Heteralocha acutirostris, Gould. (Huia.)

Sir John Lubbock, in his charming volume "The Beauties of Nature," in an account of what he terms the Hura (meaning of course the Huia), pp. 48, 49, makes two mistakes. In the first place he calls it a Crow, whereas it has been proved to be a Starling; and, in discussing the curious modification of the bill in the two sexes and its use, he says, "When the cock has dug down to the burrow the hen inserts her long bill and draws out the grub, which they then divide between then"—the italics are mine—"a very pretty illustration of the wife as helpmate to the husband."

Now, I believe I was the first to observe and record the peculiar adaptation of the Huia's bill to its habits of life, in a page 107 paper which I read before this Society in 1870, describing the conduct of a pair of live birds then in my possession (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iii., pp. 24-29). But I had previously told Sir George Grey all about it, and he, with his usual felicity of expression, told the story at a meeting of the Zoological Society on his return to England. It seems a pity to destroy the pretty sentiment of the case as put by Sir John Lubbock, but science is inexorable, and the truth must be upheld. What I stated in my record of observations was this: "The very different development of the mandibles in the two sexes enabled them to perform separate offices. The male always attacked the more decayed portions of the wood, chiselling out his prey after the manner of some woodpeckers, while the female probed with her long pliant bill the other cells, where the hardness of the surrounding parts resisted the chisel of her mate. Sometimes I observed the male remove the decayed portion without being able to reach the grub, when the female would at once come to his aid, and accomplish, with her long slender bill, what he had failed to do. I noticed, however, that the female always appropriated to her own use the morsels thus obtained." I am sorry that the stern truth detracts from the poetry of Sir John Lubbock's narration.