Apteryx; in Nestor the feathers on the same region are round and soft. But I have long been of opinion that to attempt, as systematists do, to place a bird correctly by either internal or external characters alone, is rash. Ornithic taxonomy requires us carefully to examine both, and, as regards the internal, not the osteological only, but the myological as well. In short, an aggregate of characters is the true ground — bearing also in mind what St. George Mivart says (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1873, pt. ii. p. 606), "That similarity of structure necessarily implies genetic affinity can no longer be ranked as a biological axiom."
Respecting the place of Nestor, and therefore of the present indi- vidual, the Prosector to the Zoological Society, Mr. A.H. Garrod, F.Z.S., says (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1872, p. 787) : — "As the tongue of Nestor does not in reality resemble that of the Trichoglossi at all, it may be of interest to describe it more fully." He then gives drawings of the tongues of Stringops, Nestor, and Lorius, and states that "it is evident that the structure of this organ" (the tongue) "would lead to the placing of Nestor among the typical Parrots, though an aberrant one, and not with the Trichoglossinæ; and other points in its anatomy favour this conclusion." This instructive article of the Prosector's, however, should be read; I cannot do justice to it here. Nevertheless I must always feel regret at the banishment of our bird from a family composed of what Mr. A. R. Wallace calls " undoubtedly the most highly organized form of Parrot."
I forgot to mention that Rutherford, the Englishman who was captured by the New-Zealanders in March 1816, and who lived among them till January 1826, is said to have become very expert "in taking birds with a noosed string, after the manner of the natives, and that he thus caught thousands of Ground-Parrots with a line about fifty feet long " ('Library of Entertaining Knowledge' — "The New-Zealanders," p. 187). What a chance came to this man if he had only been an ornithologist !
