A FOUR-LEGGED BIRD.

North Otago Times, 3 December 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

A FOUR-LEGGED BIRD.

The crested hoactzin of British Guiana is the only survivor of a certain race of birds, most of which are now known only as fossils. The hoactzin inhabits the most secluded forests of South America, and its survival beyond Its congeners is doubtless owing to its retiring habits and to the fact that it feeds on wild arum leaves, which 'give its flesh a most oflensive flavour, rendering it unfit for food. The chief peculiarity of the hoact J zia consists in the fact that when it is hatched it possesses four welldeveloped legs. The young birds leave the nest and climb about like monkeys over the adjoining limbs, and' look more like tree-toads than birds. The modification of the fore limbsbegins at once after, hatching, when the claws of the digits fall off andi the whole claw-like, hand begins to flatten and become wing-shaped, Feathers soon appear, and before full growth is reached not a vestige remains of the original character, The adult birds not only have no claws upon their wings, but their thumbs even are so poorly developed that one would hardly suspect that in the nestlings we have the-, nearest approach to a quadruped found among existing birds.