in the adult it becomes curved. I have a very fine series of the adult A. australis, one of very large size, picked out of many; the beaks present no particular characters, the difference in length being sexual. In the young of A. owenii, as may be seen, the bill is straight, and continues so always, or is very slightly curved in the adult. Looking at the little flightless creature here depicted, it cannot surprise any one if told that dogs will shortly, with the aid of man, exterminate the species. Mr. Potts states that Mr. Docherty the Kiwi-hunter informed him "that up to the close of 1871 he had killed about 2200 of these and the Rowi" (A. owenii and A. australis)!
Mr. Keulemans has drawn the adult Apteryx owenii from an example in my own collection, a male bird, taken in May 1872 at Martin's Bay, under the Humboldt Mountains (near the Wakatipu Lake, which is fifty-two miles in length and two or three in width), on the west coast, in the province of Otago, South Island. Here only a few settlers struggle to make a home. I have one very dark A. owenii, said to be a male, but unfortunately without locality. A.fuscus is spoken of; but I cannot say what that may be. This specimen instead of grey is nearer black.
The coloured illustration which appeared in the 'Transactions of the Zoological Society,' vol. iii. p. 380, together with Mr. Gould's first paper on the discovery of the bird, has, to the eye of an Apterygist, a somewhat paradoxical air about it, as the beak is curiously short and curved, whereas Apteryx owenii has received the name of "straight-billed" from the circumstance of its bill not being curved as in A. australis. We must, however, take into consideration at what an early period this was done, and how little was then known of the species.
In the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' 1850 (plates xxx. & xxxi.), the heads, feet, &c. of Apteryx australis and A. mantelli are well done. In Gray's 'Genera of Birds,' vol. iii., there is a fine plate of A. australis; but the beak is not curved as it ought to be. Dr. Buller has figured A. mantelli and A. owenii; all these are adults, as are also those in the two fine and large plates of Gould's 'Birds of Australia,' vol. vi. In
