90 



NATURAL HISTORY OF KERGUELEN ISLAND. 



flight; is easily domesticated, remarkably fearless of man, dislikes wa- 

 ter, cannot swim, is largely a vegetable-feeder, and its nsual note is a 

 harsh croak. These characteristics, taken together with its attitudes, 

 gait, pugnacity, ready companionship with domestic fowls, and some 

 obvious peculiarities in the structure of the digestive system, seemed to 

 indicate affinity with the GaUincv rather than with Hcemaiopus, so far as 

 snperiicial characters have weight. And so strong was this impression, 

 based upon field-observation only, in the mind of the observer, that we 

 have made a somewhat extended anatomical examination of two of the 

 alcoholic specimens, and have studied the slender literature of the sub- 

 ject, with the hope of furnishing the materials upon which to base inqui- 

 ries that may establish the proper i)osition of this confessedly doubtful 

 group. Allowing due weight to the authority and great name of De 

 Blainville, it is proper to remember that this [)articular species ( C. in i nor), 

 at least, differs from the type-species (C. alba), as described, in that it is 

 largely a vegetable-feeder 5 that there is no record of its having been 

 seen " far out at sea"; * and in the characters upon which the diagnosis 

 of the species is based. 



For comparison with Hartlaub's original description, the field-meas- 

 urements of eleven specimens are here quoted : f 



List of sptcimenfs, iviih measurements. 



* Vid. Darwin, Voy. round the World, p. 94, and Cunningham, Jour. Anat. and Phys. 

 1869, p. 88. 

 t From Bull No. 2, Nat. Mus., loc. cit. 



