456 Mr. W. Buller on some disputed 



In common with all true lovers of science, I have but one 

 object in view, namely, the advancement of truth ; and I am 

 most willing to see those of my " new species " that can be 

 proved to have no real existence expunged from the list of New- 

 Zealand birds. I am unable, however, to accept some of Dr. 

 Finsch^s conclusions, resting, as it appears to me, on insufficient 

 data — the more so as he seems, in one or two instances, to have 

 been unconsciously misled by specimens, forwarded to him by 

 his correspondent in New Zealand, wrongly named, but pur- 

 porting to be typical examples of my new species. 



In further elucidation of these disputed species, I have to 

 offer the following remarks : — 



Platycebcus alpinus. 



Dr. Finsch disallows this species, on the ground that the 

 differences which characterize it are " by no means specific, and 

 only indicate the young bird." Now here at once is an illus- 

 tration of the mistakes into which the best closet-naturalists are 

 apt to fall by a mere comparison of dried specimens. I have 

 obtained the young of P. auriceps from the nest and caged it 

 to maturity ; and from the first the frontal band and thigh-spots 

 were crimson. On the other hand, I have met with a caged 

 specimen, coloured as in ray P. alpinus, which, to my certain 

 knowledge, was more than five years old, and in which there 

 was no indication whatever of a change from orange to crimson. 

 Besides the peculiarities in the coloration of this bird, there is 

 (as I have before remarked) a very manifest difference in size, 

 P. alpinus being as much smaller than P. auriceps as the latter 

 is less than P. nova-zelandice. 



Apart also from this. Dr. Haast, to whom I am indebted for 

 my first examples, writes thus on the habits of this bird: — "I 

 send specimens of both {i. e. the crimson-fronted and the orange- 

 fronted). These two kinds occur always together; but in some 

 localities the first, and in others the second, is predominant. 

 You find both kinds in all seasons ; therefore we cannot suppose 

 that the orange-fronted is the young of the other. Besides, it 

 is not so bold a bird as the crimson-fronted;" and, in a subse- 

 quent letter, he states that my P. alpinus is not only " much 



