756 MR. J. J. LISTER ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE 



fortune to meet at the Natural History Museum Mr. Iredale, who 

 has recently resided on the Kermadecs with the object of studying 

 their fauna. He assures me that he was not able to obtain 

 any confirmation of the report of the existence of a Megapode 

 on Sunday Island which was given to Mr. Cheeseman, and finds 

 that the successors of his informant are not inclined to regard 

 that report as worthy of very serious consideration. 



It therefore seems to me that we have no good evidence that 

 the genus Megapodms formerly inhabited the Kermadec Islands 

 and absolutely none that J/, pritchardi lived there. 



One good result, however, we owe to Sir Walter Buller's 

 enthusiasm in claiming this species as a member of the New 

 Zealand fauna, and that is a plate representing the bird in a 

 condition of plumage not hitherto figured. 



M. 2}ritchardi belongs to the section of the genus with the 

 back and upper surface of the wings rufous brown, the breast 

 and belly lead or slaty grey, and in its general coloration perhaps 

 is nearest M. cumingi, Dillw., of the Philippines and Borneo. 

 In the type specimen described and figured by G. R. Gray *, 

 and now in a somewhat dilapidated condition in the British 

 Museum, the bases of the quill- feathers, except the first, are 

 white ; there is also some white among the upper tail-coverts. 

 A specimen in the Leyden Museum was described by Schlegel t 

 (and I have had an opportunity of examining it) which has, 

 as he observes, the upper tail-coverts pui'e white. The first 

 specimen which came to the Auckland Museum was described by 

 Buller J. It had no white on either quill-feathers or tail-coverts, 

 though the rectrices were white at the base §. As it was not 

 known then that this skin came from the same locality as 

 M. pritchardi, and it differed so consideiubly from the type of that 

 species, it was described by Buller as a new species — AT. ktcttoni. 



Buller's plate (pi. ii.) in the Supplement to the ' Birds of 

 New Zealand ' shows no white in the plumage. In the descrip- 

 tion he says (p. 32) : — " Although absent in this specimen " 

 (that named if. huttoni and perhaps the specimen figured in the 

 plate) " most examples have a patch of white covering the basal 

 parts of the primaries and secondaries, the extent varying in 

 almost every individual. Some also have white markings on the 

 upper tail-covei"ts and basal part of the tail-feathers." 



It appears then that the feature by which M. pritchardi stands 

 apart from all other species of the genus — the occurrence of white 

 at the bases of the primaries and elsewhere — is a varying and 

 inconstant character. 



To return to the comparison with M. cumingi, I find that 

 M. pritchardi has the top of the head slaty-brown rather than 

 brown, the sides of the head rather paler, the mantle brown tinged 

 with slate rather than olive-brown, and the belly a paler brown. 



* P. Z. S. 1864, p. 41, pi. vi. t Mus. Pays-Bas, viii. p. 64. 



X Transactions of the N. Zealand Institute, vol. iii. (1870) p. 14. 

 § Hutton, Trans. N. Zealand Institute, iv. (1871) p. 165. 



