rare bird after a very long interval. Five very fine specimens, old and young, have been lately obtained from the w^est coast: efforts were made to secure these much-prized specimens for the Canterbury Museum; but although a considerable sum was offered it was declined by the owner of the skins. Till the present time the only known examples were the two in the Canterbury Museum."
Four of the above mentioned are now in my possession; the fifth was much torn by dogs, and was to be made a skeleton of. I have therefore male and female adults and male and female young, all taken on the South Island, at an altitude of 7000 feet above the level of the sea, thirty miles up the Okarita river, in the mountains on the west coast. Received by me in 1874.
In this species I find the colour to be quite different from that of Apteryx owenii. The trivial name of Large Grey Kiwi has been given to it; but though that is applicable to A. owenii, it is not to this; there is no grey about it. Large Brown Apteryx would have been more suitable, if colour is mentioned.
Dr. Haast's Apteryx evinces a much greater thickness in the metatarsal segment of the leg than Apteryx australis, which it rivals in size, and perhaps surpasses.
Apteryx australis may be described as streaked in perpendicular lines, while the marks in A. haastii are horizontal, and its spots or, more properly, blotches are much bigger than those in A. owenii. The three species of New Zealand (those, in fact, which will stand as species) differ much in colour. I do not accept A. mantelli as a species, nor A. fuscus,—one of which, or what I suppose to be A. fuscus, is now before me; and I take it for a partial melanism of A. owenii, than which it is much darker.
In the adult female figured here the bill along the ridge is 5 inches long, under the under mandible 5·25; tarsus 3; middle toe and claw 3·5.
In a very large Apteryx australis, picked out of a series, I find the bill along the ridge 5·5 inches long, the tarsus 3, middle toe and claw 25.
