584 NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



the stigma was immature. Further examination of similar speci- 

 mens has led me to the opinion that in this species a differentia- 

 tion of the sexes is going on. The short stamens contain pollen 

 in an undeveloped state; and honey is freely secreted. I have been 

 unable to find any record of this fact, or any figure of the flowers 

 with short stamens. Trees with flowers bearing short stamens are 

 very plentiful here at Mt. Kembla, and Mr. E. Betche, to whom I 

 pointed out the facts, informs me that trees about vSydney also 

 exhibit the same peculiarity. Mr. Thomson (Trans. N.Z. Institute, 

 1880) says that the flowers of P. tenuifolium are proterogynous, 

 and that P. eagenioides inclines to separation of the sexes." 



Dried specimens, pistils and stamens of both in preservative 

 liquid, and drawings were exhibited in illustration. 



Mr. North exhibited a male and female of the common Shoveller, 

 Spatula clypeata, Brisson; also a male and female of the long- 

 tailed Cuckoo, Urodynamis taiteosis, Sparrm., and read the follow- 

 ing note : — " The specimens exhibited this evening were recently 

 presented to the Trustees of the Australian Museum by the Hon. 

 C. R. Swayne, H.B.M.'s. Resident at the Gilbert Group — 

 England's latest annexation in the Pacific. The female Shoveller 

 was shot on Big Makin Island by Captain J. G. Bremer, R.N. 

 of H.M.S. "Ringdove," on the 22nd of June, 1894, who also 

 succeeded on the following day in procuring the male which is in 

 full adult livery. This species is common in Europe, Northern 

 Africa, and Southern Asia, and has been recorded as a winter 

 visitant to China and Japan. Previously this species had never 

 been seen on the island, and the natives expressed an opinion that 

 they had been probably blown there by one of the westerly gales 

 which are experienced about once in two years. Mr. Swayne 

 informs me that Big Makin Island or " Butari-tari" of the natives, 

 is an atoll of the usual crescentic form situated immediatel}' on 

 the equator, and is about twenty-five miles in length, and averages 

 six hundred yards in breadth. It is only eight feet above the 

 level of the sea, and in parts is covered with grass or a low dense 

 scrub, in which the cocoanut palm flourishes. On the same 

 island on the 1st June of the present year, Mr. Swayne procured 



