88 Transactions. — Zoology. 



In the Hon. Walter Kothschild's beautiful collection of 

 New Zealand birds at Tring Park there are two partial 

 albinoes of this species. They are male and female. The 

 former has the crown of the head, face, throat, and an irre- 

 gular narrow stripe down the fore-neck dull greyish- white ; on 

 the shoulder, breast, and back there are likewise a few scat- 

 tered leathers of pure-white. The female, which is an excep- 

 tionally large specimen, has a broad, irregular, transverse 

 band of yellowish-white on the under-part of the body ; rest 

 of the plumage normal. 



From a fresh specimen I obtained the following measure- 

 ments : — Adult ?. Length, to end of tail 29in., to end of 

 outstretched legs 41in. ; culmen, from anterior edge of cere 

 to the tip, 5 - 25in. ; along the edge of lower mandible, 

 from the angle of the mouth, 6 - 25in. ; tarsus, 3 - 50in. ; middle 

 toe and claw, 3 - 50in. (the claw being lin.) ; hallux, O7oin.; 

 median circumference of tarsus, 2'50in. ; circumference at 

 junction of phalanges, 4 - 25in. ; humerus, 2in.; cubitus, l - 50in.; 

 spur, 0-25in. 



Art. XL — On the Fissures and Caves at the Castle Bocks, 

 Southland; with a Description of the Remains of the 

 Existing and Extinct Birds found in them. 



By A. Hamilton. 



[Read before the Otago Institute, 10th May, 1892.~] 



Plates VII., VIII. 



A few miles south of Lumsden, on the right bank of the Oreti 

 Eiver, Southland, an outcrop of limestone occurs at a place 

 called the Castle Bocks. Here denudation has exposed the 

 beds of limestone, which are tilted at a high angle, and huge 

 masses of rock have become detached, and have fallen, slipped, 

 or rolled to a resting-place on the spurs of the steep hillsides 

 or down to the valley beneath. The enormous size of the 

 blocks, and the confusion in which they are piled, recalls many 

 a memory of ancient and picturesque ruins on historic sites. 



In this part of the world we are but now making history, 

 and comparatively little of Nature's record of past centuries 

 has yet been read. Hidden in these Castle Bocks my friend 

 Mr. Mitchell and I have been privileged to find a very 

 interesting, even if still imperfect, chapter of the unwritten 

 record of the past. 



For convenience I shall use the first person in writing these 

 notes ; but it must be understood that Mr. Barnhill, of the 



