The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-07
ROYAL BAKING PoWpsa col, NEW YORK.

there he lives, principally in the socie- ty of seals and sea fowl, The goVsrn- ent of the province has set apart the lonely island named with one or two others in the vicinity as sanctuary for the rarer creatures of the New Zealand fauna, and especially for three strantge, if indeed yet surviving, birds the kakapo, the kiwi and the weeka. These are all shy nocturnal specimens, seldom seen in any part of the 1s- lands, but if ever visible showing themselves at Resolution Island and in the adjacent coast valleys. As is well known, New Zealand, when first dis covered was almost destitute oof indi- genous animal life There existed two small kinds of bat and local rat, which latter has since entirely dlsap
 peared. A native dog was imported by early Kanakas, and there were a few lizards and peculiar. though now ex-
 tremely rare, frog, but no snakes. Captain Cook and others brought over the pigs and dogs which have so won
 derfully multiplied, and while subse- quent colonists have introduced most of the game and small birds, and all kinds of domestic animals, rabbits have be- come in many districts an absolute pest.
 Yet all these are novelties to New
 zealand, which has her own geological
 ideas and secrets, and must have been
 in days immeasurably distant a para
 disc for curious naturalists. She keeps
 for them still in the recesses of her
 groves of tree fern and wild flax the
 three quaint and ancient birds already
 mentioned and possibly she may still
 reserve for such devoted enthusiasts
 as MT. Henry the all-absorbing, all-re-
 warding spectacle of a live moa The
 moa or dinornis-the terrible bird'-
 was eleven or twelve feet high, with bones as big as an elephants, and pro- digious feet which could have carried
 a man as easily as Sinbad's roc, if the ! creature ever flew. But it was wing less-it was like it's little extant cousin
 apteryx or kiwi, and distantly related i iii general features to the emu and 1 cassowary. The swamps near Otago
 and Canterbury often yield relics of these enormous birds, but the Maoris l who have been on the islands for only
 five hundred years, have traditions
 that their first ancestors hunted the
 living moa, of which the bones have
 been found in ancient cooking ovens l In one Maori grave of evidently an- tique date was found a skeleton hold ing between It's bony palms foa's egg l containing the frame of chick. So 1t
 is not quite impossible for MT. Henry or some one else in New Zealand some day or other to encounter and behold a veritarle livine dinarnis stalking
 along with his head as high as first
 floor window and with huge three- { toed claw, which would kick the life out of the biggest rhinoceros.
 The kiwi. which Mir Henry will
 probably often see and watch, is no doubt a picture in little of it's stupen- dous relative and ancestor the moa i It is without wings or tail feathers, q | little larger than a hen. with short | legs set on far back, snipe like bill, with the nostrils well forward, and brown, thready feathers resembling | hair. No naturalist ever heard of the | existence of this quaint bird until Shaw figured it in 1913 from speci- | men brought home; but as soon as Sir | Richard Owen got hold of a body and l skin, in 1888, the world knew as much l about kiwis as barn door fowls Nev- | ertheless, the kiwi remains one of the | primitive jokes of creative nature. | Without wings, it runs with a flying
 speed of foot, with it's neck strained l downward and forward so as to look | like an immense cat. When still it 1 stimulates round block of wood, and
 it rests it's long bill on the ground at
 such times and vawns with it like a l dog. While hunting for the worms and lizards on which it feeds, the kiwi 1 keeps up a perpetual sniffing through l it's absurd nostrils and tests every 1 thing with the extremity Of it's flexible l bill. Like a snipe, it can discover with i this strange member where the marsh
 worms are and dexterously draw them
 forth. What was Evolution at, it
 must be asked, to produce this odd, hirsute, clumsy, nocturnal being as it's l first essay at developed birds; or, if 1t l haG flying ancestors why did it drop l it's wings?
 The kakapo is another of these curi-
 ous New Zealand night-living things
 sort of owl-parrot, of which the late
 Sir George Grey was one of the ear l Hest to tell the world This strange
 freak of nature is about the size of a
 raven greenish-brown in color, and
 breeds only once in every two years, | as if it had lost it's calendar. The
 kiwi, on the other hand, breeds twice
 in each year, as if it's calendar had gone wrong; but to preserve eccen-
 tricity and originality only the male | kiwi sits upon the eggs. The kakapo
 has & thick, powerful beak, with hairs
 all around it's base, like an owl: and, l like an owl, comes forth only by night. As might almost be confidently ex- ! pected from such a melancholy pro- 1 duct of natures "'prentice hand" it
 has no merry-theught, like other
 birds, and yet shows a certain intelli- 1 gence and affection in captivity. The |