothschild, who named the Stewart-Island bird Apteryx lawryi, in compliment to 

 myself, is now convinced that it is identical with — not Apteryx mantelli (as Professor Newton 

 suggests) but A. australis. 



Then, again, with regard to Apteryx mantelli, in the North Island. Most people are familiar 

 with the chestnut-brown Kiwi which inhabits the Pirongia ranges and is found all the way down 

 the west coast to Wanganui. But all the specimens I have seen from the east coast are almost 

 black in plumage, even the feet being blackish instead of whitish-brown as in the ordinary bird. 

 I have decided to keep this form distinct, under the name bestowed by Dr. Sharpe in 1888, 

 Apteryx bulleri ; for the fact remains that the birds from this part of the country are always dark 

 coloured, and, as such, readily distinguishable from the common Kiwi. As I have mentioned in 

 my work (vol ii., p. 310), there is likewise a rufous-coloured form, with plumage of a very peculiar 

 texture (' Kiwi-kura ' of the Maoris), which I found breeding true in the Pirongia ranges ; but, as 

 this bird inhabits the same district as Apteryx mantelli, it can only, for the present, be regarded 

 as a variety. Nevertheless it shows very clearly the latent tendency to vary. 



Apteryx lawryi is the largest of these species, as Apteryx haasti (which is next in size) is the 

 most handsome, owing to its chestnut-and-brown dappled plumage. Apteryx lawryi runs as it 

 were in parallel lines with Apteryx mantelli and Apteryx australis, as Apteryx haasti does with 

 Apteryx oweni and Apteryx occidentalis. But, whether all these species be accepted as distinct, 

 or some of them be regarded as mere varieties of others (which will always be debatable ground), 

 there can be no doubt whatever that they have all come from a common parent stock, and that 

 within a period of time, geologically speaking, comparatively recent. Going back to earlier 

 times, and reasoning by analogy, we may venture to infer that the remote ancestor of the 

 degenerate parent form was a volant bird — probably one tolerably well furnished with wings 

 and tail, with a proportionately large head and short bill, with the muscles of the posterior 

 limbs far less developed than in the Kiwi, and with very different plumage, both as to form and 

 texture. 



It may be asked — how it is that we find the Kiwi developing a long stiletto-like bill, whilst 

 another race of wingless birds, the Moas, belonging to the same order and inhabiting the same 

 country, were perfecting themselves in an entirely opposite direction ? But it must be 

 remembered that, according to the ascertained laws of variation, divergence of character in 

 opposite directions may take place even among members of one and the same species, at one 

 and the same time, and within the same geographical area. Isolation, for such a purpose, does 



