Buller.— On the Ornithology of Neiv Zealand. 115 



Carpophaga chathamiensis, Kotlis. (Chatham Island Wood- 

 pigeon.) 



I have very much pleasure in exhibiting this evening a 

 specimen of the new species of Pigeon mentioned by me in a 

 former paper,* as it is an excellent illustration of what I have 

 recently said about the development of insular forms. 



Gallinago pusilla, Buller. (Chatham-Island Snipe.) 

 Gallinago huegeli, Tristram. (Snares Snipe.) 



The Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club for June, 

 1893, contains a communication from the Eev. Canon Tristram, 

 from which I extract the following: "In the Ibis for 1869, 

 p. 41, Sir W. Buller described a second species [of Snipe] 

 from the Chatham Islands as Gallinago pusilla. Very few 

 specimens have been received, but the species has twice been 

 obtained in New Zealand (to which it is evidently an occa- 

 sional wanderer) : once by Sir James Hector, in the Gulf of 

 Hauraki, and once by Mr. F. B. Hill, on Little Barrier Island. 

 All doubts as to its being a distinct species have recently been 

 set at rest by the large number of specimens obtained in the 

 Chatham Islands by the collectors of the Hon. Walter Both- 

 schild and Mr. H. O. Forbes. I have examined more than 

 twenty specimens, and find that all of them agree in every 

 respect, and cannot be confused with the Auckland Island 

 species. But when Sir W. Buller published his second edition 

 of the ' Birds of New T Zealand ' he had, unfortunately, sent 

 back to New Zealand his only specimen from the Chatham 

 Islands, and borrowed from me a specimen which had been 

 obtained by Baron A. von Hiigel on the Snares, seventy 

 miles south of the southern extremity of New Zealand. This 

 I had put down as Gallinago pusilla, having at that time 

 never seen a Chatham Island specimen. It is very accurately 

 figured and coloured in Buller's second edition ; but it proves 

 to be very different from the true G. pusilla. The only other 

 example in existence, so far as I am aware, is a second spe- 

 cimen obtained on the Snares at the same time by Baron A. 

 von Hiigel, and in the collection of the Hon. Walter Koth- 

 schild." 



Canon Tristram says, " This species may at once be dis- 

 tinguished from its congeners by its much redder hue, and 

 especially by the remarkable fineness and delicacy of its 

 markings, the edgings of the upper plumage and the striation 

 and bands on the lower surface being much smaller, closer, 

 and more distinct. In the other two species (Gallinago pusilla 

 and G. aucklandica) the abdomen and thighs are whitish, while 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxiv., p. 80. 



