832 SHEATHBILL 



of its bill. It was first made known from having been met with 

 on New-Year Island, off the coast of Staten Land, where Cook 

 anchored on New Year's eve 1774. 1 A few days later he dis- 

 covered the islands that now bear the name of South Georgia, and 

 there the bird was again found, in both localities frequenting the 

 rocky shores. On his third voyage, while seeking some land 

 reported to have been found by Kerguelen, Cook in December 

 1776 reached the cluster of desolate islands now generally known 

 by the name of the French explorer, and here, among many other 

 kinds of birds, was a Sheathbill, which for a long while no one 

 suspected to be otherwise than specifically identical with that of 

 the western Antarctic Ocean ; but, as will be seen, its distinctness 

 has been subsequently admitted. 



The Sheathbill, so soon as it was brought to the notice of 

 naturalists, was recognized as belonging to a genus 

 hitherto unknown, and the elder Forster in 1788 

 (Enchirid. p. 37) conferred upon it, from its snowy 

 plumage, the name Chionis, which has most properly 

 received general acceptance, though in the same year 

 the compiler Gmelin termed the genus Vaginalis, as 

 a rendering of Pennant's English name, and the 

 species alba. It has thus become the Chionis alba of 

 ornithology. It is about the size of and has much 

 the aspect of a Pigeon ; 2 its plumage is pure white, 

 its bill somewhat yellow at the base, passing into 

 BILL OF CHIONIS, le k towar a s the tip. Round the eyes the 



from above. ** : i , , . ,. 11 



(After swainson ) s ^ m 1S k are j an( i beset with cream-coloured pa- 

 pillae, while the legs are bluish-grey. The second 

 or eastern species, first discriminated by Dr. Hartlaub (fiev. Zool. 



1 Doubtless some of the earlier voyagers had encountered it, as Forster 

 (Dcscr. Anim. p. 330) suggests and Lesson (Man. d'Orn. ii. p. 343) asserts ; 

 but for all practical purposes we certainly owe its discovery to the naturalists 

 of Cook's second voyage. By some error, probably of transcription, New Zea- 

 land, instead of New-Year Island, appears in many works as the place of its 

 discovery, while not a few writers have added thereto New Holland. Hitherto 

 there is no real evidence of the occurrence of a Sheathbill in the waters of 

 Australia or New Zealand ; but one (C. alba) was shot by the lighthouse-keeper 

 at Carlingford in Ireland, 2 Dec. 1892, as recorded by Mr. Barrington (Zool. 

 1893, p. 28 ; Proc. Zool. Soc. 1893, p. 178). Examples of this species have 

 been often brought alive to this country, and the bird thus killed may well 

 have escaped from confinement. 



2 In the Falkland Isles it is called the "Kelp-Pigeon," and by some of the 

 earlier French navigators the " Pigeon blanc antarctique. " The cognate 

 species of Kerguelen Land is named by the sealers "Sore-eyed Pigeon," from 

 its prominent fleshy orbits, as well as "Paddy-bird" the last perhaps from 

 its white plumage resembling that of some of the smaller Egrets, often so 

 called. 



