481

447

localities of the North Island, and more widely diffused in the South Island, there
still exists a smaller species of Apteryx ( A. oweni, Gld.), of which the plumage
resembles that in (some species of) Dinornis in being softer and less rigid than in
A. mantelli, in having a shorter basal downy portion, and in the tip of the feather
being of a markedly lighter colour than the rest of the vane, which also presents
portions or bars of fulvous brown and blackish brown. The analogous shades observ-
able in the disinterred feathers of the Moa, and especially the lighter tip, perhaps
blanched to whiteness, must have given, at least to the species of Dinornis to which
the feather (Plate CXIV. fig. 11) belonged, a banded or mottled character.

A larger banded kind of Apteryx (A. haastii, Blr.), obtained on the high ridges above
Okarita, on the west coast of the South Island, affords plumes approaching in size,
nearer than in A. oweni, to those of the Dinornis above described ; but the terminal tip
is less marked. There is, however, as little appearance of an accessory plume in this
as in other known kinds of Kivi.

In the "Notes on Moa-Caves in the Wakatipu District," communicated by Taylor
White, Esq., to the Otago Institute, it is stated that at "thirty feet from the entrance,
in the two-inch crust, a small quantity of double-shafted feathers, of a greyish brown
colour and three inches long, were obtained." " Further on was a small collection of
short sticks, fern and broom, which might be the remains of a nest. Here the feathers
were scarcer, and a metatarsus was found in good preservation which measured 8 inches
in length, 6 7/8 girth at proximal end, 3 7/8 at thinnest part, and 8 3/4 girth at distal end :
also portions of egg-shell of a green colour, which appeared to be parts of a large
egg" 1.

The above dimensions of the metatarsal indicate its having formed part of a
female of Dinornis casuarinus. Supposing the egg-fragments as well as the "double-
shafted ' feathers to have been those of a Moa, they support Mr. Dallas's con-
clusion of the nearer affinity of Dinornis "to the green-egged Emus and Cassowaries"
than to the Rhea and Ostrich. Capt. Hutton remarks :- "The green egg-shell from
the cave at Mount Nicholas proves, on microscopical examination, to have the true
Dinornis structure [see ante, p.317]. It is of a rather pale sea-green colour, smooth,
but not polished." The feathers from this cave are not very well preserved. Most
of them are pale yellow-brown, margined with darker, while a few were dark brown.
The largest is 6 1/2 inches. the feathers from the cave near Queenstown are in an
excellent state of preservation, and many have both shafts quite complete. The 'after-
shaft' is much more slender than the true shaft, but often nearly as long ; the barbs
gradually get more distant from one another towards the apex, and they are generally
opposite on each side of the shaft. I saw no signs in any of the feathers of the barbs
near the base being in groups of four or five, as described by Mr. Dallas in the 'Anne &
Mag. Natural History," 3rd series, c. 16, p. 66, in the feathers of D. robustus. There are

1 Trans. of the New-Zealand Institute, 1876, vol. viii. p. 98.
3 z 2