Order APTEEYGIFOEMES.] 



[Family APTEEYGID^. 



APTEHYX HAASTI. 



(HAAST'S KIWI.) 



Apteryx haasti, Potts; Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. ii., p, 330. 



General description. — Next in size to Apteryx laivryi of Stewart Island. The head is dark 

 grey or sooty, instead of being light grey as in A. oweni, and the body plumage on the upper parts 

 is black, spotted and marked with chestnut-brown, each feather being pointed with a lighter brown, 

 instead of being dark grey, fasciated or irregularly banded with greyish- white as in Apteryx oweni. 

 Some examples are strongly suffused with chestnut, and others, again, are much paler in their 

 markings. The feet and toes are light grey in colour. 



Young. — The whole plumage blackish-brown, paler and inclining to grey on the under- 

 surface, and having a distinctly spotted character. This is produced by each feather having 

 a single transverse band of pale chestnut-brown on its apical portion, with the minutest tip of the 

 same colour. These spotted markings are entirely absent on the head and upper part of the neck, 

 which parts are uniform greyish-brown, paler on the sides of the head. Tarsi and toes blackish- 

 brown ; claws black. 



The type specimens of Apteryx haasti, now in the Canterbury Museum, came from Okarita, 

 on the west coast of the Canterbury Province ; the pair of living birds afterwards obtained 

 by Mr. Bills, and sold to Mr. Dawson Eowley, of Brighton, are said to have come from a point 

 much further south, but I have been unable to locate it. All my specimens (and I obtained, 

 from first to last, a large series) were collected on the western watershed of the Heaphy Eange, 

 further north. Most of them were procured on the wooded spurs running into the valley of the 

 Heaphy, on the north side, with a sunny aspect, but a few of them on the river fiats below. 



Mr. Kothschild was of course entirely mistaken in stating* that " Apteryx haasti is also 

 found in isolated places in the King country in the North Island," and I cannot imagine whence 

 he derived that impression. 



As already mentioned, I placed a living pair on the Papaitonga Island, in 1893, recording the 

 occurrence thus in a communication to the Wellington Philosophical Society :f — " Lovers of 

 natural history will be glad to learn that this very rare species of Kiwi from the South Island — of 

 which there is only a pair in the Canterbury Museum, placed there twenty years ago, and not 

 another known specimen in any other public museum, either in the colonies or in Europe — has 

 been successfully introduced into the North Island. Some months ago I received a fine pair from 

 the South Island, and, after keeping them for some time in my Kiwi enclosure, in order to study 

 their habits, I liberated them on a wooded island, a little over an acre in extent, near my home- 

 stead at Papaitonga. I placed on the island at the same time a pair of the small Grey Kiwi 

 (Apteryx oweni), and, a short time previously, a single North Island Kiwi (Apteryx mantelli), kindly 

 presented to me by Mr. Drew, of Wanganui, for that purpose. The locality is admirably suited 

 to such an experiment, the ground being similar to that which the Kiwi frequents in its natural 

 state, and well covered with native vegetation. Being on an island surrounded by a fresh- water 



I 



* Ibis, 1893, vol. v., p. 575. f Trans. N. Z. Inst., vol. xxv., p. 87. 





