from New Zealand. 379 



and marked as types of Mr. Buller's supposed species, are not 

 distinguishable from the old known P. auriceps, Kuhl, either 

 ■ in size or colouring. Mr. Buller characterizes the new species 

 by the orange frontal band, and by the orpiment-orange (in- 

 stead of crimson) thigh-spots ; but these slight differences are 

 by no means specific, and only indicate the young bird. In my 

 Monograph of the family Psittacida (vol. ii. p. 286) I de- 

 scribed such a younger bird, from a specimen in the Bremen 

 Museum, which corresponds in every respect with P.alpinus,B\x\L 



Nestor meridionalis (Gmel.). 



Two specimens from the west coast of the South Island, the 

 same locality from which Mr. Buller described his new N. occi- 

 dentalis [supra, pp. 40, 41), and most probably belonging to 

 this species, I cannot distinguish from the true N. meridionalis. 

 Thei'e are slight differences in the shade of their colouring, as 

 well as in their size ; but it must be remembered that all the 

 species of Nestor vary very much, as I have already remarked 

 in my Monograph, wherein will be found a full account of this 

 subject. In any case N. occidentalis needs a more minute de- 

 scription of its distinctive characters before it can be enumerated 

 in the list of good species. 



I take this opportunity of adding an interesting notice re- 

 specting the systematic place of the genus Nestor, which Dr. 

 Haast was kind enough to send me. He writes to me, " Your 

 arrangement of the genus Nestor in the system is quite right. 

 These birds are indeed honey -eaters ; their tongues are armed 

 on the point with papillae as in the Trichoylossin(B." It is of 

 great value to receive a positive statement as to the structure of 

 the tongue in Nestor, the subject having hitherto been doubt- 

 ful. Mr. Gould (Handb. B. Austral, ii, p. 551) declared that 

 the tongue was not " furnished with a brush-like termination,'^ 

 whereas the correct figure of A^. norfolcensis, given by lierr 

 A. von Pelzeln (Sitzuugsb. k.-k. Akad. Wissensch. Wien, xli. 

 1860, p. 322, cum tab. capit.), shows the papillse very distinctly. 

 This new fact given by Dr. Haast sets all doubt at rest, and 

 the position of the genus Nestor among the Trichoglossrna> 

 now becomes evident. 



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