Susanna Churchill, age 10, of Portland, Maine, for her question:

Does the kiwi have wings?

Is that chicken‑sized animal a bird. No wings in sight and he certainly has no tail. What’s more, he seems to be covered with shaggy, dark fur. Nevertheless, this Kiwi fellow is a bird. That shaggy coat is really made of thread like feathers. It completely hides a pair of small, quite useless wings. His remote ancestors used their wings for flight. But the kiwi's wings have long since wasted to almost nothing.

The remarkable Mrs. Kiwi lays a most remarkable egg. She weighs four pounds, her egg weighs one pound. For her size, she produces the largest egg in the bird world.

Papa incubates the monstrous egg ‑ naturally there is only one at a time. The hatching job takes two and one half months. The chick is completely covered with furry kiwi feathers. And under the feathers is a small, quite useless pair of wings.