14 Iredale, Bird Life on the Kermadec Islands. [,st July 



complexity of the situation appeared to afford much scope for 

 investigation. It is too long a story to introduce in this place, 

 so I will only deal with the habits of the birds as observed. 

 The colouration of the birds varies immensely, and it is due to 

 this variability that much of the confusion has arisen. More- 

 over, whilst Sunday Island is the resort during the summer 

 months of many thousands of birds, only about half a dozen 

 pairs breed on Meyer Island. During winter, however, Meyer 

 Island is covered with birds, whilst none are found on Sunday 

 Island. The darkest birds have the whole of the plumage of a 

 dark black-grey — these are birds Hutton called ///z/z///, Gray; 

 the lightest have the head and all the under parts pure white — 

 Hutton separated this as leucopJirys. Between these two 

 extremes every phase of plumage exists ; the dark birds breed 

 with the light ones as well as with dark birds. They bred on 

 the high parts of the island as well as the low parts. Though 

 tested in every manner that could be thought of, nothing that 

 could be used as a separating test was found. Necessarily it 

 devolved upon me to include all the birds under neglecta, as 

 Hutton had previously done, but without any well-marked 

 varieties. Hence all the following notes refer to birds of any 

 style of colouration. 



On Sunday Island, on 4th January, fresh eggs and hard-set 

 eggs predominated, though some well-grown downy young were 

 seen. The latest egg noticed was one just hatching on 9th 

 February, at which time there were young ones showing wing 

 and tail feathers. The earliest bird to be seen ready to fly was 

 on the 29th March, whilst very few birds were seen in the middle 

 of May. The first birds to arrive back at Sunday Island were 

 observed on 30th July, whilst the first one settled on the ground 

 was handled on 30th August. These immediately built nests, 

 but no eggs were seen until the 28th October. The surface- 

 breeding habit showed up this peculiarity, which may be general 

 among the burrowing species. 



At the end of September all the earlier birds had completed 

 their nests, and left the island, to which they did not return 

 until well in October, when they sorted up the nests, and soon 

 after laid their eggs. From the 23rd to 25th September I made 

 a tour round the island for the purpose of noting the colouration 

 of the birds. A very large number of nests were built, and their 

 size surprised me. The majority were decently put together, 

 and some were really pretentious structures, whilst few were 

 very scanty. 



The nests were placed among fern, without any other shelter, 

 some even in the open ; mostly, however, they were situated 

 under the aerial roots of the poutukava or under the shelter of 

 fallen trees. A favourite site was at the base of a tree-fern, but 

 any place was selected save in a hole. Some even selected flat 



