Page:Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London parts 12 to 15.djvu/552

50 breed), yet these birds showed no inclination to breed, although they were perfectly healthy, and assumed the breeding dress at the proper season. As these birds have the power of suppressing and checking their desires when not in a perfect state of nature, I cannot imagine or think it probable that they would associate and breed, in a state of nature, with species distinct from themselves, possessing as they do the power of travelling over the globe if necessary to find a mate of its own species. Again, the fact of three specimens having been obtained at distant periods, agreeing in internal as well as external characters, is I think sufficient to prevent any one entertaining such an opinion.

List of Hybrids.

5.

", G. R. Gray.—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 never being 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