90 
side of Te Anau Lake. The circumstances of the capture were thus narrated to me by Captain 
Hankinson, on whose property it occurred. A man who was engaged “rabbiting” on the run had 
camped on the Maruroa Flat, not far from the homestead. One day his dogs ran down a large bird, 
and on coming up he found it alive and unharmed. Taking the bird from the dogs, he deliberately 
killed it, took it to his tent, and hung it up to the ridge pole. On the following day th e station- 
manager (Mr. J. Connor), in making his customary round, visited the camp. The rabbiter had just 
struck his tent, and calling his manager’s attention to the dead bird, still suspended to the ridge pole, 
told him he might have it. Mr. Connor, who was intelligent enough to suspect that he had found a 
Notomis, at once accepted the offer and took the bird home to the station, where he carefully and 
very successfully skinned it, preserving also all the bones of the body. 
The weather had been exceptionally severe, and it is supposed that this was how the Notornis 
came to be found on the flats, having been driven down from the high country. The man who caught 
it said that it seemed quite tame, whereas Mantell’s bird (as already mentioned) made a vigorous 
resistance on being taken. 
Professor Parker having undertaken to describe the skeleton for our ‘ Transactions,’ Dr. Hector 
invited me to undertake the same duty in regard to the skin, in order that, in default of the specimen 
itself, we might have on record in the colony as complete a monograph as possible of this interesting 
bird. I cheerfully undertook the task, and made a visit to Dunedin specially for this purpose. 
On being introduced to this rara avis 1 experienced again the old charm that always came over 
me when gazing upon the two examples in the British Museum — the lingering representatives of a 
race co-existent in this land with the colossal Moa ! Then, retiring to the Museum library, I shut 
myself in with Notornis, handled my specimen with the loving tenderness of the naturalist, sketched 
and measured its various parts, and made a minute description of its plumage. 
Like many other New-Zealand forms of an earlier period, the Notornis is the gigantic prototype 
of a well-known genus of Swamp-hens. It is, in fact, to all appearance a huge Pukeko {Porphyrio), 
with feeble or aborted wings and abbreviated toes, the feet resembling those of Trihonyx — a bird 
incapable of flight, but admirably adapted for running. Similar, no doubt, was the relation borne by 
the powerful Aptornis to our present Woodhen {Ocydromus) ; but in that case the prototype has 
disappeared, leaving only its fossil bones for the study of the scientist, and its place in nature to be 
filled by its existing diminutive representatives. 
The interest attaching to Notornis has been greatly enhanced by the discovery that the white 
Swamp-hen, of Norfolk Island, belongs to the same genus, as this has an important bearing on the 
study of geographic distribution *. 
The characters of the genus Notornis were first determined by Professor Owen, in 1848, from 
certain fossil remains collected by Mr. Mantell in the North Island of New Zealand, and consisting of 
the skull, beaks, humerus, sternum, and other parts of the skeleton of a large brevipennate Rail. The 
sagacity Avith which the learned professor had interpreted these bones, and the absolute correctness of 
his prevision, were exemplified in the discovery which enabled Mr. Gould, in 1850, to communicate 
to the Zoological Society the complete generic characters of the bird, already known to science as 
Notornis mantelli, Owen. In illustration of these, Mr. Gould furnished to the Society a coloured 
sketch of the head of Notornis, in his usual artistic style ; and at a later period he published, in the 
Supplement to his ‘ Birds of Australia,’ a full-sized drawing of the bird. These plates are very beau- 
tiful, but on a close comparison with the specimen to which these notes more especially refer, I find 
that some of the minor features have been overlooked by the artist, or sacrificed to pictorial effect. 
* Notornis alba is cstabiislied, by Herr von Pelzeln, on a specimen acquired at the sale of the Leverian Collection, which 
was without doubt the type of Fulica atra of White’s ‘ Voyage ’ and the Gallinula alba of Latham. This bird had been erro- 
neously considered by Temminck and G. E. Gray to be an albino variety of the well-known Porphyrio melanomtus. 
