THE BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. No. II. THE living wingless birds do not all belong to the same family. New Zealand, so rich in the remains of extinct species, possesses two, if not three extant species, namely, the kiwi-kiwi, (Apteryx Australis,) and a new species, described by Mr. Gould ("Proceedings Zool. Soc., 1847, p. 93), as Apteryx Owenii. The specimen in Mr. Gould's possession or care appears, he says, to be "fully adult, and is about the same size as the Apteryx Australis, from which it is rendered conspicuously different by the irregular transverse barring of its entire plumage, which with its extreme density and hairlike appearance, more closely resembles the covering of a mammal than that of a bird it also differs in having a shorter, more slender, and more curved bill, and in the structure of the feathers, which are much broader throughout, especially at the tip, and of a loose, decomposed, hairlike texture."-Total length, eighteen inches. Mr. Gould, moreover, observes that he has intelligence of the existence of a third species, larger than either of the preceding. Query: may not this larger species be a Dinornis, which has survived in some remote asylum the fate of its relatives? : Mr. F. Strange, in a letter to Mr. Gould, (Ibid., p. 51,) says, "I am told that a second (now a third) species of Apteryx is to be found in the Middle Island, and that it stands about three feet high; it is called by the sealers the 'fireman.' Aware, from your figures and descriptions, that the sexes differ considerably in size, I pointed this out to my informant; but he still persisted that there are two species, in confirmation of which opinion he added, that he had taken the eggs of the two birds, and found those of one species to be much larger than those of the other. Those of the larger kind were nearly as large as those of an emeu. They are somewhat long in form, and blunt at the ends; their colour is dirty white. They are deposited in a burrow, or a nest formed of roots and sticks, and a few of the bird's own feathers." These birds (Apteryx) do not belong to the struthious or ostrich group,-they are nocturnal and burrowing in their habits, frequenting densely wooded seclusions, and their minute slit-like nostrils are at the extremity of a long, slender, canelike bill. They plunge their beak into the soft earth in quest of worms or insect food. The limbs are extremely powerful; the tarse (tarsometatarse) are thick and short, and covered with hard scales. The toes are four in number; the three anterior toes are robust, and furnished with strong claws, well adapted for digging. The hind toe is a thick, sharp, horny spur, used as an offensive weapon. There is no vestige of a tail. The tongue is short and simple. For a most elaborate account of the anatomy of the apteryx, by professor Owen, see "Trans. Zool. Soc.," vol. ii., and "Proceedings Zool. Soc.," 1838. Setting aside the species of apteryx now known, which constitute a family group (Apterygedæ), the rest of the living wingless birds of terrestrial habits (for here we have nothing to do with the aquatic penguins) belong to the family Struthionida; and it is remarkable that their number does not equal that of the fossil species of Dinornis and Palopteryx already ascertained. Whether any struthious (ostrich-like) birds are to be found in Madagascar, or whether, as some suspect, the dodo, solitaire, or some kindred bird inhabits that almost unexplored island, we are not able to say with certainty. Mr. Strickland (on the dodo) says, "No recent travellers have alluded to the existence of any struthious or brevipennate birds in Madagascar, though from the following passage in Flacourt's 'Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar,' published at Paris, in 1658, it appears that a bird of that family inhabited Madagascar, less than two centuries ago. Flacourt tells us that the Vouron Patra is a large bird which frequents the region of Ampatres, (a province at the south extremity of Madagascar,) and lays eggs like the ostrich. It is a kind of ostrich; the inhabitants are unable to capture it, and it inhabits the most desert places.' This brief indication may perhaps guide the future explorer of Madagascar to a discovery of great zoological interest.' * Setting aside this wingless bird of Madagascar, if it now exists, our struthious birds are, the ostrich-locality, the deserts of Africa, from north to south; two species of rhea-locality, South America; the emeu-locality, Australia; It is very remarkable that the aye-aye, (Chimal, of which two individuals were kept alive in romys Madagascariensis,) a strange lemurine aniMadagascar, by Sonnerat, has never since been discovered. Sonnerat's specimens, or rather one of them, is in the Paris Museum. Is this animal extinct, or only very rare? BB and the cassiowary-locality, Java, Sumatra; the Moluccas, etc.-in all five species, the lingering relics, as we have every reason to believe, of a once extensive group. How few are these in comparison with the known species of apteryx, and the ascertained fossil species of New Zealand, which islands, indeed, seem to have been the dilecta sedes of wingless terrestrial birds. So far, then, we have proved that the ornithology of New Zealand is most strange and interesting. These birds, whose relics have been recovered from the alluvial bed in which they are entombed, are but of yesterday. Were they the survivors of a wingless race of more remote antiquity? There can be no doubt of it. | rivers along the west and east coasts of the north island, in the localities that yielded the bones sent over by Mr. Williams and Mr. Taylor; and that in the higher regions of the same river-valleys, the detritas brought down by the mountain-streams from the volcanic chain, whence they originate, is unmixed with the clay and silt of the lower alluvial tracts; for all the streams in these parts of the north island rise from the lofty ridges of Mount Egmont and Tongariro. Dr. Mantell alluded to the fact, that along the sea coasts and on the banks of the rivers Eritonga, Waibo, etc., there are horizontal terraces of boulders of trap-rocks fifty feet high; and that the small rocky islands of trachyte off the coast bear marks of wave action to the height of a hundred feet above the present sea level. He mentioned other facts of a like nature, in confirmation of his opinion, that since the moas existed, the surface of the country has been elevated many feet above the level of the sea, and that the present rivers and mountainstreams are flowing through channels cut into the ossiferous deposits; in like manner as the rivers of Auvergne flow through the newer tertiary marls and limestones containing bones of mamma|lia, and those of England through the diluvial clay and loam, in which are imbedded the remains of the large extinct pachyderms, the rhinoceros, mammoth, etc. He deemed it probable that the The following passage, from the "Proceedings Zool. Soc.," for 1848, p. 10, is very interesting: "On the conclusion of professor Owen's communication, Dr. Mantell expressed his opinion, that although the specimens formerly sent to this country were obtained from the beds of rivers and mountain streams, and were regarded by the gentlemen who collected them as of very recent date, in reality they belonged to a period of as high antiquity, in relation to the surface soil of New Zealand, as the diluvium, containing bones of the Irish elk, mammoth, etc., to those of England. He observed that Mr. Colenso, Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Williams, who sent to England the bones figured and described by pro-last of the race of moas were destroyed fessor Owen in the Zoological Transactions,' vol. iii., agree in this remarkable fact, that in some places, where the loamy marl in which their specimens were found was observed in situ, it was covered by several feet of strata of marine and fresh-water sand, gravel, and silt. The bones collected by Mr. Walter Mantell, among which were the crania and mandibles that formed the subject of professor Owen's communication, were all found embedded in loose pure sand, formed in a great measure of magnetic iron, and minute crystals of augite and hornblende, the detritas of volcanic rocks. This sand has filled all the cavities and cancelli of the bones, but is not in any instance consolidated together; hence the bones are in the most beautiful state of preservation, and the most delicate processes entire. Dr. Mantell conceives that this bed of volcanic sand is a continuation of the deposit of sandy loam which occurs at the embouchures of the by the earliest inhabitants of New Zealand, as the dodo was finally extirpated by the Dutch colonists of the Mauritius, and the Irish elk by the early British or Celtic tribes; but he considered it evident that the bone deposit was in the progress of accumulation ages ere man inhabited the country.' Who can say what was the proportion, in times long passed away, between the winged and the wingless birds which tenanted our planet? By what agency have the numbers of the latter been reduced? Was man, and man alone, the destroyer of the great wingless birds of New Zealand? Questions like these force themselves upon the imagination; but the answer is difficult; we are only now in the dawn of the history of the extinct brevipennate birds of a comparatively modern epoch. Much may be expected from further investigation: the subject is one of engrossing interest at the present time. But we have not done with New Zea- | the supposed similarity of the few fealand. Let us pass from its wingless or thers brought by that gentleman to those brevipennate birds to those which enjoy of the genus centropus. This idea was the power of flight, and which are arbo- at once dispelled by the arrival of the real in their habits. Of these, numbers perfect specimen now in the British belong to forms or families well known, Museum. The singular appearance of and interest us rather as species than as the feathers of the head, and especially startling anomalies in the chain of orni- their arrangement about the bill, gives it thology. There is, however, one bird in much of the expression of the strigida New Zealand so strange in its aspect, so (owls). Dr. Dieffenbach states that its singular in its manners, and so scarce, (if native name implies that its habits are indeed it be not now extirpated,) that its nocturnal: the natives catch the bird by discovery filled the minds of zoologists moonlight. He farther informs us that with some degree of perplexity. Between it chiefly inhabits the south island of the owls and the parrots the hiatus New Zealand, but is very rare even in is extreme, yet this bird to which we that locality, which is in some degree allude is an owl among parrots, or a the result of the destruction it meets with parrot among owls: a unique speci- from the attack of cats and dogs, to men, of great value, is in the British which its habit of frequenting the lower Museum. branches only of trees the more readily exposes it." The night-parrot (Strigops habroptilus, G. R. Gray.) Mr. F. Strange, in a letter to Mr. Gould, ("Proceedings Zool. Soc.,' 1847, p. 50,) thus writes: "The ka-ka-po, or night-parrot of the New Zealanders, is an inhabitant of the western side of the middle island, and like the kiwi-kiwi, or apteryx, is strictly nocturnal in its habits, and never leaves its retreat during the day; its usual place of resort consists of burrows, formed by itself beneath the roots of large trees, or under immense pieces of rock, whence they cannot even by the natives be easily dug out. Its food consists of fern roots, which it digs up with its bill, and the outer covering of the leaves of flax, which it obtains by drawing the leaves between the mandibles, and leaving the flax behind. They are not gregarious, more than two being never found together, except a pair of young ones, which appear to stop with the old birds until they have attained the size of their parents. This is one of the birds the natives set great store by, the head being cut off, strung by the nostrils, and worn in their ears on their grand feast days. It is known to the sealers by the name of the Green Bird of New Zealand." In a subsequent page of the same volume (p. 61) Mr. Gray writes as follows: "With respect to the interesting particulars about strigops habroptilus, communicated by Mr. Gould, I am induced to remark that this singular bird was first noticed under the native name of kakapo, in the appendix to Dr. Dieffenbach's Travels in New Zealand,' where it was first suggested to belong to the family of cuculida, (cuckoos,) from Description :-Upper surface sap green, with a verdigris tinge on the wings; each feather marked in the middle with yellow, which is margined on the sides with black, from which spring irregular transverse bands of the same colour; the outer webs of the greater wing coverts, quills, secondaries, and the entire tail brownish buff, banded transversely with black; between every alternate set, lemon yellow; the inner webs of quills and secondaries black, more or less transversely banded with lemon yellow; under surface pale greenish yellow, tinged with lemon yellow, more or less marked along the shaft with pale yellow, which is narrowly margined with brownish black; some of the feathers have transverse bands of the same colour; the top of the head brownish black, margined outwardly with sap green, tinged in some places with verdigris, and marked in the middle with pale yellow; the front, cheeks, ear coverts, and the projecting feathers of the face pale umber, marked in the middle with yellowish white; bill, white; feet, plumbeous black; total length two feet four inches, that of the tail being nine inches and a quarter. Great interest attaches itself at the present time to New Zealand, and that interest is reflected upon all its natural productions-productions indeed which would fully justify the attention paid to them, for their own sake alone. At no distant date, under the blessing of Providence, these islands, so recently added to our colonial territories, will rise high in the scale of importance. They are favoured alike by climate, soil, and irriga tion, and abound in picturesque scenery. Many, perchance, who design to emigrate may read the foregoing sketch, and be induced, on their arrival, to pay some attention to the subjects on which we have briefly discoursed. Their leisure hours cannot be more innocently and usefully employed. Many, perchance, whose friends and relatives are now residents of New Zealand, will read this paper, because it relates to some of the singular productions of that far country, the antipodes of our British islands, and feel a pleasure in its perusal. LOST HOPES. M. Still, to the excess or perversion of this heaven-implanted affection, there are beautiful exceptions, reflecting honour both on the self-denial of the parent, and the well-balanced nature of the child. In a small and neatly-furnished parlour might be seen a group of three persons, -the central one being a child, who occupied the hazardous situation which we have contemplated. Through his thick curls the mother's fingers often moved with delight, arranging them in the most becoming attitudes around the neck, or the well-formed forehead. The father, though what is called a matter-of-fact man, found a new and growing affection mingling with the cares of the day, and was never better pleased at returning from his business at night, than to be entertained with the smart sayings of his boy, which were treasured up for that purpose. Still these parents were more judicious in the training of their child than many in similar situations, and though very indulgent, it would appear that this indulgence had not been especially injurious. Frank Edwards was affectionate, and not disposed to take an undue advantage of kindness. He was cheerful in his attendance at school, and regular in returning home, where something to give him pleasure was sedulously prepared. He was generally satisfied to do what his parents desired, and this good conduct gave to his naturally handsome features an agree able expression; so that the neighbours remarked they had seldom seen an only child so obedient, and with such good manners. Among those who took a deep interest in the boy, was an unmarried uncle, from whom he was named. As he resided near, scarcely an evening passed without a visit from him. He interested himself in all that concerned Frank, and the most expensive gifts at birth-days, and new year, were always from his uncle. On holiday afternoons, when the weather was favourable, his uncle usually came, with his fine pair of ponies, on which they took equestrian exercise together. Such was his absorbing interest in his namesake, that the parents informed him of all their movements respecting him, and observed that he was always pleased to give advice respecting his education. One of his favourite propositions was, that he should be sent away from home. This the parents steadily resisted; arguing, that their own schools bore so high a reputation, that many children from distant towns were sent to be recipients of their privileges. "All this may be very true," he replied; "and yet he ought to go from home, to make him manly. He is brought up too much like a girl. Here, I see him putting his arms around his mother's neck, or sitting with his hand in hers, perfectly childish, you know. How can he ever be fit to bear his part among men, cossetted up in this way ?" These opinions being communicated to Frank, made him constrained in the presence of his uncle. He learned to repress the expression of his affectionate feelings, from fear of ridicule, and lest he should not be considered manly by one whose good opinion he valued. "My dear," said Mr. Edwards, one evening, "my brother has made a distinct proposal, that Frank should be sent to a celebrated scholastic institution, in a distant city, for two years, before he enters college; all the expenses of which he engages to defray." "I pray you not to listen to him. Our boy is doing well here. We cannot tell how it will be with him, when he is far away, perhaps exposed to bad example." "I think as you do, with regard to that. Besides, I should be lost without him, when I come from the store, in the evening. But brother gives me no peace. If we do not cross him in this matter, he will be very likely to make Frank his heir. You know he is rich, and my possessions are very moderate. I think we ought to make a sacrifice of our feelings, for the sake of his future good." "There are other kinds of good, besides the gain of money, that I covet for our child," said the mother, her eyes filling with tears; "and losses, for which all the wealth in the world cannot pay." But she was not slow in perceiving that her husband had already consented to this arrangement; and the brother entering soon after, confirmed it. She felt that longer opposition was fruitless, yet was still moved to say, with an unwonted warmth and emphasis, "My heart is full of misgivings. While my son is by this fireside, I know that he is not in bad company. When he is removed from my sight and influence, how can I know this? I have reason to think that he does not neglect his studies, and he is always happy with me." "That is the trouble, sister; you make him altogether too happy. Remember, he is an only child-everybody can see that. He has got to live in the world, as well as the rest of us. Yet, what does he know of the world? Your husband is much away, occupied with his business; and it is almost a proverb, that boys brought up by women are good for nothing." "Brother, if he is an only child, I think he has not been indulged to his hurt. Is not his home a safe one? Is not his school a good one? Is he not making respectable progress? Is he not in good habits? Can you give assurance that a change will not be for the worse? Do you know certainly that his principles will be strong to resist evil?" The mother argued in vain. She was alternately argued with and soothed. All her objections were resolved into natural reluctance to resign the solace of her son's company; and as the father had consented, she was enforced to consent also. Frank had arrived at an age when the desire of seeing new places, and making new acquaintances was alluring. So he did not heighten the pain of his mother, by any unwillingness to depart. In the preparations for his wardrobe, and supply of books, which were on an unusually liberal scale, he took much interest, and could not avoid boasting a little to his old companions of his brilliant prospects. But when the last trunk was locked, his spirits quailed. Seated between his father and mother, and expecting every moment the arrival of the stage-coach, the tears rushed so fast to his eyes, and he felt such a suffocating sensation in his throat, that he could scarcely heed their parting counsel. At the sound of the wheels, stopping at the door, he would fain have thrown himself upon his mother's neck and wept. But his uncle, who was to accompany him, leaped from the vehicle, and came in. So he busied himself in arranging his parcels; and after shaking hands courageously with his parents, said, as he rushed from the house, "Good by! good by!-you shall hear from me as soon as I get there." He dared not look back, until the roof of his home, and the trees that shaded it, were entirely out of sight. For he knew that if he trusted himself with another glimpse, he should burst into tears; and feared that his uncle would shame him by the appellation of "Miss Fanny" before strangers. In the large school that he entered, everything seemed new and strange. He found more trials of temper and privations of comfort than he had anticipated. He went with an intention to make him self distinguished by scholarship. But there were many older and more advanced than himself, and he did not exhibit the perseverance necessary, in such circumstances, to insure success. He also suffered from that sinking loneliness of heart, which an indulged child feels when first exiled from the sympathies of home. In the head-aches, to which, from childhood, he had been occasionally subject, he sadly missed maternal nursing and tenderness. But he would not acknowledge home-sickness, or complain of indisposition, lest it should not be manly; and having a good temper, became gradually a favourite with his new associates. Everything went on well, until his room-mate was changed, and a careless, immoral boy placed in this intimate connexion. At length, it was proved that he had not the moral courage to say no, |