188 Transactions. — Zoology. 



belonging to the long-known calcitrans, but which require 

 only to be compared with the type species to disclose their 

 distinctness. 



In the collection are bones belonging probably to still 

 another species of this remarkable genus. Sir Eichard Owen 

 early detected, in the disjointed fragments of the Cncmiornis 

 skeleton, its near relationship to the unique Cape Barren goose 

 of Australia, or Ccreoi)sis. It is with much satisfaction that 

 the author has to announce the addition to the New Zealand 

 fauna of a species of Cereopsis itself. The species is founded 

 on a portion of the cranium, which, except that it is slightly 

 larger, is almost indistinguishable from Cereopsis nova-hol- 

 landice. This species has been designated Cereopsis uovce- 

 zealandicE, and is important from the point of view of geo- 

 graphical distribution. 



Equally interesting and important is the next species, as it 

 belongs to a genus of ducks confined to Australia, and repre- 

 sented there by a single species, the Musk Duck, Biziura lohata. 

 The present species is named Biziura lautouri in compliment 

 to Dr. H. de Lautour, of Oamaru, to whom the author, as 

 well as the Canterbury Museum, is deeply indebted for his 

 kind aid in its acquisition of the recent important deposit of 

 Dinornis remains discovered near that town. 



In the present collection there is a considerable number of 

 bones referable to Ralhne birds, but for the present the author 

 is unable to determine to what species they should be assigned, 

 for want of the necessary skeletons to compare them with. 

 One tibia is sufficiently distinct, however, to indicate a species 

 of Ocydromus far exceeding in size any existing New Zealand 

 form, and for it he proposes the name of Ocydromus insignis. 



It will be within the recollection of the members that the 

 author founded a species of swan (which he named Glmiopis 

 sumncrcnsis) on a coracoid and portion of a humerus found in 

 Monck's Cave at Sumner. The correctness of this determina- 

 tion has been amply verified by the receipt of swan remains 

 from widely-separated parts of New Zealand. Among the 

 material referable to this group, there appears evidence of 

 there having been probably more than one species of Cygnus 

 or Chenopis in these Islands in ancient times — a fact of great 

 interest also from the point of view of the geographical dis- 

 tribution of this disrupted family, now found living only in 

 Europe, in South America, and in Australia. The author, not 

 having, however, any skeletons of South American forms for 

 purposes of comparison, is unable to decide with certainty 

 whether the affinity of the New Zealand species is closer to 

 the Austrahan species than to their Neotropical relatives. _ 



The species next described is a shag of greater dimensions 

 than the largest New Zealand species, Phalacrocorax iiovce- 



