A KIWI COLLECTION.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13736, 30 May 1913, Page 8

A KIWI COLLECTION.

Mr J. Drummond, F.L.S., writes in tho "Lyttelton Times":—Tho Hon. Walter Rothschild, of Tring, England, possesses the largest collection of kiwi skins and skeletons in the world, and lie very kindly has written out a list ol the specimens in his col'ection and sent it to me. In his letter he says:—"You will pro that I have a total of 171 birds. 12 skeletons and 44 eggs. Besides those, I have exchanged some ten or twelve with other museums and handed over to the British Museum ten or twelve skeletons and a considerable number of anatomical and other preparationg in alcohol. My series is very complete. The only point not quite elucidated vet is the exact status of m\ occidentalis; it is remarkably different from tho true oweni, but in somo places ■incurs together with that species and baasti, so it may be a hybrid between the two latter; this could only be s^ttknl by breeding them in confinement." The list shows that Mr. Rothschild has thirty-three unmounted skins of grey kiwi (Aptcryx oweni). Amongst these are a pure white chick, and a silvery-whito and a greyish-white specimen. A male and a female were received alive, but died at Cambridge, and in the collection there are six chicks. Of the same species he has six r.necimeiiis mounted in. his-museum at Tring, including a dirty-white albino and a younrr bird, which was received a'ive and which also died at Cambridge. He has three skeletons of tho species, on<? mounted and two unmounted, and nine eggs, four of which he bought in Paris.