Page:Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London parts 12 to 15.djvu/553

51 worn in the ears on their grand feast-days. It is known to the sealers by the name of the Green Bird of New Zealand.

".—Kiwi-kiwi of the New Zealanders. I am told that a second species of Apteryx is to be found on the Middle island, that it stands about three feet high; it is called by the sealers the Fireman. Aware, from your figures and description, 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. The larger kind are nearly the size of the Emu's; they are somewhat long in form and blunt at the ends; their colour is a dirty white. They are deposited in a burrow on a nest formed of roots and sticks, and a few of the bird's own feathers.

".—I send you the egg of this species, and also the female bird out of which it was taken, after she had received two shots."

April 27, 1847.

William Yarrell, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair.

The following Communications vere read to the Meeting:—

1.

From my earliest acąuaintance with the eggs of our British Birds, I was led to consider that this department of natural history had not been studied with the attention these beautiful objects deserve; and the examination of collections of eggs made in India, Australia, North America, and more recently in Chile, have served to confirm my first impression.

The history of a plant would be incomplete if it did not include a description of the leaf, the flower, and the fruit, as these appear in succession.

Mr. MacLeay has told us in hbis 'Horæ Entom,,' p. 448, that "as the knowledge of the whole life of an insect must make us better acąuainted with its nature than a mere description of one of its forms, in the same proportion ought metamorphosis to outweigh every other principle of arrangement."

Of two naturalists who studied the Lepidoptera of Europe, it has been stated, that "not satisfied with an acąuaintance with the insect in its perfect statė, they examined it also in the early stages of its