276 Capt. F. W. Hutton on some of the 



female specimen of this Jabiru as having the iris of a "bright 

 yellow." It would seem that this colouring of the iris is pecu- 

 liar to the female bird. 



The menagerie of the Zoological Society of London now con- 

 tains an adult pair of Saddle-bill Jabirus, and also an adult 

 pair of Indian Jabirus {Myderia aush-alis). 



In each of these pairs of birds the larger individual, which 

 Mr. Bartlett (to whom I am indebted for this observation) con- 

 siders, and no doubt correctly, to be the male, has the iris of a 

 very dark and deep brown ; whilst the smaller bird of each pair, 

 which Mr. Bartlett believes to be the female, has the iris of a 

 clear straw-yellow. — J. H. G.] 



XXV. — Notes on some of the Birds inhabiting the Southern Ocean.^ 

 By Captain F. W. Hutton, 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 

 F.G.S., Deputy-Assistant Quartermaster General at Dublin. 



The notes that I have the honour to read to the Society this 

 evening are compiled from personal observations made during 

 seven voyages round the Cape of Good Hope, at various times 

 of the year, and from information obtained from my friend Mr. 

 Richard Harris, R.N., who was engineer on board Her Majesty's 

 ship ' Adventure ' in 1857, in which ship I made my last voy- 

 age. Mr. Harris sailed from London early in June 1832, with 

 a sealing-party, and arrived at the Prince Edward Islands, in 

 the Southern Ocean, in September. He stopped there until the 

 following Januaiy, when they left for Kerguelen^s Land, or 

 Desolation, as the sealers call it. They reached this latter place 

 at the end of January; and on the 16th of March, while they 

 were on shore engaged in taking seals, their ship was wrecked, 

 and they remained on the island until the 6th of December, 

 when they made the bold experiment of sailing in a boat, built 

 from the remains of their ship, for Tasmania, and happily 

 reached Macquarie Harbour in safety after a voyage of six 

 weeks. While Mr. Harris was on these little-known islands he 

 made many careful observations of the habits of the birds that 



* Read before the Natural History Society of Dublin, March 3, 1865. 



