Genetic results corroborate historical records of scientific field trips in the mid1800s taken by museum directors Sir James Hector and Sir Julius von Haast, who sent the skins to the Macleay from New Zealand. Phylogeography suggests the skins were collected on the southern west coast of the South Island, excluding the North Island as a source. Here, we used ancient DNA (aDNA) methods to sequence mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from nine Macleay skins and compared them to published sequences of North and South Island Kākāpō to establish the provenance of each skin. The University of Sydney Chau Chak Wing Museum (formerly the Macleay Museum) holds several Kākāpō study skins in the Macleay Collections (Australia’s oldest natural history collection), obtained in the mid1800s prior to population declines, but with unknown provenance. Kākāpō (Strigops habroptilus), the critically endangered New Zealand ground parrot, suffered massive population declines in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries resulting in a genetic bottleneck and adverse inbreeding effects. But you must recall that I've defeated you twice, mercifully granting you your life on a Shadow world the last occasion.'Museum specimens of endangered species are important to determine pre-decline population structure and to characterise loss of diversity in surviving populations. I don't know why we are driven to strive so for this ridiculous position.

'It's true, that uneasy-lies-the-head bit. Let's see what you learned on the Shadow Earth.' And I'd like to quit your claim right now. Slay me, and the throne will probably be yours. If you wish to try me at arms, I find myself suitably attired. 'Then it is between the two of us now, Corwin,' he said. Eric's retainers were coming, and if he didn't kill me before they arrived, then I was confident that they'd do the job - probably with a bolt from a crossbow. Then there were some alarms and excursions in the hall outside. 'I know a way,' he said, and then he glared at Dik, who promptly departed and closed the door behind him. His hand was still steady but I had the feeling then that under other circumstances, by fighting a defensive fight, I just might be able to wear him down with that wrist injury going against him, and perhaps I could get through his guard at the proper moment when he began to slow. There was blood dripping from his right wrist. I set it aside, hopefully in the direction of his face, with my right toe, but it missed and he had at me again. He parried this and kicked a small stool between us. If I didn't hate him so, I would have applauded his performance. But he dodged everything and came on strong, and I circled to his left and all like that, but I couldn't draw the point of his blade from my left eye. So I snatched things off the desk with my left hand and threw them at Eric. The greatest alive, I knew, was brother Benedict, and he wasn't around to help, one way or the other. We'd both had centuries under the greatest masters of the blade in business. I suddenly had the feeling that I couldn't take him, and I parried like mad and retreated in the same fashion as he beat me back, step by step. He was perhaps one of the greatest swordsmen I had ever faced.

'More than one of us are assembled against you.'Īnd he lunged then and beat me back, and I felt suddenly that for all my work he was still my master. The first time, as I remember, it was pretty much a draw.' 'You know where you left me, to die of the plague. I tried a headcut, which he parried and I parried his riposte to my heart and cut at his wrist.Īnd his blade was in his hand and mine in mine.

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