1839-40 
INCREDULITY AND DOUBT 
149 
posed, having been able at any time to find sub- 
sistence in so small a tract as New Zealand. 
‘ That island, moreover, had been visited by 
accomplished naturalists, and the only evidence 
of a wingless bird which they had been able to 
obtain there were fragments and feathers of a 
small one called “ kivi-kivi ” by the natives, who 
hunted it by night with torches and dogs. 
M. Lesson accordingly refers the evidences of 
this bird brought from New Zealand by the cir- 
cumnavigatory vessel “ La Coquille” in 1828, to 
the Apteryx atistralis of Shaw. Similar evi- 
dence is given by M. D’Urville and MM. Quoy 
and Gaimard. 
‘ The interpretation of a single fragment of 
bone seemed to my more experienced seniors too 
narrow a foundation for the inference “ that there 
had existed, if there does not now exist, in New 
Zealand a struthious bird equal in size to the 
ostrich.” Nevertheless, I urged that it was not an 
ostrich, consequently not any then known species 
of bird, and that it might as well have come from 
New Zealand as anywhere else. 
‘ Ultimately the admission of this paper into 
the “Transactions,” with one plate, was carried by 
the Committee, the responsibility of the paper 
“ resting exclusively with the author.” 
‘ On the publication of the volume, one hun- 
dred extra copies of the paper were struck off, 
and these I distributed in every quarter of the 
