BORN IN AN OVEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 91, 18 April 1929, Page 9

BORN IN AN OVEN.

A FOUNDLING KIWI.

SMALL BIRD WITH BIG

APPETITE.

PRESENT FOR THE ZOO.

Kiwis mmt, hav P first seen the light in strange places, but a little fellow who has arrived up &t Kawakawa is probably the only one who has been born in an oven - n : an incubator, but a plain everyday kitchen oven. It happened <~\nit.accidentally. One dav a Manri boy arrived in the township with a kiwi's errg. It lay outside all Saturday night and part of Sunday morning, when it was shown to Mr. G. Wilson, the postmaster. It was the first he had ever seen. As soon as he handled it he knew there was life inside, and he suggested that it be handed over to him. This was agreed to. After being warmed in the 11 veil for two hours the shell was broken by Mr. Wilson sufficiently to let the inmate get its little beak through. Gradually he loosed the body, until°at the end of six hours there emerged a tiny kiwi. All the operations took place in the oven, and naturally Mr. Wilson had to watch the temperature very closely. At first the little fellow was not too safe on his pins, but soon improved. He was fed on a diet of yolk of egg. Later he developed an appetite quite out of proportion to his size.

"We have to keep the doors, shut," wrote Mr. Wilson, to the curator of the Auckland Zoo, "as be hangs round and hops up 23 flights of steps and makes straight into the kitchen. He is a very hungry mortal, for ever looking for food and willing to eat great bread crumbs and anything he can find on the kitchen floor.

"He is getting quite knowing, and very intelligent. Most peculiar of all, however, is the fact that lio never drinks. When six weeks old he was quite strong and able to sleep out. He has departed from the natural ways of the kiwi, and hunts by day and sleeps by night. Immediately he> sees a human being he starts pecking them to let them know he requires 'more worms.' Where he gtows them all goodness only knows, but he never says he has had enough. Immediately after a good feed he simply buries his head and falls off to sleep —generally for about two hours—and then out he goes hunting again." As the kiwi is protected and no one in allowed to take one, or keep one in captivity, the permission of the Minister of Internal Affairs is to be asked in order that this interesting little foundling may be presented to the Auckland Zoo.

A photograph of the bird will be found on the illustrations page.