THE APTERYX.
This “beast-bird” was in the Gardens seven years before it required an ounce of water (although a perfect teetotaller).
One morning I found the Apteryx apparently in a bad state of health, and when I called the attention of the professors and scientific men to its condition they all declared that the bird must be old and used up, and they predicted its death accordingly. I put in a word of appeal for the poor creature. I told the professors that, although not certain, it was my impression the bird was simply breeding and engaged in forming an egg, and that in all probability she was not sick at all. My observations were ridiculed, and I was laughed at, yet I persevered in standing by my opinion. As in many other instances, my perseverance was at length rewarded by my being allowed to have my own way. I set to work at once and watched and attended to the Apteryx night and day. The sequel proved that my opinion was the correct one, and to my great joy, and no doubt her relief, she delivered herself of an immense egg.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PECULIAR NATURE AND HABITS OF THE APTERYX—THE STRANGEST OF ALL BIRDS.
When the time of delivery was at hand, I supplied her with water, and she used it freely, as a help to deliver the egg. This was the first water she had used in seven years (being a bird of absorption), and until the time of delivery she never required water at all as a drink.
Seventeen days elapsed from the time I got full control of the bird (dating from the day the professors had given her up), when she was safely delivered of the first egg ever laid on the Island of Great Britain, or in any other country or clime, away from her native wilds.
The female Apteryx produces an egg ready for hatching without ever seeing a male bird.