538 Messrs. E. L. & E. L. C. Layard on the 



7Q. Spatula rhynchotis (Lath.). 



MM. Boyer's description of a " Shoveller Duck " is too 

 graphic to afford room for any mistake. MM. Boyer shot 

 their specimens in a large marsh near Moindou. We have 

 only obtained one specimen, a young female_, shot in Noumea 

 February 1882. MM. Boyer also describe a red " Sarcelle/' 

 which we have no doubt is a Dendrocygna, probably 



77. Dendrocygna gouldi, Bp., 



which is included by M. Marie. They only killed it acci- 

 dentally, and know nothing of its habits. Another '' Sarcelle " 

 which they described we had no difficulty in at once recog- 

 nizing as 



78. Mareca castanea, Gould, 



as it is called by M. Marie ; nor does it surprise us that 

 a bird of such wide distribution over Australia should be 

 found here*. M. Marie, however, does not include it on 

 his own authority, though he does another, which neither 

 we nor the MM. Boyer have seen, viz. 



79. Nyroca australis, Gould ; 



but we presume he accepts, as we do, the dictum of such 

 authorities as MM. Verreaux and DesMurs, who enumerate 

 the former in the * Revue Zoologique/ together with Anas 

 superciliosa, as the two Ducks obtained by the Expedition. 



80. CEstrelata rostrata (Peale). 



This is the common Petrel of the adjoining seas, breeding 

 on the small rocky islands, and, we believe, also (from what 

 we have heard) on the mountains in the interior. We have 

 received the young birds in several stages of plumage from a 

 small island off the larger island of " Ueu,-'^ which is sepa- 

 rated from the main island by the celebrated Wodin passage, 

 and forms the southernmost end of New Caledonia. On the 

 11th of April, 1877, Pere Montrouzier sent us nine very 

 young birds in the downy stage. They were white below 

 and grey above, darkest where the feathers were beginning 



* [The species is perhaps more likely to heAnas fftbberifrons. Cf. Sclater, 

 P. Z. S. 1882, p. 453.— Edd.] 



