21

MEMOIR
ON THE
APTERYX AUSTRALIS.

If the Apteryx of New Zealand were to become extinct and all that remained of it
after the lapse of one or two centuries for the scrutiny of the Naturalist were a foot in
one Museum and a head in another, with a few conflicting figures of its external form, --
one representing it in the attitude of a terrestrial Bird, another, like that in Dr. Shaw's
Miscellany¹, portraying it erect, like a Penguin², -- the real nature and affinities of this
most remarkable species would be involved in as much obscurity, and would doubtless
become the subject of as many conflicting opinions among the Ornithologists of that
period, as are those of the Dodo at the present day.

That the opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of the organization of the extinct Bird
once inhabiting the island of Mauritius should be now irrevocably past, is, I need not say,
a subject of the deepest regret to every one interested in the advancement of zoological
science : whether he be engaged as a systematic naturalist in unravelling the intricacies
of the natural system ; or as a physiologist, in determining the relations which subsist
between structure and habits ; or as a philosophical anatomist, in investigating the
principles which regulate the deviations from a typical standard of organization, and
which always receive their most striking illustrations from the aberrant forms at the
confines of a great natural group.

The aim of the present memoir is to prevent the recurrence of similar regrets in re-
ference to the Apteryx Australis, by securing, before its extinction, a record of its or-
ganization, adequate to the several applications above- mentioned.

In the year 1833 the only part of the Apteryx which existed in Europe was the stuffed
skin in the Museum of the Earl of Derby; this was the original specimen on which
the genus was founded by Dr. Shaw³; but many years having elapsed without any ad-
ditional evidence of the bird having reached Europe, it began to be questioned, as in the
case of the Dodo, whether the species had ever existed. At this time the original and
unique specimen of the Apteryx was transmitted to the Zoological Society and submitted
to the free inspection of the Members by their Noble President, and the results of a
minute and accurate examination of this precious evidence of the rarest and most sin-

¹. Naturalist's Miscellany, pl.1057,1058. vol. xxiv. 1813.
² Whence the name of Apteryx Penguin applied to the Apteryx by Dr. Latham, General History of Birds.
vol. x. p. 394.
³Loc. cit.
B