xlviii 

 ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS, JUNE, 1905. 



AN INTERESTING EVENING. 



At the monthly meeting of the Eoyal 

 Society on Tuet-ciay evening. His Excel- 

 lency Sir Gerald Strickland, president 

 of the isociety, occupied the chair, sup- 

 ported by members of the councul, and 

 theiie was a fairly good attendance, es- 

 pecially considering tne wet and wmtry 

 state of the weath^ea'. 



New Members. 

 Messrs. St. Micnael M. Podmore, 

 F.K.G.S., E.Z.S., M.A. (Gamb.), and W. 

 Heyn were balloted for and elected cor- 

 responding members, and Mr. C. VV. 

 Grant wa.s unanimously elected a Fel- 

 low of the Society. 



Birds of the Pacific. 

 The eecretary (Mr. Alex. Morton) read 

 a paper prepared by Mr. J. K. McGly- 

 mont, M.A., entitlea '"iNotes on certain 

 birds meC with by Crozet, one of the 

 very early navigators." The voyage of 

 Marion du Eresne, with whom Crozet 

 sailed as second in command ot the Mas- 

 cariji, was undertaken m orde rto restore 

 to his native island a Tahitian, whom 

 l)e liougamville had taken to France, 

 and also in order to aiscover on the way 

 a continent or is.lands in the Southern 

 Ocean from whicn useful products might 

 be obtained. (Jrozet, who wiitet> in a 

 simple and unassuming manner, express- 

 ly disclaims a scientific knowledge of 

 natural history. But his observation^-; 

 have an interest and importance of their 

 own from an historical standpoint, be- 

 cause they are those of one of the cis- 

 coverers of Miarion and the Crozet 

 Islands, and of one of the first Euro- 

 peans to land in New Zealand and in 

 Tasmania. The narrative of Crozet is 

 contained in a volume whicJi is some- 

 w:hat scarce, but it hais lately appealed 

 in an English translation. Crozet's ob- 

 servations on birds begin on January 8, 

 1772— twelve days after he had sailed 

 from the roadstead at the Cape of Good 

 Hope. Terns are the first birds noted, 

 and terns and gulls (Poules mauves) 

 •were seen frequently from the 8th until 

 the 13th day of January. The ships were 

 then near Marion Island, and the discov- 

 erers observed auks and divers for the 

 first time. On January 24, Crozet land- 

 ed on one of the islands of the frroup, 

 wiiich is now known as the Crozet 

 Islands, naming it He de la Prise de 

 Possession. The sea-birds, which were 

 nesting on the island, continued to sit 

 on their eggs or to feed their young 

 undeterred by the approach of the ex- 

 plorers. Amongst these birds, Crozet 

 enumerate ducks, divers. Cape fulmars, 

 cormorants, and "envergures." The 

 auks, or "pingoins," to use Crozet'e 

 name, were doubtless penguins, which 



are generally called "manchots,"' al- 

 though the name "pengouin manchots'" 

 also occurs. The divers, or plongeons, 

 are supposed to have been diving pet- 

 rels; tne Cape fulmar is called "le 

 damier."^ "Enve:gare'^ does not appear 

 in dictionaries as the name of a bird. It 

 signifies "length of ship's yards,'' 

 "breadth of sail,""' and, by extension of 

 meaning, "expanse of wings.'" It ii-, per- 

 haps, tne trivial name ot an albatross, 

 analagous to the Portugues-e name "an- 

 tenna!. '" If we examine these data by 

 the light of modern exploration we find 

 that at least four penguins have been 

 obtained in the region of the ocean con- 

 tiguous to the Crozet Islands, or on the 

 islands. These are Aptenodytes pata- 

 gonica, Pygoscelis papua, Catarrhactes 

 chrysocome, and C. chrysolophus, but of 

 only one of these — C. chrysolophus — can 

 the lecturer find that the eggs have been 

 obtained on Crozet Island. The diving 

 petrel, Pelecan'oides exsul, is known to 

 frequent the Crozet Islands, but its eggs 

 appear to be undescribed. The Cape ful- 

 mar (Daption capensisj is widely distri- 

 buted over the Southern Ocean, but 

 there are few records of its eggs being 

 found, and these few relate to Kergue- 

 len Island. The white winged (Diomedea 

 chionoptera) is the albatross, wiiich 

 • makes these iislandiS its nesting home. 

 Cormorants cannot with certainty be in- 

 cluded amongst the avian inhabitants of 

 the Crozet Islands. Their nearest known 

 place of resort is Kerguelen Island, be- 

 tween 1,390 and 1,400 miles distant, 

 where Phalacrocorax verrucosus is resi- 

 dent, and where its eggs have been ob- 

 tained. Finally, a bird which was mis- 

 taken for a white pigeon was probab-ly 

 a sheath-bill (Chionarchus croaettensis;. 

 From the presence of this bird, Crozet 

 naively augured that a country produc- 

 ing seeds adapted for the sustenance of 

 the pigeons could not be far distant. The 

 duration of Crozet's sojourn in New Zea^ 

 land was about four months — from 

 March 24 to July 14, 1772. He presents 

 us with a goodly array of the names of 

 birds which he saw in that country, but 

 to seek equivalents for the wheatears, 

 the wagtails, the starlings, and larks, 

 the ousels and thrushes ol his narrative 

 would be unprofitable labour. One ex- 

 ception may be made in respect of a 

 black thrush with white tufts by which, 

 the tui (Prostheniadura novae Zealandiae) 

 is evidently meant. Crozet divides in a 

 primitive way the New Zealand birds 

 which he eaw into birds of the forest, of 

 the swamps, of the open country, and of 

 the coast. In the forests were wood 

 pigeons as large as chickens, in colour 

 blue, with metallic reflections. The; de- 

 scription, though scant, is sufficient. 

 There is only one pigeon in New Zealand, 

 and no remarkably pigeon-like bird not 



