1877.] The Giant Birds of New Zealand. 11 
The exhibitor claims to feed his swarm on his own arm, which 
exhibited a sufficiency, of punctures. His whole company may 
. be packed into a shaving-box and put in his coat-tail pocket. 
He claims to have originated the exhibition forty years ago. 
Some of the anecdotes in his little pamphlet are amusing enough, 
and we find the following contributions to the Natural History of 
the Flea. 
“ The flea may be easily dissected in a drop of water, and by 
this means the stomach and bowels may be plainly discovered, 
with the veins and arteries” (!) Their “ amazing motion is per- 
formed by means of the great elasticity of their feet, the articu- 
lation of which are so many springs, in accordance with the ex- 
alted and lofty aspirations of the insect.” And finally, “ Take 
a well fed — ( Cimex) and a starved flea, and place them under a 
glass together, and you will be afforded an amusing spectacle. 
The flea as soon as he perceives the pursy condition of the bug 
will hop upon its back, and, in spite of the latter’s struggles to 
throw him off, will succeed in extracting the blood from the bug’s 
body, leaving it in quite a lean condition, while the flea becomes 
round, plump, and happy, after its beneficial ride.” 
THE GIANT BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 
BY I. C. RUSSELL. 
o the many remarkable additions that New Zealand has 
made to the various branches of natural science, none have 
attracted greater attention, or called forth more exclamations of 
wonder, than the remains of the giant birds that at no very dis- 
tant day inhabited those antipodal islands. 
In order that we may more fully understand the bearings and 
relations of our subject, let us glance for a moment at the pres- 
ent inhabitants of New Zealand, many of which are very strange 
and interesting. Aside from the aborigines, who are an offshoot 
of the ancient Polynesian family, the first feature that attracts 
our attention is the total absence of land mammals. The dog 
and a small species of rat are sometimes spoken of as being 
natives of New Zealand, but they more likely accompanied the 
aborigines in their wanderings, or were introduced by the earlier 
voyagers. The reptiles are almost as great strangers in those 
islands as are the mammals, being only represented by a few 
species of harmless lizards, which are very plentiful in individ- 
