Birds, 3419 



predominating in quantity. Once when I saw him mute, he shuffled 

 a little backwards first, as some other birds, especially young ones, 

 will do. 



I have on one occasion lately seen him eat worms out of my hand. 

 I had advanced them gently to the point of his beak ; he seized one, 

 and then relaxing the grip of his beak and darting it forwards, and 

 now closing it again upon the worm and drawing his head backwards, 

 repeating these movements three or four times in rapid succession, he 

 moved the morsel up to his mouth, and perhaps, with a slight shake, 

 such as a dog gives a rat, and then with a gobble gobble like a young 

 rook only much less loud, and with several snaps of the beak fainter 

 than those I have before described, greedily swallowed it down. I do 

 not know that there was anything different from the ordinary mode of 

 seizing and swallowing food as practised by long-billed birds, only 

 the way in which he brought it about reminded me of the unconsci- 

 ous promptitude with which a newly caught mole or shrew rarely fails 

 to fall upon a worm presented to it. Another time, before a number 

 of people, he gave a most ungracious kick when a smooth caterpillar 

 was held to his nose. 



There is, however, much which it is not fair to judge of by day. An 

 animal awakened from its sleep might well appear stupid and sullen ; 

 its eyes might be dazzled, its paces might be unnatural ; in short, it 

 was most desirable to see him quite unconstrained at his proper time 

 for action, for his whole conduct and character might then appear dif- 

 ferent, and then only could his mode of finding his food be fully as- 

 certained. I have now twice had the privilege of so watching him 

 when he believed himself unobserved. A lamp had been suspended 

 for several nights in front of his cage, to accustom the Kiwi-kiwi to it, 

 when I had the pleasure of accompanying a distinguished member of 

 the Zoological Society on a nocturnal visit early in February, on which 

 occasion we saw the bird to advantage : but I will rather describe 

 what happened at my second lying in wait, which took place in the 

 evening of February 28, 1852, and was on the whole more successful 

 than the former one. 



I took my seat in front of the stall as it was becoming dark, having 

 a bull's-eye lantern on the ledge before me, so that I could not possi- 

 bly be seen by my quarry. The first sounds proceeded from the 

 Weka ; he had hopped upon the shelf at the back of his cage, and 

 remained in the full light of the lamp troubled with a fit of sneezing ; 

 previously to this, however, he had raised one of his powerful series 

 of cries. Not long afterwards my attention was called to rustlings in 



