1869.] DR. G. HARTLAUB ON ANARHYNCHUS FRONTALIS. 433 
Mr. Sclater remarked that the much vexed question whether L. 
erythropterus were really the female of L. perspicillatus might thus 
be considered to be finally set at rest. 
Dr. Habel, of New York, exhibited and made remarks on a selection 
from a collection of birds formed in the Galapagos Islands, to which 
he had recently paid a five months’ visit. Dr. Habel stated that his 
whole collection embraced upwards of 300 specimens, referable to 
about 70 species, some of which he believed to be new to science. 
Dr. Habel had likewise made extensive collections in other branches 
of natural history, and was preparing to publish a complete accouni 
of the fauna of the Galapagos based upon these investigations. 
The following papers were read :— 
1. On Anarhynchus. 
By Dr. G. Hartravs, F.M.Z.S. 
It is now thirty-six years since a good French work, the zoological 
part of the ‘ Voyage de I’ Astrolabe,’ by Quoy et Gaimard (Zoologie, 
Paris, 1833), brought to our knowledge the full and rather detailed 
generic and specific description of a very curious grallatorial bird 
from the east coast of the Northern Island of New Zealand. This 
bird was introduced into the system under the name of Anarhyn- 
chus, its beak being ‘‘recourbé en haut comme les Avocettes et 
dévié a droite.’ Though the hunters of this expedition had killed 
a certain number of individuals, only one, a younger bird, “dont le 
sexe n’était pas encore caractéris¢,” was deposited in the galleries 
of the Jardin des Plantes. Besides this one specimen, the beaks of 
several others had been collected and preserved, to show that the 
most anomalous, nay almost incredible, lateral bend of the apical 
half of the beak was not an accidental but a constant formation. 
What has become of these beaks? Whether they have really been 
deposited in the Paris Museum, and whether they are still’ to be 
found there or not, nobody has ever ascertained. The unique and 
very indifferent-looking specimen in the Paris collection having been 
overlooked by most ornithologists, the whole Anarhynchus-matter be- 
came rather apocryphal, and the more so when the Nestor of English 
ornithologists, Mr. G. R. Gray, declared that this bird was represented 
in the ‘ Voyage de l’Astrolabe’ with a deformed beak, that organ 
being perfectly straight in most specimens. Now it is really diffi- 
cult to understand how such an apodictical opinion could have been 
given by one who certainly had never seen an Anarhynchus; for so 
much is certain, that up to this year no other specimen of the rare 
New-Zealand bird had reached any of the greater collections of 
Europe. In Dieffenbach’s work, as well as in the * Zoolugy of 
H.M.SS. Erebus and Terror,’ it is simply enumerated ; and Bona- 
parte, who most erroneously places Anarhynchus between Terekia 
