20 Transactions. — Zoology. 



hand. Few existing birds offer a better subject for a mono- 

 grapher, and it is to be hoped that, if perish the genus 

 and species must, posterity will not have to lament the 

 want of an exhaustive treatise on the many and wonderful 

 characteristics of what Professor Fiirbringer considers '^' to 

 be one of the primitive forms of Psittaci." I would venture 

 to remark that the absence of so desirable a monograph can 

 hardly be due to the want of material. Years ago I pre- 

 sented to the British Museum a perfect skeleton of the 

 Kakapo, and another to the Cambridge University Museum. 

 I also forwarded to London a specimen, in spirits, for the 

 express purpose of having its anatomy investigated. 



Spiloglaux novae-zealandiee, Gmelin. (The Morepork.) 



I have recorded in my " Birds of New Zealand " a partial 

 albino of this little Owl. An intelligent young half-caste 

 informs me that he saw a snow-white one at the Bay of 

 Islands. It was in the day-time, and he followed it a con- 

 siderable distance through the woods, hoping to secure it, 

 but without success. 



Circus gouldi, Bonap. (Gould's Harrier.) 



I have to record a beautiful albino of this species that was 

 taken alive — shot in the wing — in the Canterbury District last 

 summer. In this bird the entire plumage is snow-white, ex- 

 cept that on the upper surface there are a few scattered brown 

 feathers on the shoulders, two among the small coverts of the 

 right wing, and one or two partially brown feathers among 

 the scapulars ; also, on the under- surface, one of the axillary 

 plumes, one of the under-coverts of the left wing, and a single 

 feather on the left thigh are brown, and there is a wash of 

 fulvous on the abdomen. The tail, however, is of the normal 

 colour, but one of the feathers is white on its inner vane. 

 With these trifling exceptions, the entire plumage is snow- 

 white, presenting a very striking appearance. On dissection 

 it proved to be a female, and its golden irides showed that it 

 was an adult bird. 



It must have been such a bird as this which the old 

 tohtmga had in his mind when he narrated to Sir George Grey, 

 "on the rocky edge of a hot spring shaded by pohutukawa- 

 trees," on the Island of Mokoia, the story of Hinemoa, the 

 maiden of Eotorua : — 



She rose up in the water 

 As beautiful as the wild white hawk, 

 And stepped on the edge of the bath 

 As graceful a? the shy white crane. 



•Journ. fiir Orn., 1889, pp. 239-241. 



