117 [Vol. XXXV. 



Dr. Percy R. Lowe exhibited a specimen of a nestling in 

 down of Chionis minor. He thought it was worth exhibiting, 

 for, besides being probably the only specimen of its kind in 

 the country, it might, in a sense, be said to be an historical 

 specimen, having been obtained by the members of the 

 'Challenger' Expedition from Kerguelen Island in 1874. 

 From that year until about a month ago it had been lying 

 in the "spirit-room" at the Natural History Museum. 

 When taken out of spirit and dried, the downy feathers 

 seemed to be in such a good state of preservation that 

 Mr. Ogilvie-Grant directed that Messrs. Rowland Ward 

 should make a skin of it. That was accordingly done, and 

 the result was a pretty good one, he thought, after forty 

 years of soaking in spirit. The colour of the down was 

 interesting, in being of a uniform greyish or drabby brown, 

 with practically no indication whatever of any mottling, 

 bars, or colour-pattern. Such a condition was anomalous 

 as regards the nestlings of the Wader suborder, the only 

 Limicoline nestling which was devoid of any actual colour- 

 pattern being, as far as Dr. Lowe knew, the nestling of the 

 Crab-Plover [Dromas). 



The absence of colour-pattern in the nestlings of the two 

 forms might reasonably be attributed to the anomalous 

 positions in which the nests were found. Statements had 

 been published to the effect that the nestling Sheathbill 

 was hatched in a blind state. From an examination of 

 embryos collected by the ' Challenger' Expedition, he was 

 in a position to delare that such a statement must almost 

 certainly be founded on error. 



Dr. Lowe, after some further remarks on the habits of 

 Chionis, then exhibited examples of the skulls of Chionis, 

 Stercorarius, Larus, and Hmmatopus. It was generally 

 stated, he said, that Chionis had affinities with the Gulls and 

 Oyster-catcher, but, as regards its Larine relationships, he 

 thought they were certainly justified in being more explicit, 

 and that they might say that the osteological features of this 

 interesting Plover pointed to a very distinct Skua-like 



