Oliver. — Birds of Lord Howe, Norfolk, and Kerrnadec Islands. 215 



Resident land-birds are the most important from a geographical point 

 of view, as they alone include species whose presence can only be accounted 

 for by a former land connection. The group sea-birds includes forms 

 which habitually frequent the open sea, but does not include coastal 

 genera, such as Larus and Phalacrocorax. Those breeding in the islands 

 are chiefly circumtropical species, and of no value in determining the 

 geographic relationships of the avifauna, as their presence depends mainly 

 on the latitude of the place. Migrants, especially if occurring regularly 

 and in large numbers, are important as indicating the line of a former 

 land connection.* Occasional visitors are those which regularly visit the 

 islands, or have frequently been recorded. They probably belong to 

 species which are in the habit of wandering far from their ordinary 

 breeding-places, and possibly frequently cross and recross the Tasman 

 Sea. Most of them are fairly widely distributed, ranging from the Malay 

 Archipelago through Australia to New Zealand. Accidental visitors are 

 stragglers (and I have included doubtful records under this heading). 



I wish here to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Basset Hull's 

 valuable paper on the "Birds of Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, "f from 

 which, mainly, the list of birds inhabiting those islands, together with 

 other information, have been taken. By searching through the British 

 Museum " Catalogue of Birds " I have added a number of other records, 

 and the lists have been added to from other sources. In the list of birds 

 of the Kermadec Islands there appear the names of six species not 

 hitherto recorded from the group — Prion desolatus, Sterna bergii, Tringa 

 canutus, Oestrelata macroptera, Snla leucogaster, Phalacrocorax sulci- 

 rostris. For three of these I have to thank Mr. T. F. Cheeseman, 

 F.L.S., who kindly supplied me with a list of the skins in the Auckland 

 Museum collected by Mr. R. S. Bell on Sunday Island. Of the fourth — 

 Oestrelata macroptera — dead specimens were found by myself in 1908 

 washed up on the beach in Denham Bay, Sunday Island. A dead speci- 

 men of Sulci leucogaster was found on the beach in Denham Bay by 

 Mr. R. S. Bell previous to my visit, and the same observer states that 

 a small number of Phalacrocorax sulcirosfr.is once made their abode on 

 Sunday and Macaulay Islands, staying for some years. They, however, 

 failed to establish themselves. 



Loud Howl Island. 



Of fifteen species of resident land-birds breeding in the island, twelve 

 (including Aplonis fuscus, which occurs also on Norfolk Island) are en- 

 demic. The affinities of the peculiar forms are mainl}- with New Zealand 

 and New Caledonia. Species related to New Zealand forms are Nesolim- 

 nas sylvestris, Notornis alba, and CyanorTiamphus subflavescens ; those re- 

 lated to New Caledonian forms are Turdus vinitincta and Aplonis fuscxis. 

 The two species of Gerijgone are allied to forms in New Zealand and New 

 Caledonia, while the Lord Howe and Norfolk Island species of Zosfcrops 

 belong to a group occurring in New Zealand. New Caledonia and ad- 

 jacent islands, and Australia. The remaining three endemic species — 

 Ninox albaria, Rhi pidura cervina, Paehycephala contempta — are pro- 

 bably related to Australian forms. Numerically the Australian. New 

 Zealand, and New Caledonian elements in the endemic birds of Lord 

 Howe Island are about equal, or overwhelmingly in favour of a New 



* Hutton, Trans. N.Z. Inst,, vol. 5, p. 235. 

 f Proc. Linn. Soo. N.S.W., vol. 34, p. 636. 



