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witnessing the ultimate development of the habit, which one would expect to result in the production of a purely carnivorous 
parrot, with modifications of feet and digestive organs in accordance. 
“ In conclusion, I may remark that the Kea has not yet taken to flesh-eating throughout its range — possibly only from want 
of opportunity. Further north it still keeps well up in the mountains, and seems content with the diet that satisfied its 
predecessors ; but as the habit commenced in the south and travelled northwards, so fresh cases keep occurring one beyond 
another, and it seems certain that the necessary information is passed onwards and northwards.” 
Fam. STRINGOPIDiE . — At page 180 I have mentioned some structural peculiarities in the 
osseous frame of Stringops habroptilus. I have since had the pleasure of presenting a skeleton of 
this bird to the British Museum, and it is now exhibited in one of the wall-cases in the main hall of 
the Natural History section. The subjoined woodcuts (after Meyer) will show how widely it differs 
from the skeleton of Nestor. 
Nestor mericlionalis. Stringops habroptilus. 
Fam. STEKtID.® . — It has long been supposed that an Owl of much smaller size than the 
well-known Morepork exists in New Zealand, but I have never myself met with any positive evidence 
respecting it. Mr. Ellman, as far back as 1861, describing it as “ not larger than a Starling,” gave it 
the name of Stricc parvissima, and Mr. Sharpe, in the British Museum Catalogue (Birds, vol. ii. p. 43), 
refers the species, without any apparent hesitation, to Scops novce zealandice, Bonaparte, of which 
he gives a full description. 
I have stated at p. 205 that the only authority for regarding the unique specimen in the Leyden 
Museum as a New-Zealand bird is a label in Temminck’s handwriting. Deeming this, in itself, 
insufficient evidence, I sent Mr. Keulemans over to Leyden to make a drawing of the bird in water- 
colour. He brought back a beautiful picture, of life-size, showing the mottled markings of its 
plumage in marvellous detail. But I saw, at a glance, that this Scops equalling in size small examples 
of Spiloglaux novce zealandice, and with strikingly prominent “ horns,” could never have been the bird 
intended by those who have described an Owl “ about the size of a Kingfisher.” The occipital tufts, 
characteristic of the genus Scops, are so strongly developed in this species that they could not have 
