KAKAPOS.

Southland Times, Issue 1719, 25 March 1873, Page 3

KAKAPOS.

Mr Buller, in his work on New Zealand birds, thus explains why tbe kakapo does not fly .* — " All who have studied tbe bird in its natural state agree on tbis point, that the wings, although sufficiently large and strong, are perfectly useless for purposes of flight, and that the bird merely spreads them to break the force of its fall in descending from a higher point to a lower when suddenly surprised ; in some instances even tbis use of them is neglected, the bird falling to the ground like a stone. We are naturally led to ask how it is that a bird possessing large and well-formed wings should be found utterly incapable of flight. On removing the skin from the body it is seen that the muscles by means of wbich the movements of these anterior limbs are regulated, are very well developed, but are largely overlaid with fat. The bird is known to be a ground-feeder, with voracious appetite, and to subsist chiefly on vegetable mosses, whicb, possessing but little nutriment, required to be eaten in large quantities, and Dr Haasfc informs us that be has sometimes seen them with their crops so distended and heavy that the birds were scarcely able to move. These mosses cover tbe ground, and the roots or trunks of prostrate trees, requiring to be sought for on foot ; and the bird's habit of feeding at night, in a country where there are no indigenous predatory quadrupeds, would render flight a superfluousexertion, anda faculty of no special advantage in the struggle for existence Thus it may bo reasonably inferred tbat disuse, under the usual operation of the laws of nature, has occasioned this disability of wing, for there is no physiological reason why the kakapo should not be as good a flier as any other parrot."