Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/117

 Barcley of the ship &quot;Providence.&quot; At Shaw s death, in the same year, it passed into the possession of the then Lord Stanley, afterwards thirteenth Lord Derby, and president of the Zoological Society, and it is now with the rest of his collection in the Liverpool Museum. Consider ing the state of systematic ornithology at the time, Shaw s assignment of a position to this new and strange bird, of which he had but the skin, does him great credit, for he said it seemed &quot; to approach more nearly to the Struthious and Gallinaceous tribes than to any other.&quot; And his credit is still greater when we find the venerable Latham, who is said to have examined the specimen with Shaw, placing it some years later among the Penguins (Gen. Hist. Birds, x. p. 394), being apparently led to that conclusion through its functionless wings and the backward situation of its legs. In this false allocation Stephens also in 1826 acquiesced (Gen. Zoology, xiii. p. 70). Meanwhile in 1820 Temmiuck, who had never seen a specimen, had assorted it with the Dodo in an Order to which he applied the name of luertes (Man. d Ornithologie, i. p. cxiv.). In 1831 Lesson, who had previously (loc. cit.) made some blunders about it, placed it (Traite d Ornithologie, p. 12), though only, as he says, &quot; par analogic et a priori,&quot; in his first division of Birds, Oiseaux Anomaux,&quot; which is equivalent to what we now call Ratitee, making of it a separate Family &quot; Xullipennes.&quot; At that time no second example was known, and some doubt was felt, especially on the Continent, as to the very existence of such a bird 1 though Lesson had himself when in the Biy of Islands in April 1824 (Voy. &quot; Coquille,&quot; ut supra) heard of it; and a few years later Dumont d Urville had seen its skin, which the naturalists of his expedition procured, worn as a tippet by a Maori chief at Tolaga Bay (Houa-houa), 2 and in 1830 gave what proves to be on the whole very accurate information concerning it (Voy. l( Astrolabe,&quot; ii. p. 107). To put all suspicion at rest, Lord Derby sent his unique specimen for exhibition at a meeting of the Zoological Society, 12th February 1833 (Proc. Zool. Society, 1833, p. 24), and a few months later (torn, cit., p. 80) Yarrell communicated to that body a complete description of it, which was afterwards published in full with an excellent portrait (Trans. Zool. Society, i. p. 71, pi. 10). Herein the systematic place of the species, as akin to the Struthious birds, was placed beyond cavil, and the author called upon all interested in 1 Cuvier in the second edition of his Regne Animal only referred to it in a footnote (i. p. 498). 2 Cruise in 1822 (Journ. Residence in Few Zealand, p. 313) had spoken of an &quot; Emeu &quot; found in that island, which must of course have been an Apteryx. 105 zoology to aid in further research as to this singular form. In consequence of this appeal a legless skin was within two years sent to the society (Proceedings, 1835, p. 61) obtained by Mr W. Yate of Waimate, who said it was the second he had seen, and that he had kept the bird alive for nearly a fortnight, while in less than another couple of years additional information (op. cit., 1837, p. 24) came from Mr T. K. Short to the effect that he had seen two living, and that all Yarrell had said was substantially cor rect, except underrating its progressive powers. Xot long afterwards Lord Derby received and in March 1838 transmitted to the same society the trunk and viscera of an Apteryx, which, being entrusted to Professor Owen, furnished that eminent anatomist, in conjunction with other specimens of the same kind received from Drs Lyon and George Bennett, with the materials of the masterly monograph laid before the society in instalments, and ultimately printed in its Transactions (ii. p. 257, iii. p. 277). From this time the whole structure of the Kiwi has certainly been far better known than that of nearly any other bird, and by degrees other examples found their way to England, some of which were distributed to the various museums of the Continent and of America. 3 In 1847 much interest was excited by the reported discovery of another species of the genus (Proceedings, 1847, p. 51), and though the story was not confirmed, a second species was really soon after made known by Gould (torn, cit., p. 93; Transactions, iii. p. 379, pi. 57) under the name of Apteryx oiveni a just tribute to the great master who had so minutely explained the anatomy of the group. Three years later Mr Bartlett drew attention to the manifest difference existing among certain examples, all of which had hitherto been regarded as specimens of A. australis, and the examination of a large series led him to conclude that under that name two distinct species were confounded. To the second of these, the third of the genus (according to his views), he gave the name of A. mantelli (Proceedings, 1850, p. 274), and it soon turned out that to this new form the majority of the specimens already obtained belonged. In 1851 the first Kiwi known to have reached England alive was presented to the Zoological Society by Mr Eyre, then lieutenant-governor of New Zealand. This was found to belong to the newly described A. mantelli, and some careful observations on its habits in captivity were published by Wolley and another (Zoologist, pp. 3409, 3605). 4 Subsequently the society has received several other live examples of this form, besides one of the real A. australis (Proceedings, 1872, p. 861), some of A. oweni, and one of a supposed fourth species, A. haasti, characterized in 1871 by Mr Potts (Ibis, 1872, p. 35: Trans. N. Zeal. Institute, iv. p. 204; v. p. 195). 5 The Kiwis form a group of the Subclass Ratitee to which the rank of an Order may fitly be assigned, as they differ in many important particulars from any of the other existing forms of Ratite birds. The most obvious feature the Apteryges afford is the presence of a back toe, while the 3 In 1842, according to Broderip (Penny Cyclopaedia, xxiii. p. 146), two had been presented to the Zoological Society by the New Zealand Company, and two more obtained by Lord Derby, one of which he had given to Gould. In 1844 the British Museum possessed three, and the sale catalogue of the Rivoli Collection, which passed in 1846 to the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, includes a single specimen probably the first taken to America. 4 This bird in 1859 laid an egg, and afterwards continued to lay one or two more every year. In 1865 a male of the same species was in- ] troduced, but though a strong disposition to breed was shown on the part of both, and the eggs, after the custom of the Ratit&, were incu bated by him, no progeny was hatched (Proceedings, 1868, p. 329). 5 A fine series of figures of all these supposed species is given by Rowley (Orn. Miscellany, i. pis. 1-6). Some others, as A. maxima, A. mollis, and A. fusca have also been indicated, but proof of their validity has yet to be adduced. XIV. 14