132 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



to the works of our fellow labourers at the antipodes. No 

 doubt iu a few years we shall have a fine crop of ornithological 

 papers springing from the seed sown throughout those flourish- 

 ing communities; but at present the firstfruits are offered to us 

 by Mr. Walter Buller, a gentleman whose name is indeed com- 

 paratively unknown among ornithologists, but whose * Essay on 

 the Ornithology of New Zealand'* obtained a Silver Medal 

 at the Exhibition held in that colony two years ago. In this 

 paper, apart from its general merits, of which we will not now 

 speak, no less than nine new species belonging to one or other 

 of the islands are indicated, and seven of them duly named and 

 described by the author. These are as follows : — Anthornis 

 auriocula from the Chatham Islands; Gerygone assimilis, Mi- 

 mus (?) carunculatus, Creadion cinereus, Nestor superbus from 

 ''the alpine heights of the South Island ;" Rallus featherstonii 

 and Podiceps hectori. We have placed a mark of doubt after 

 the generic name of the new so-called Mimus, because we deem 

 it highly improbable that a member of that American form 

 should be found in New Zealand ; and the species will no doubt 

 eventually be referred elsewhere. The discovery of a new Nestor 

 is extremely interesting, and several specimens of it are said to 

 have been obtained. One of the two birds not described in the 

 paper before us is a large Strix, an inhabitant of the subalpine 

 parts of the Canterbury province, where it appears to have been 

 discovered, though not obtained, by Dr. Haast, in honour of whom 

 it has been provisionally named S. haasti. The remaining unde- 

 scribed bird is a Lestris, considerably larger than L. antarcticus, 

 found by Dr. Hector in Dusky Bay. Mr. Buller gives, as might 

 be expected, some interesting particulars of the different species 

 oi Apteryx; but no specimen oi A. maxima seems yet to have 

 gladdened the eyes of a colonist f. The number of New Zealand 

 birds at present known to him is 133 ; " and there is every reason 



* New Zealand Exhibition, 1865. Essay on the Ornithology of New 

 Zealand. By Walter Duller, Esq., F.L.S. Printed for the Commis- 

 sioners. Dunedin, Oiago, N. Z. : 1865, 8vo. pp. 20. 



t Mr. Buller's letter to Archdeacon Iladfield, printed in the ' Zoologist ' 

 for 1864, p. 9197, should not be overlooked by any one interested iu the 

 subject of the brevipennate birds of New Zealand. 



