Alfred Newton

“ It often yawns when disturbed in the daytime, gaping its mandibles in a very grotesque manner. When provoked it erects the body, and, raising the foot to the breast, strikes downwards with considerable force and rapidity, thus using its sharp and powerful claws as weapons of defence. . . . While hunting for its food the bird makes a continual sniffing sound through the nostrils, which are placed at the extremity of the upper mandible. ”

“ That the sense of touch is highly developed seems quite certain, because the bird, although it may not be audibly sniffing, will always first touch an object with the point of its bill, whether in the act of feeding or of surveying the ground ”

“ From this time the whole structure of the kiwi has certainly been far better known than that of nearly any other bird, and by degrees other examples found their way to England, some of which were distributed to the various museums of the Continent and of America. [3]
Kiwi. ”

“ The most obvious feature the Apteryges afford is the presence of a back toe, while the extremely aborted condition of the wings, the position of the nostrils—almost at the tip of the maxilla—and the absence of an after-shaft in the feathers, are characters nearly as manifest, and others not less determinative, though more recondite, will be found on examination. ”

“ This remarkable bird was unknown till George Shaw described and figured it in 1813 (Nat. Miscellany, pls. 1057, 1058) from a specimen brought to him from the southern coast of that country by Captain Barcley of the ship “Providence.” At Shaw’s death, in the same year, it passed into the possession of Lord Stanley, afterwards 13th earl of Derby, and president of the Zoological Society, and it is now with the rest of his collection in the Liverpool Museum. ”

“ About the size of a large domestic fowl, they are birds of nocturnal habit, sleeping, or at least inactive, by day, feeding mostly on earth-worms, but occasionally swallowing berries, though in captivity they will eat flesh suitably minced. ”