Aphanapteryx of Mauritius and Chatham Islands. 65 
plumage begins to appear, and is complete about the end of 
August or beginning of September; no further moult takes 
place tiil the following spring. 
This species is distinguished from all other members of 
the genus Lagopus by having the primaries brownish black. 
From the above remarks it will be seen that two very 
extraordinary facts have been ascertained beyond doubt :— 
1, That the male gets no distinct summer plumage, but 
has distinct autumn and winter plumages, and retains the 
latter throughout the breeding-season. 
2. That the female has a distinct swmmer plumage, which 
is complete by the end of April; also a distinct autumn 
plumage, but never assumes a distinct winter garb, retaining 
her autumn plumage till the following spring. 
XIX.—Note on the Aphanapteryx of Mauritius and of the 
Chatham Islands. By H. O. Forpgs. 
THE importance, from the point of view of the geographical 
distribution of lite in the Southern Hemisphere, of the accu- 
rate determination of the osteological remains discovered last 
year in the Chatham Islands, and of having them identified 
or not with the types preserved in the Cambridge University 
Museum, has induced me to anticipate my fuller paper on 
the remains of the extinct birds of the New-Zealand region, 
by presenting to those interested in this subject careful figures 
(two thirds of the natural size) of some of their more important 
bones. I have selected those which have been described and 
figured by Sir Edward Newton and Dr. Gadow in their valuable 
paper ‘On Additional Bones of the Dodo and other Extinct 
Birds of Mauritius obtained by Mr. Théodore Sauzier,” read 
before the Zoological Society of London on November Ust 
1892, and about to appear in the next part of the ‘ Transac- 
tions’ of the Society. Through Dr. Gadow’s kindness in 
giving me a proof of this paper, to facilitate my comparison of 
the Chatham-Island material with the Mauritian, I am able to 
exhibit figures of the types of the premaxilla, the left humerus, 
and the sternum by the side of the corresponding bones from 
the Chatham Islands. ‘The remains from the former locality 
are more fragmentary than those from the latter. Of the 
cranium from Mauritius no more, with the exception of the 
mandible, is known than is shown in fig. 2, Several of the 
skulls of Aphanapteryx Hawkinsi, on the other hand, are 
absolutely complete except for their pterygoid bones, which 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 6. Vol. xii. 5) 
