Part 13

_Pezophaps solitaria_ Strickland, the Dodo, &c., p. 46 (1848).

_Didus nazarenus_ Bartl. (nec. Gmel.), P. Z. S. 1851, p. 284, pl. XLV.

_Pezophaps minor_ Strickland, Contr. to Orn. 1852, p. 19 (?).

This bird was first made known by Leguat in 1708, but some confusion seems to have arisen, owing to his applying the same name to them as the Sieur D.B. (Dubois) gave to the Bourbon Dodo in 1674. This is the original description:--

"The feathers of the males are of a brown-grey colour, the feet and beak are like a turkey's, but a little more crooked. They have scarce any tail, but their hind part covered with feathers is roundish, like the crupper of a hare. They are taller than turkeys. Their neck is straight, and a little longer in proportion than a turkey's when it lifts up his head. Its eye is black and lively, and its head without comb on cop. They never fly, their wings are too little to support the weight of their bodies; they serve only to beat themselves and flutter when they call one another. They will whirl about for twenty or thirty times together on the same side during the space of 4 or 5 minutes. The motions of their wings make then a noise very like that of a rattle, and one may hear it two hundred paces off. The bone of their {178} wings grows greater towards the extremity, and forms a little round mass under the feathers as big as a musket ball. That and its beak are the chief defences of this bird. 'Tis very hard to catch in the woods, but easy in open places, because we run faster than they, and sometimes we approach them without much trouble. From March to September they are very fat, and taste admirably well, especially while they are young, some of the males weigh 45 pounds. The females are wonderfully beautiful, some fair, some brown. I call them fair, because they are the colour of fair hair; they have a sort of peak like a widow's, upon their breasts, which is of a dun colour. No one feather is straggling from the other all over their bodies, they being very careful to adjust themselves, and make them all even with their beaks. The feathers on their thighs are round like shells at the end, and being there very thick, have an agreeable effect. They have two risings on their craws, and the feathers are whiter there than the rest, which livelily represents the fine neck of a beautiful woman. They walk with so much stateliness and good grace that one cannot help admiring them and loving them, by which means their fine mien often saves their lives."

The unfortunate Solitaires, owing to the depredations by the pigs and monkeys introduced by the settlers, and the unceasing slaughter by the latter, became extinct between the years 1760 and 1780.

Of their habits we only have the accounts of Leguat:--

"Though these birds will sometimes very familiarly come up near enough to one, when we do not run after them, yet they will never grow tame, as soon as they are caught they shed tears, without crying, and refuse all manner of sustenance till they die.

When these birds build their nests, they choose a clean place, gather together some palm leaves for that purpose, and heap them up a foot and a half high from the ground, on which they sit. They never lay but one egg, which is much bigger than that of a goose. The male and female both cover it in their turns, and the young is not hatched till at 7 weeks end. All the while they are sitting upon it, or are bringing up their young one, which is not able to provide for itself in several months, they will not suffer any other bird of their species to come within two hundred yards round of the place. But what is very singular is, the males will never drive away the females, only when they perceive one they make a noise with their wings to call their own female--she drives away the unwelcome stranger, not leaving it till it was without her bounds. The female does the same as to males, which she leaves to the male who drives them away. We have observed this several times, and I {179} affirm it to be true. The combats between them on this occasion last sometimes pretty long, because the stranger only turns about, and does not fly directly from the nest. However, the others do not forsake it till they have quite driven it out of their limits. After these birds have raised their young one, and left it to itself, they are always together, which the other birds are not, and though they happen to mingle with other birds of the same species, these two companions never disunite.

We have often remarked, that some days after the young one leaves the nest, a company of 30 or 40 bring another young one to it, and the new fledged bird, joining the band with its father and mother, they march to some bye place. We frequently followed them, and found that afterwards the old ones went each their way alone, or in couples, and left the two young ones together, which we called a marriage."

Leguat's, d'Heguerty's, and the Abbé Pingré's descriptions were all we had of this great ground pigeon down to 1866, except a few bones. When Mr. Strickland proved its distinctness from the Dodo of Mauritius in 1844, and up to 1852, these bones numbered 18. In 1864 Mr. E. Newton and Captain Barclay got 3 more bones, in 1865 Mr. Jenner, the resident magistrate, collected 8 bones, and in 1866 nearly 2,000 bones were collected, but during the Transit of Venus expedition in 1874, a thorough search was made, and a number of complete skeletons was collected.

Habitat: Island of Rodriguez.

Represented in Museums by a number of complete skeletons and a large number of bones.

Explanation of Plates.

_Plate 23._

Coloured drawing made from Leguat's description and figure.

_Plate 25 (a)._

_Fig. 1._ Outline of figure in Leguat's Voyage, 1708.

_Fig. 2._ Outline of Schlegel's reconstructed figure of the Solitaire, 1854.

_Fig. 3._ Outline of Solitaire in Frontispiece to Leguat's Voyage, 1708.

{181}

TYMPANUCHUS CUPIDO (L.)

HEATH HEN.

_Tetrao cupido_ Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. Ed. X, p. 160 (1758--ex Catesby, Carolina II, App. p. 1, pl. 1, 1743. "Habitat in Virginia"); Vieillot, Gal. Ois. II, p. 55, p. 219 (1825).

_Pinnated Grouse_ Latham, Gen. Syn. II, 2, p. 740 (1783).

_Bonasa cupido_ Stephens, in Shaw's Gen. Zool. XI, p. 299 (1819--New Jersey and Long Island).

_Cupidonia cupido_ Baird, B. N. Am. p. 628 (1860--partim); Maynard, B. E. Massach. p. 138 (1870--Martha's Vineyard and Naushon Island); Brewster, Auk 1885, p. 82 (Massachusetts).

_Cupidonia cupido var. cupido_ Baird, Brewer & Ridgway, N. Amer. B. III, p. 440 (1874).

_Cupidonia cupido brewsteri_ Coues, Key N.A.B., App. p. 884 (1887).

_Tympanuchus cupido_ Ridgway, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. VIII, p. 355 (1885); Bendire, Life-Hist. N. Amer. B. I, p. 93 (1892); Grant, Cat. B. Brit. B. XXII, p. 77; Check-List N. Amer. B. Ed. II, p. 115, No. 306 (1895); Hartlaub, Abh. Naturw. Ver. Bremen XIV, 1 (second ed. of separate copy, p. 15) (1896).

Linnaeus' brief diagnosis is: "Tetrao pedibus hirsutis alis succenturiatis cervicalibus." After the habitat he adds: "Color Tetricis feminae; vertex subcristatus; a tergo colli duae parvae alae: singulae pennis quinque." This diagnosis is taken from Catesby, who gives a fairly good description and a recognizable coloured plate. He specially mentions that the neck-tufts are composed of five feathers, and in his figure they are shown to be much pointed. Catesby expressly states that he does not know exactly from which part of America his specimen came--yet Linnaeus says "Habitat in Virginia."

Formerly the Heath Hen inhabited New England and part of the Middle States (Southern Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey, Nantucket, Eastern Pennsylvania), but in 1887 Ridgway stated already that it was then apparently extinct, except on Martha's Vineyard. About that time it was still common on that island, inhabiting the woods and chiefly haunting oak scrub and feeding on acorns. They were then "strictly protected by law," but this protection seems not to have been effectual, as from 1893 to 1897 a number were killed, skinned, and sold to various museums. This was, perhaps, fortunate rather than unfortunate, because Mr. Hoyle (the man who collected them) told us that in 1894 a fire destroyed many of them, and in the fall of 1897 they were practically gone. But almost worse than this, perhaps, two pairs of "Prairie Chicken" (_Tympanuchus americanus_) were liberated and broods of young (of the latter apparently) were seen, so that it {182} is to be feared that birds shot now on Martha's Vineyards Island may have blood of _T. americanus_ in them, the two forms being closely related, somewhat difficult to distinguish, and evidently sub-species of each other. Nevertheless, a bird taken in 1901 was pronounced to be typical _cupido_ by Mr. Brewster.

From these facts it is pretty clear that the Heath Hen is among the birds the fate of which is sealed, and which, if not already exterminated or mixed with foreign blood, will soon have disappeared. The footnote in the Proceedings of the IV. International Ornithological Congress, p. 203, is herewith corrected.

{183}

COTURNIX NOVAEZELANDIAE QUOY & GAIM.

(PLATE 28, FIG. 2.)

_Coturnix Novae-Zelandiae_ Quoy and Gaimard, Voy. Astrolabe, Zool. I. p. 242, pl. 24, fig. 1 (1830--"Il habit la baie Chouraki (rivière Tamise de Cook), à la Nouvelle-Zélande"); Gould, Syn. B. Austr., text and pl. fig 2 (1837-38); Buller, B. New Zealand, p. 161, pl. (1873); Hist. B. New Zealand, 2nd ed. I, p. 225, pl. XXIII (1888); Grant, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. XXII p. 245 (1893).

This Quail, though a typical _Coturnix_, is easily distinguished from all other species. The male has the upper-side almost black, each feather bordered and indistinctly barred with rufous-brown, and with a wide, creamy white shaft-line. The throat and sides of the head are rufous-cinnamon, the feathers of the chest and breast at their basal half buff with a broken black cross-bar, the distal half black, with two pale buff spots near the tip, or with a continuous white border.

This sole representative of the "gamebirds" in New Zealand was in former days very numerous in both islands, but especially so in the South Island, wherever there was open grass-land, but is now evidently extinct. Its disappearance is apparently not due to excessive shooting, but rather to the introduction of rats, cats, and dogs, and last, but not least, to bush-fires and to the regular burning of the sheep-runs, according to Sir Walter Buller. No doubt the establishment itself of extensive sheep-farms in the once, more or less, uninhabited grass-land was ominous for the future of the Quail.

It is not quite clear when the Quail disappeared. The last on the North Island was shot by Captain Mair at Whangarei in 1860. Specimens were recorded in 1867 and 1869, but were apparently not procured. In Haast's "Journal of Exploration in the Nelson Province" it is said to be still very abundant in 1861 on the grassy plains of the interior.

Sir Walter Buller mentions two specimens said to be from an island in Blue Skin Bay, shot in "1867 or 1868." In his Second Edition of the Birds of New Zealand he informs us that it was found occasionally in the South Island down to 1875, but in the "Supplement" he speaks of a specimen said to have been shot in 1871, but adds, "There is no absolute evidence of it," and "if true, this individual bird must have been about the last of its race." Therefore, evidently the note about 1875 was erroneous. {184}

The statement of Mr. Cheeseman, that he took eggs on Three Kings Islands is erroneous. The eggs belonged to a _Synoecus_, and the egg given to Sir Walter Buller is now in my collection.

I have, however, also two eggs of _Coturnix novaezealandiae_, brought home by Dr. H. O. Forbes. They have a brownish-white shell, covered and washed all over with deep brown patches and lighter brown underlying markings. They show distinctly the character of Quails' eggs, but, besides being much larger, are easily distinguished from eggs of _Coturnix coturnix_. They measure 34.3 by 25 and 34.5 by 21.3 mm.

Of birds I have in my collection: One [male] ad. Shot at Whangarei, North Island, by Major Mair, in 1860. (This is the specimen figured in the Second Edition of the "Birds of New Zealand." I bought it with Sir Walter Buller's collection eighteen years ago. By a curious _lapsus memoriae_ Sir Walter Buller, in the "Supplement," p. 35, in 1905, states that this bird was in his son's collection.) One [female] ad. and one [male] in the first year's plumage, shot by Messrs. Walter Buller and E. French near Kaiapoi, South Island, in the summer of 1859.

Seven specimens are in the British Museum, the types in Paris, three in Cambridge, a pair in Christchurch in New Zealand, some in the Canterbury Museum, and doubtless many others, most of which have never been recorded.

{185}

DINORNITHIDAE.

MOAS.

The first announcement of the former existence of large Struthious birds in New Zealand was made by Mr. J. S. Polack in 1838. In his book _New Zealand_, he states that he found large bird bones near East Cape in the North Island. The first specimen, however, that came into the hands of a scientific man was the bone sent to Professor Owen in 1839 by Mr. Rule, who reported that the natives had told him that it was the bone of a large Eagle which they called "_Movie_." Professor Owen, with his extraordinary knowledge, at once saw that far from any connection with the _Raptores_, Mr. Rule's bone was a portion of a femur of a gigantic Struthious bird. He described it on November 12th, 1839, at a meeting of the Zoological Society, and it was figured on Plate 3 of Volume III of the Transactions of the Zoological Society.

The next notice of the Moas takes the form of a letter, received by Professor Owen from the Rev. W. C. Cotton, dated Waimate, near the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, July 11th, 1842; and in it the writer gives an account of his meeting with the Rev. Mr. Wm. Williams, a fellow missionary at East Cape. The latter had collected a lot of "Moa" bones and sent them to a Dr. Buckland. Mr. Williams also reported a conversation with two Englishmen, who declared they had been taken out by a native at night and had seen a Moa alive, but had been too frightened to shoot it.

On January 24th, 1843, Professor Owen exhibited a number of bones from Mr. Williams' collection, and described them, giving the bird the name of "_Megalornis novaezealandiae_," afterwards changing the generic title into _Dinornis_, as _Megalornis_ was preoccupied. Afterwards, when describing these bones and those contained in the second box of Mr. Williams' collection more fully, he somewhat inconsistently changed the specific name to _struthioides_, which Captain Hutton, in his later classification, retained. Following the laws of priority, however (_novaezealandiae_ has 10 months' priority over _struthioides_), we must reinstate the name _novaezealandiae_.

A number of other finds occurred between 1842 and 1847, but by far the largest and most important collections were made and sent home between 1847 and 1852 by the Hon. W. Mantell, who sent to Professor Owen many hundreds of bones and eggshells, from which the Professor was enabled to determine and describe a large number of species, and even as early as this to separate some genera. {186}

The bulk of later finds were made by Sir Julius von Haast, Captain Hutton, and Mr. Aug. Hamilton, and the two most famous deposits were Glenmark Swamp and Te Aute; but it would take too much space to give here an account of all the other extraordinary discoveries of Moa deposits made by such men as Dr. Thomson, Mr. Earl, Mr. Thorne, Dr. H. O. Forbes, and many others. Besides many fragments of eggshell, a number of eggs have been found, which will be enumerated elsewhere.

Feathers have been found at Clutha River, near Roxburgh, and also in caves near Queenstown. Those from Clutha are mostly dark, being black with white tips; while the Queenstown ones resemble feathers of _Apteryx australis_ in colours. Professor Owen has shown that _Megalapteryx huttoni_ was feathered down to the toes, and in the plate I have represented it clothed with feathers similar to the Clutha ones, which I believe belong to this species. The Moas at one time must have been extraordinarily numerous, both in numbers and species, and they varied in height from 2½ feet to 12 feet. Professor Parker has shown that some of the species had crests of long feathers on the head, and, as some adult skulls of the same forms show no signs of this, he infers that the males alone had this appendage. There has been much discussion as to the time when the Moas became extinct, and we know for certain that the two species, _Dinornis maximus_ and _Anomalopteryx antiquus_, belong to a much earlier geological epoch than the bulk of the other species. It would be too lengthy for my purpose to go into the arguments, but we can, by the study of the "_kitchen middens_" of Maoris and their traditions, fairly adduce that the Maoris arrived in the North Island some 600 years ago, that they hunted Moas, and that they exterminated them about 100 to 150 years after their arrival. In the South, or rather Central, Island, the Maoris appear to have arrived about 100 years later, and to have exterminated the Moas about 350 years ago. It is only fair to say, however, that Monsieur de Quatrefages adduces evidence in his paper which goes far to prove that Moas existed down to the end of the 18th or even beginning of the 19th century in those parts of the Middle Island not, or scantily, inhabited by Maoris.

The _Dinornithidae_ form a separate group of the order _Ratitae_, in no way closely related to the Australian Emu (_Dromaius_), as many ornithologists have asserted, but nearer to the South American Nandu (_Rhea_) than any other living _Ratitae_, though exhibiting many characters in common with the _Apterygidae_. There have been a number of classifications set up of this family. The first by Reichenbach, in 1850, with 7 species and 7 genera! {187} The next was by Von Haast, in 1873, who enumerated 10 species, divided into 4 genera. The third was Lydekker's, in 1891, who acknowledged 23 species, divided into 5 genera. Then came Hutton's, in 1892, which left out _Megalapteryx_, with its then known 2 species, and acknowledged 26 species, divided into 7 genera. Lastly we have Professor Parker's, in 1895, in which again _Megalapteryx_ is left out, and 21 species are acknowledged, divided into 5 genera. There has been a great amount of controversy as to the number of species of Moas which really ought to be distinguished, and of late years there has been a tendency to unite most of the species as synonyms, the authors declaring that bones vary to such a degree that all the characters relied on for the distinguishing of the various species were individual variations, and that, besides, it was impossible that so many distinct forms could have occurred in such a small area. The extreme of this lumping was reached when Professor Forbes, in the Bulletin of the Liverpool Museums, III, pp. 27 and 28 (1900), divided the Moas into six genera, each with a single species. He thus ignores the fact that by doing so he has united forms which were founded on FULLY ADULT bones, and yet some of them were only about half or two-thirds the size of the others. I personally think that too many species have been made, and at least 7 of Captain Hutton's forms must be sunk. On the other hand some have been described since 1895 and 1900, and I have been obliged to name others rather against my will, so that in spite of uniting so many species of others I find I am obliged to acknowledge more species than anyone else. I have divided these into genera according to Professor Parker's classification, only adding _Palaeocasuarius_ of Forbes, with 3 species, and _Megalapteryx_, with 5, which brings my number up to 38 species, divided into 7 genera. My reasons for not uniting these into 7 species and 7 genera, as those of the "lumping school" do, are twofold,--first, the bones of the _Ratitae_ are much more solid than those of other birds, and are not given to so much individual variation; and, secondly, in the face of the great number of species of Paradise Birds and Cassowaries found on New Guinea, the contention that there could not be so many species of Moa on so small an area is not easily maintained. Moreover, we have strong support in the present fauna and flora for the presumption that, when the Moas first came into existence and differentiated into species, New Zealand was a much larger area, stretching at least from the Macquarie Islands in the south to the Kermadecs in the north, and from Lord Howe's Island on the west to the Chatham Islands on the east. So that, like the giant tortoises on the Galápagos Islands, {188} they only got driven so closely together after their specific differentiation, when the land gradually subsided, owing to volcanic action. The differentiation of the family is as follows:--

DINORNITHIDAE.

Skull with a short and wide beak. Pectoral girdle very small or absent, wing absent, only an indication in _Dinornis dromioides_. Hallux absent or present. An extension bridge to the tibio-tarsus, which is placed near the inner border of the bone. No superior notch to the sternum. Most of the species of very large size. The tarso-metatarsus is either long and slender or short and wide, and its anterior surface may or may not be grooved. The second trochlea is longer than the fourth, the third is not pedunculated, and there is no perforation in the groove between the third and fourth trochlea. In the tibio-tarsus the cnemial crest rises well above the head; the extensor groove is separated by a considerable interval from the inner border of the bone. There is a well-defined intercondylar tubercle; the intercondylar gorge is deep, and there is no deep pit on the lateral surface of the entocondyle. The femur may be either slender or stout, but is not markedly curved forwards. The popliteal depression is deep, and the summit of the great trochanter rises considerably above the level of the head. The pelvis approximates to that of the _Apterygidae_, but the pectineal process of the pubis is less developed, and the ischium and pubis may be longer and more slender. The coracoid and scapula are aborted and may be absent. The sternum, which may be either long and narrow, or broad and short, differs from that of the _Apterygidae_ by the absence of the superior notch, the divergent lateral processes, and the reduction of the coracoidal grooves to small facets or their total disappearance. The cervical vertebrae are relatively short, an expanded neural platform as far as the sixth.

In _Anomalopteryx_ and _Megalapteryx_ the number of cervical vertebrae is 21, and there are 2 cervico-dorsal and 4 free dorsal vertebrae, so it is fair to assume that this is the correct number throughout the family.

The feathers had after-shafts.

THE GENERA ARE AS FOLLOWS:

_Dinornis_ Owen. _Palapteryx_ Owen, part. _Palapteryx_ Hutton. _Tylapteryx_ Hutton.

_Megalapteryx_ Haast. _Anomalopteryx_ Lydekker, part. *_Mesopteryx_ Hutton.

{189} _Cela_ Reichenbach. _Dinornis_ Owen, part. _Meionornis_ Haast. _Anomalopteryx_ Lydekker. _Mesopteryx_ Parker.

_Emeus_ Reichenbach. _Euryapteryx_ Haast. _Syornis_ Hutton. _Dinornis_ Owen, part.

_Pachyornis_ Lydekker. _Palapteryx_ Haast. _Dinornis_ Owen, part. _Euryapteryx_ Hutton.

_Palaeocasuarius_ Forbes. *_Megalapteryx_ Forbes, part.

_Anomalopteryx_ Reichenbach. _Meionornis_ Haast. _Dinornis_ Owen, part.