202 NEW ZEALAND NATURE-STUDY BOOK 
When the trunk is stripped of its plumage, the body 
presents the form of an elongated cone gradually tapering 
forwards, from the broad base formed by the haunches to 
the long thin beak, and the wings appear as two crooked 
appendages, projecting about an inch and. a-half from the 
sides of the chest, and terminated by a curved blunt 
horny claw a quarter of an inch long. 
For a nesting place the bird selects a hollow log or a 
hole amongst roots. Sometimes a hole is excavated in 
a soft bank, care being taken that the site selected 
shall be in a ridge of dry ground. ‘Two eggs are usually 
Jaid, and the old birds rather le than sit on them. 
Mr. A. D. Bartlett, superintendent of the Zooiogical 
Society’s Gardens in London, as the result of experi- 
ments with a pair of Kiwis, states that ‘only the male 
bird sits on the eggs.” The female is considerably 
larger than the male, and the egg she lays is out of all 
proportion to the size of the bird. An egg in the Canter- 
bury Museum obtained from the West Coast measures 44 
inches in length with a breadth of 2,5 inches. 
The young have been described as ‘“ quaint-looking little 
animals with not too much of the savour of youth about 
them, being nearly exact miniatures of the adult,” 
There are four or five species of Kiwis. One, the 
Brown Kiwi, belongs to the northern portion of the Colony, 
and the others to the South. The feathers of the Brown 
Kiwi differ from those of the other species by being harsh 
to the touch. 
The birds live in the darkest and densest forests, and 
at one time were plentiful in all the wooded portions of the 
islands. Now, however, they are exceedingly rare except 
in a few localities, their diminished numbers being 
brought about partly by the destruction wrought amongst 
them by Kiwi-hunters, and partly by the disappearance 
