THE APTERYX. 
513 
Tlie fine specimen kept in captivity proved a very valuable bird, as she has laid several 
eggs, thereby setting at rest some disputed questions on the subject, and well illustrating the 
natural habits of the species. During- the day she remains hidden behind the straw, which is 
piled up in a corner of her box, and declines to come forth unless removed by force. When 
brought to the light, she looks sadly puzzled for a short time, and when placed on the ground 
she turns her back — not her tail, as she has no such appendage — and runs off to her box in the 
most absurd style, looking as if she were going to topple over every moment. I noticed that 
she always goes round her box and slips in between the box and the wall, insinuating herself 
behind the straw without even showing a feather. Before hiding herself, she lingered a few 
moments to eat some worms from her keeper’s hand, taking them daintily with the end of the 
bill, and disposing of them at a rapid rate. 
Upon her box is placed, under a glass shade, the shell of one of her eggs. These eggs are 
indeed wonderful, for the bird weighs just a little more than four pounds, and each egg weighs 
between fourteen and fifteen ounces, its length being four inches and three-quarters, and its 
width rather more than two inches, thus being very nearly one-fourth of the weight of the 
parent bird. There have been six eggs laid between the time when it was captured and nine 
years later, when I last saw the bird, and each egg has varied between thirteen and fourteen 
and a half ounces in weight. 
The long curved beak of the Apteryx has the nostrils very narrow, very small, and set on 
at each side of the tip, so that the bird is enabled to pry out the worms and other nocturnal 
creatures on which it feeds, without trusting only to the eyes. The general color of the 
Apteryx is chestnut-brown, each feather being tipped with a darker hue, and the under parts 
are lighter than the upper. The height is about two feet. 
Three species of Apteryx are known — namely, the one already described, Owen’s 
Apteryx (. Apteryx owenii ), remarkable for the puffy downiness of its plumage, and Man- 
tell’s Apteryx (. Apteryx mantellii ), and it is very probable that there are still other species 
at present unknown. 
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Vt»L. II— « 
