The Zoologist — June, 1874. 4015 



yellowish stain round the eye; irides brown; feathers soft to the 

 touch ; habitat, bush about Martin Bay, west coast of Otago. Other 

 examples have been obtained at Greymouth. The men who seek 

 a living in the wilds of the south-west coast of the South Island are 

 not given, as a class, to the study of Natural History: examples of 

 the rarer species of our Fauna are not the specimens they care to 

 hunt for. Not long since the writer met with a man who had 

 probably fed on the Notornis, and had lived for two or three weeks 

 on the rare eggs of the crested penguin. Inquiry made of a boat- 

 man at the Waitaroa concerning the eggs of a rare (perhaps un- 

 known) petrel, or PufBnus, elicited the information that " not being 

 pretty at all, they were hoved away." A similar fate befel some 

 eggs of the white heron, " because they would not go in the billy." 

 Auri sacra fames, our noble motto, oft blunts the spirit of inquiry 

 about all other objects. When journeying along the West Coast 

 the writer was informed by a very intelligent Teremakau native that 

 far to the south a black kiwi was to be met with ; he described it 

 as " all the same as the kiwi, only black." Probably this may be 

 the bird which the Bruce Bay Maoris call the toko-weka ; Apteryx 

 fusca would properly distinguish this sombre-plumed species. 

 There seems to he some tendency to dusky colours along the 

 south-west coast, as seen in this kiwi, Ocydromus, &c. : the black 

 shag, for a long distance at least, according to our observation, 

 frequents such points as are occupied by Phalacrocorax punctatus 

 on the eastern side; so also Haematopus unicolor is there found in 

 far greater abundance than H. longirostris. 



Spotted Shag (Phalacrocorax punctatus, Sparrm.) — The spotted 

 shag, ocean shag, crested shag, or "flip-flap" (the "kawau" of the 

 natives), well known to our shore-folk, is stated by ornithologists 

 to be peculiar to New Zealand ; its active movements enliven many 

 a bluff" headland or rocky inlet of our island coast line. It derives 

 the name of the "spotted shag" from the gray feathers of its upper 

 surface terminating in a dark green spot; some persons term it the 

 "ocean shag," from its marine habits; it is known as the "crested 

 shag," from the supplementary head-feathers assumed in the winter 

 and early spring months ; it is called the " flip-flap," from its habits 

 when cruising up the harbours following shoals of fish. As gre- 

 garious as some of its congeners, it may be seen flying, swimming, 

 fishing, or nesting, in large companies; these numbers that thus 

 delight to live together do so peacefully, with an absence of much 



