42 Transactions. — Zoology. 



examples now on the table with the bird from Sunday Island, 

 the following external differences are at once manifest : The 

 species is somewhat smaller than CE. viollis ; the upper sur- 

 face is slaty-grey instead of blackish-brown; the lower part 

 of breast and abdomen are dark - cinerous, with barred 

 markings on the sides of the body, instead of this surface 

 being almost entirely white : the tail - coverts ai'e white in 

 their whole extent, instead of being slaty-grey ; there is a 

 broad blackish band along the edge of the wing, within which 

 the entii-e lining is pure -white, instead of being grey and 

 white intermixed, as in (E. mollis, and the inner vanes of 

 the primaries are pure-white, except at the tips : the legs, in- 

 stead of being distinctly " sandalled,"' as in the other species, 

 are dull-yellow, with brown toes and interdigital webs. 



Pnffinus gavia, Forster. 



The specimen exhibited was obtained at Chcle Hill, about 

 twelve miles from Milton, in the Provincial District of Otago, 

 in July last. Although at certain seasons of the year verj- 

 numerous off otu- coasts, extremely few specimens are to be 

 met with in our local museums and other collections. The 

 single example which I took to England with me was quite 

 unique, as no specimen of this bird then existed in Mr. Sahdn's- 

 splendid collection of petrels, nor even in the British Museum, 

 the type of Forster's original description having somehow dis- 

 appeared. 



The attention of collectors should be directed to these 

 •smaller petrels. The seas surrounding New Zealand and ex- 

 tending to AustraHa form, so to speak, a great nursery for this 

 family, of which no less than thirty-nine species, belonging to- 

 fifteen genera, are aheady on our list ; and, as comparatively 

 trivial characters often distinguish them, it is not unreason- 

 able to look for the discovery of new species from time to 

 time. 



Ptiffinus bulleri, Salvin. 



The petrel described by Mr. Sandager tinder the name of 

 Puffinus zealandicus (Trans. i^.Z. Inst., vol. xxii., p. 291) is 

 now deposited in the Otago Museum. It is undoubtedly the 

 same species as that described by Mr. Salvin under the above 

 name. It would seem to be a somewhat rare form in these 

 seas, for, up to the present time, only three examples are 

 known, one of which is in the cabinet collection in the 

 British Museum. In "The Birds of New Zealand" (2nd 

 ed.) this petrel and the preceding one are figured together 

 on the same plate, and, with the rock background, form a very 

 effective picture. My original specimen was a storm-tossed 

 one on the Waikanae Beach, in October, 1884 ; Mr. Sand- 



