132 Sydney Porter—Notes on New Zealand Birds


his long sensitive beak, invariably gets caught, the cruel jaws

smashing his bill in half. If it were not that organ, it was one of

his legs. The trapper, frightened to do anything with the bird

owing to the strict protective laws, either kills it outright and

throws the body away or lets it go to die a lingering death in the

forest.


In an extensive valley, one of the last large strongholds of the

Kiwi on the mainland, I w T as told that over a hundred birds met

their doom in one single season. Fortunately for both the Kiwis and

the opossums the price of the skins of the latter are down to 4s. §d.

or less, and owing to their numbers being so reduced, they are

not hunted nearly as much as formerly, but not before the ranks

of the Kiwis have been sadly thinned out as well.


When up near the North Cape of New Zealand I found that

numbers of Kiwis are being deliberately killed by both the Maoris

and the white settlers, by the latter for eating and by the former

to sell to their fellow-countrymen for the making of the feathered

cloaks, either to sell to tourists or to use for special occasions.


Then there are, of course, other enemies in the shape of cats,

rats, weasels, and stoats, who prey on the eggs or the young

birds, and so it is a logical conclusion that in a generation or two

Kiwis will have ceased to exist on the mainland of New Zealand.

But as long as the island sanctuaries are preserved as such, the

Kiwi will not pass away altogether.


As most readers know the Kiwis are probably the most unique

of all living birds. The size of a large fowl, they are clothed with

brown hair-like feathers, and although they are usually called

wingless they possess very rudimentary wings which have no

feathers on them. They have no tail. The beak is very long and

supposed to be slightly flexible; the nostrils are situated at the

tip of the upper mandible which overlaps the lower one. The

colour of the beak is a fleshy horn colour and has the appearance

of being highly polished. After death the colour fades and the

gloss vanishes. From the base of the beak spring long hairs, which

no doubt in some way act as feelers. The birds possess very thick

and heavy legs, the toes being armed with extremely stout and



