1839-40 INCREDULITY AND DOUBT 149 



posed, having been able at any time to find sub- 

 sistence in so small a tract as New Zealand. 



4 That island, moreover, had been visited by 

 accomplished naturalists, and the only evidence 

 of a wingless bird which they had been able to 

 obtain there were fragments and feathers of a 

 small one called " kivi-kivi " by the natives, who 

 hunted it by night with torches and dogs. 

 M. Lesson accordingly refers the evidences of 

 this bird brought from New Zealand by the cir- 

 cumnavigatory vessel " La Coquille" in 1828, to 

 the Apteryx australis of Shaw. Similar evi- 

 dence is given by M. D'Urville and MM. Quoy 

 and Gaimard. 



' The interpretation of a single fragment of 

 bone seemed to my more experienced seniors too 

 narrow a foundation for the inference " that there 

 had existed, if there does not now exist, in New 

 Zealand a struthious bird equal in size to the 

 ostrich." Nevertheless, I urged that it was not an 

 ostrich, consequently not any then known species 

 of bird, and that it might as well have come from 

 New Zealand as anywhere else. 



' Ultimately the admission of this paper into 

 the "Transactions," with one plate, was carried by 

 the Committee, the responsibility of the paper 

 M resting exclusively with the author." 



' On the publication of the volume, one hun- 

 dred extra copies of the paper were struck off, 

 and these I distributed in every quarter of the 



