BuLLEK. — On New Zealand Birds. 67 



the upper parts is normal, except that on the left side of ihe 

 head the white extends half round the nape. In both wings 

 some of the secondaries aiid primaries and a few of the large 

 coverts are pure white, and there is likewise one white tail- 

 feather. Bill whitish horn-colour. Legs pale-brown; claws 

 yellow horn-colour. 



Diomedea cauta. (The Shy Albatros.) 



I have received four eggs of the Shy Albatros from the 

 Snares, where Captain Fairchild discovered its breeding-place. 

 They differ slightly in size, the largest measuring 4in. in 

 length by 2-6in. in breadth, and the smallest 3'7oin. by 2-3in. 

 They are broadly ovoido-elliptical in shape, and the shell is 

 finely granulated. Two of them are creamy-white, with the 

 larger end thickly splashed with umber-brown, the colouring 

 in one of them being almost as rich as in a merlin's egg, with 

 a few rounded spots at the smaller end. The other two eggs 

 have only a faint wash of brown at the larger end, with widely- 

 scattered blots (some of them with open centres) all over the 

 surface. 



I lately obtained a live bird of this species wdiicli was 

 captured at Island Bay. What struck me most was the 

 beautiful appearance of the head — "quite a model," as the 

 intelligent cabman who brought it to me observed. It has a 

 perfectly rotund appearance — most noticeable in a front view 

 —owing to the feathers being puffed out. This character is 

 lost in the dead bird, and necessarily so in the ordinary 

 cabinet skin, but it could easily be represented in the mounted 

 bird. I think this species is without question the most 

 beautiful of the group, as to form and colour, although 

 Diomedea rcrjia for size and snowy whiteness takes the palm. 

 In life, the bare membrane down the base of the ](jwer 

 mandible, and the moustachial membrane oil the cheeks 

 (usually hidden by the feathers), are of a rich orange-yellow. 

 The black line along the base of both mandibles (outside the 

 yellow membrane on the lower) and from the root of the fore- 

 head to the nostrils is far more conspicuous in the living bird 

 than in dried specimens. The ridge or space between these 

 lines, as well as the whole of the culmen, is of a very delicate 

 lemon-yellow, changing to light horn-colour on the hook. 

 The sides of both mandibles are dull olive-grey, changing to 

 dull pinky-yellow along the rami of the lower mandible, which 

 has its terminal expansion uniform slaty-black. The sides of 

 the mouth, upper and lower, are fringed with a yellow mem- 

 brane, which, from the junction at the gape, extends obliquely 

 upwards and outwards for the space of an inch, forming the 

 peculiar feature already described in my account of this species 

 (" Birds of New Zealand," vol. ii., p. 203). The irides are of 



