Huia beak brooch

This brooch is made from the beak of a hūia (extinct New Zealand bird: Heteralocha acutirostris). The long and narrow shape of the beak tells us that it comes from a female hūia. There are remnants of feathers in the nostrils near the base of the beak. The maker is unknown, but was following the fashion of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when it was acceptable for New Zealand jewellers to mount the beaks of native birds in gold or silver settings to be worn as brooches or pendants.