326 Mr. P. R. Lowe on Birds collected 



grows among the boulders amidst whicli they were breeding. 

 The nests on this island were raised some little way off 

 the ground, and rested, as a rule, on the centre of a thick 

 tussock of long grass or on some low spreading shrub. 

 We found none until we had reached an altitude of about 

 three or four hundred feet, and the birds chose ground of 

 the roughest and rockiest description, so that they were 

 partly hidden among boulders, long grass, and cactus. 

 Only one egg appears to be laid. The young bird when 

 hatched is naked. The parent birds were astonishingly 

 tame and confiding. 



The commonest form of plumage which we noticed was 

 that in which the head, neck, nape, and back were all black, 

 relieved by a beautiful greenish-purple sheen, the throat 

 and thorax being white. Next came a form in which the head, 

 neck, nape, and breast were entirely white; while infinitely the 

 rarest variety was that in which the head and neck were 

 black, but the throat exhibited the conspicuous and remark- 

 able red gular pouch. The first stage consists apparently of 

 both young males and females, the next of older females, 

 and the last of old males. I saw all three varieties 

 incubating. 



So far as I have been able to observe, it is only the fully 

 adult male that exhibits the extraordinary balloon-shaped 

 pouch, which it can distend at will. I, however, noticed 

 some birds, apparently not /wZ/y-adult males, with orange 

 gular sacs, and some, apparently still younger males, with 

 the white throat and breast, mottled and streaked with 

 black, in a stage antecedent to the perfectly fully-adult male. 

 These appeared to have no distensible gular sac, or at any 

 rate it was not apparent. The fully-adult males were very 

 shy, and I could not get near enough to take photographs of 

 the few I found sitting on nests. As we reached the top of 

 the island (650 ft.), some of these old males were soaring 

 against the strong trade- wind just above our heads. The 

 vivid red, almost translucent, and distended pouch waggled 

 about in the breeze in a somewhat ludicrous way. It 

 appears to have a constricted and elongated neck, which 



