Catalogue of the Birds of New Zealand, with Diagnosis of the Species A History of the Birds of New Zealand

Abstract

BIRDS, as most people know, or ought to know, form the most important part of the vertebrate Fauna of New Zealand, and their importance is maintained not only when they are compared with their compatriots of other classes; but, when regarded in reference to members of their own class in the world at large, the birds of New Zealand offer so many singular forms that as a whole they deserve every consideration. Some of the most remarkable of these have already been mentioned by a distinguished writer in this periodical,^* but perhaps hardly sufficient prominence was then given to the fact in the ornithology of New Zealand which seems of all others to demand attention; for, recent birds being divided into two great and trenchantly marked groups, of very unequal extent, the smaller of these groups (the Ratitæ) is found to contain six most natural sections, comprising, to take the most exaggerated estimate, less than two score of species, while the larger group (the Carinatæ), though perhaps not containing more natural sections, comprehends some ten thousand species. Now, two out of the six sections of this small group are absolutely restricted to New Zealand, and these two sections contain considerably more than half of the species known to belong to it. Thus, setting aside the Carinate birds of our distant dependency (and some of them are sufficiently wonderful), its recent Ratite forms—some twenty species, let us say—alone may be regarded as the proportional equivalent of one-tenth of the birds of the globe, or numerically, we may say, of an avifauna of about one thousand species.

Catalogue of the Birds of New Zealand, with Diagnosis of the Species.

By Frederick Wollaston Hutton, Assistant Geologist. Published by Command. 8vo. (New Zealand, 1871.)

A History of the Birds of New Zealand.

By Walter Lawry Buller, &c. Part I. 8vo, coloured plates. (London, 1872,)