Buller. — On Phalacrocorax colensoi and P. onslowi. 131 



varies with age and season, and the only thing to be done, so 

 far as I can see, is to make the characters of Phalacrocorax 

 colensoi somewhat wider. 



In a specimen which I have since had an opportunity of 

 examining the dark plumage actually meets about the foreneck, 

 there being only a few minute white feathers along the line of 

 junction. There is a single lengthened coronal feather, evi- 

 dently the vestige of a crest that had recently been shed. 

 There is a broad alar bar of white, but no dorsal spot. This 

 bird, which presents old and faded, or out-of-season, plumage, 

 was obtained by Mr. Henry Travers on a former visit to the 

 Auckland Islands, about the year 1890. 



With regard, however, to another species of Shag Mr. 

 Forbes has, I think, been more fortunate. He is probably 

 right in considering Phalacrocorax impcrialis, with which I 

 had united the Chatham Island Shag, as being confined to 

 the Straits of Magellan, from whence the type came. I am 

 perfectly sure that the Chatham Island bird is distinct from 

 Phalacrocorax carunculatus of New Zealand, and if it cannot 

 properly be united with P. impcrialis it requires a distinctive 

 name ; and in providing this Mr. Forbes could not, in my 

 opinion, have made a better selection than he did in dedicat- 

 ing this handsome species to our late Governor. Lord Onslow 

 not only took an active interest in our native birds and their 

 preservation, but he was the first to send to Europe living 

 specimens of Phalacrocorax carunculatus, one of which, I 

 believe, still survives in the Zoological Society's Gardens at 

 Regent's Park. 



The beautiful example of Phalacrocorax onslowi which I 

 have the pleasure of exhibiting to you to-night came, I pre- 

 sume, from the Chatham Islands, although I have no informa- 

 tion of locality with it. The specimen is in brilliant plumage, 

 and if you will handle it you will find the feathers of the neck 

 as soft and yielding to the touch as the finest silk-velvet. It 

 is a male bird in full breeding plumage, and has a superb 

 coronal crest, the feathers composing which are from one to 

 three inches in length, of narrow even breadth, and of the 

 same brilliant metallic blue as the surrounding plumage. Mr. 

 Forbes, in diagnosing the character of this species, includes 

 " an alar bar and doubtfully a dorsal spot of white as it is 

 absent in the specimens, though mature and crested, described 

 and figured by Sir W. Buller." On examining the specimen 

 now before the meeting, you will observe that, although ap- 

 parently in the most matured plumage, the neck being adorned 

 with white hair-like filaments an inch long and the alar bar 

 being very conspicuous, there is uot the slightest indication of 

 the dorsal spot of white. I think we may conclude that its 

 absence is characteristic of the species. 



