71 



Professor Benham continues: "With regard to the shape of the tarsi, these are not 

 cylindrical, but laterally compressed. The account of the scales given in the text (second 

 edition) does not agree with the figure. As a fact, the text is correct and the plate wrong. 

 Each of the sides of the tarsus, as well as the front, is clothed with a series of transversely 

 elongated scales, the three series being separated by a series of much smaller and more 

 irregular ones, posteriorly and antero-laterally. I counted fourteen of these scales on the 

 front series. . . . The shape of the wing is much less definite and less compact than 

 would appear from the figure. It is, in reality, more rounded posteriorly as it lies against 

 the body." 



As to the colours of the soft parts, it must be remembered that both my description and 

 Mr. Keuleman's drawing were taken from dried specimens in which the colours of these parts 

 had in a great measure faded out. Professor Benham's minute description of the colours in 

 the freshly killed bird, as well as his other criticisms, have been of the utmost value to my 

 artist in completing a life-size picture of Notor?ris in oils, which now graces my collection 

 and is, to my mind, a perfect masterpiece of art. Next to owning a specimen of the bird 

 itself, the possession of such a picture is " a perpetual delight and a joy for ever." 



The contents of the stomach of this last example of Notornis were submitted to Mr. G. 

 M. Thompson, who had undertaken to examine the fragments of grass which formed the 

 bulk of its food, and who afterwards made the following report: "It is almost certain that 

 the bird has chiefly fed on species of Car ex and Uncinia (cutting-grasses), and what strengthens 

 this view is, that these plants are particularly common at the edge of the bush. . . . 

 At the same time, there probably are some pieces of true grass among the debris, but I 

 looked at over a score pieces, and they all belonged to the Cyperaceous type." 



Mr. Hamilton, the Begistrar of the Otago University, has kindly forwarded me an excellent 

 photograph of the bird, as mounted, which has since appeared in several publications. 



The above particulars were communicated by me to the Wellington Philosophical Society, at 

 the time of the discovery, when I observed : — 



' This reference to the rare Notornis naturally leads me to say a few words about our other 

 vanishing forms of bird-life . And here, parenthetically, I may observe that perhaps I owe some 

 sort of apology to the Society for so often dilating on this subject. But to me it is one of 

 absorbing interest, and I have always in my mind Professor Newton's prophetic words. In 

 the ' Encyclopedia Britannica ' (p. 742) he writes : 'Asa whole, the avifauna of New Zealand 

 must be regarded as one of the most interesting and instructive in the world, and the inevitable 

 doom which is awaiting its surviving members cannot but excite a lively interest in the minds of 

 all ornithologists.' In another place he urges ' the importance of the closest study, because 

 the avifauna is now being fast obliterated by colonisation and other agencies, and with it 

 will pass into oblivion, unless faithfully recorded by the present generation, a page of the 

 world's history full of scientific interest.' In his last publication, the ' Dictionary of Birds ' 

 —a book which should be on the shelf of every ornithologist— he returns to the subject 

 (p. 316) with the following pregnant remarks : ' Mention has already been made of the un- 

 happy fate which awaits the surviving members of the New Zealand fauna, and its inevitable end 

 cannot but excite a lively regret in the minds of all ornithologists who care to know how 

 things have grown. This regret is quite apart from all questions of sentiment; but, just 

 as we lament our ignorance of the species which, in various lands, have been extirpated by 

 our predecessors, so our posterity will want to know much more of the present avifauna of 

 New Zealand than we can possibly record, for no one can pretend to predict the scope of 

 investigation which will be required, and required in vain, by naturalists in that future when 

 New Zealand may be one of the great nations of the earth.' 



