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extent of wings 19-5; wing, from flexure, 7; tail 4; bill, along the ridge 1-75, along the edge of lower 
mandible 2; tarsus 2; middle toe and claw 2'5 ; hind toe and claw '75. 
Young. The colours of the underparts duller and more blended than in the adult ; upper parts darker and more 
uniform in colour. Throat, breast, and under surface generally dull brownish grey, paler on the throat, 
washed with ferruginous on the lower part of fore neck and on the sides of the body ; no rufous band on 
the sides of the face. 
Fledgling. The whole of the plumage of a dingy rufous brown, the feathers of the upper parts shaded in the 
centre with fuscous black ; paler on the underparts ; tinged on the sides of the head and breast with 
cinereous j feet pale brown. In the specimen above described there is no appearance yet of quills, and 
there is much flufly down still adhering to the plumage, especially on the head, lower part of back, and 
flanks. 
Chick. Covered with soft down of a brownish-black colour ; bill dark brown, with a small white speck near the 
tip of the upper mandible. 
Obs. Individuals vary considerably in the general tone of their plumage, as well as in the details of their 
colouring, seldom two specimens being found exactly alike. The ground-colour of the upper parts varies 
from a dingy rufous brown to a bright reddish fulvous. In some specimens the soft overlapping plumage 
of the wings is banded on both webs with light fulvous brown. The extent of the rufous colouring on the 
breast likewise varies very much, and in some specimens is entirely wanting, while in others in which this 
feature is conspicuous the rufous bands on the under tail-coverts are absent. This individual variability of 
colour, although due in some measure to conditions of age and sex, is characteristic of the genus. 
Partial albino. The following is the description of a very singular specimen obtained in the Manawatu district, 
and presented to me by Mr. J. T. Stewart, the Provincial Engineer : — Ground-colours as in the ordinary 
bird, but the whole body covered with straggling pure white feathers, especially on the crown, back, wings, 
breast, and sides ; primaries black, with numerous regular bars of chestnut-brown on both webs ; under 
tail-coverts obscurely barred with pale brown ; bill pale yellow, greyish at the tip of upper mandible legs 
pale yellowish brown. 
There is another somewhat similar specimen in the Colonial Museum, but more largely marked with 
white on the back, breast, and flanks. 
The Weka Rail or Woodhen is one of the few New-Zealand birds that already possess a literature. 
Cook mentions it in his ‘ Voyages ; ’ the naturalists who accompanied him figured and described it, 
but without being able to discriminate the different species * ; and nearly every general writer on 
New Zealand since that time has honoured it with, at any rate, a passing notice; while by some of 
them, as well as in the columns of various periodicals, its habits have been more or less fully narrated. 
No connected history of this bird, however, has yet been attempted ; and lest the present one should 
appear of unnecessary length, it must be borne in mind that this is one of those doomed species 
whose habits and economy I am bound, as a faithful historian, to describe in detail — not so much on 
account of their intrinsic importance as for the benefit of naturalists of a future day, who will seek 
in vain for the birds themselves, and to whom, as we may readily imagine, every recorded particular 
of this sort will possess the same interest that now attaches to Leguat’s rude account of the Didine 
bird of Rodriguez. 
In my former edition, I treated the North-Island Woodhen (as every one else had done before) 
as the Ocydromus earli of Mr. G. R. Gray’s ‘List ’ of 1862, and under that name I both described and 
figured it. 
Dr. Finsch was the first naturalist to raise any question about it ; for in a communication to 
* Forster’s description of Oeydronnis australis, in his MS. account of the Yoyage, was published by Sparrman in 1786. 
