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wings, which impart to it a very beautiful appearance. My recollection of the female specimen in 
the British-Museum collection is that it has these crescentic markings far less conspicuous than in 
the male. 
Note. There appears to have been originally very little colour in the beak except on and below 
the fiontal shield and along the basal edges of both mandibles. The legs are in much the same con- 
dition as that presented by the legs in a dried Pukeko skin, the colours having faded out ; but there 
is enough colour left in the tarsi to show that the legs and feet were originally, as described above, a 
light (probably pinkish) red. The skin is much stretched by unskilful treatment after being removed 
from the body ; but I have allowed for the stretching in taking the measurements given above. 
I remarked to Professor Parker, on first taking up the specimen, that the legs appeared to be more 
attenuated than in the British-Museum examples, and the measurements which I afterwards made, 
as given above, prove that the toes are somewhat longer proportionately to the size of the bird, which 
is altogether slightly larger than the type-specimen. The frontal shield is, however, somewhat 
smaller, being just one inch across in its widest part, and ascending barely half an inch from the 
base of the culmen ; it has a corrugated shrivelled appearance in the dried specimen, and from 
the sides of the bill, at its base, the cuticle is inclined to peel off. The skin (in the dried state) 
is very tough, having the appearance and consistency of fine leather. 
Hah. South-west portion of South Island. As already mentioned, the first recorded specimen 
(in 1849) was obtained on Eesolution Island, the second, nearly three years later, on Secretary Island 
in Thompson Sound, and the third, which has formed the subject of this paper (in December 1879), 
on the eastern side of Te Anau Lake *. Taking these three localities as marking the points of a 
triangle describing the ascertained limits of its occurrence, we have before us the present range of 
Notornis over a considerable area of very broken and rugged country. As its fossil remains testify, its 
ancient range was far more extensive, including the North Island, and in prehistoric times probably 
reaching much further. 
Since the casual discovery of the third example of Notornis mantelli mentioned above, an active 
search for this bird has been prosecuted in many parts of the South Island, but hitherto without 
success. The most enthusiastic of these Notornis hunters is undoubtedly Mr. A. Reischek, who has 
now spent the best part of a year in the fruitless quest, having had, for months together, no other 
companion in these mountain solitudes than his well-trained dog Caesar. The last report received 
from him just as these pages were going to press — records his continued disappointment as regards 
N otornis, and also affords at the same time a glimpse of the hardships he has gone through in his 
persistent search for the bird, as the following passages will show ; — 
“ I again write to you something more from my diary. This time it will be a trip from the 
Paringa Station to the glacier region in the Alps behind. The weather had been wretchedly bad 
nothing but a continuation of rain, snowstorms, and gales, lasting a long time, which caused very 
heavy floods; but on December 12, in the evening, I was rejoiced to find the glass rising, and, with 
the hope that there would now be a few fine days, I at once packed my swag with provisions, ammu- 
nition, blanket, &c., and made an early start at 3 a.m. next morning, my dog Crnsar being my 
companion. I took a south-westerly direction up the mountain, following an overgrown track which 
Still more recently a fresh skeleton of Notornis has been found, the event being thus recorded in ‘ The Dunedin Herald ’ : — 
Curiously enough close to the spot in the Mararoa district where the live Takahe was caught, a skeleton very nearly comjdete 
has been found. There are all the large bones, with the beak and thirteen of the vertehrse. Host of the ribs, toes, and tops of 
the wings are missing. The longest leg-bone measures G| inches. The head is nearly 5 inches, measured round the curve of 
the beak. The skeleton was subsequently secured by Professor Parker, and is now in the Otago Museum. 
