xlvi 



from C. d'wjfenbachn, and he must retract his former opinion 

 [antea, p. xx). 



Dr. Bowdler Sharpe observed that it was a singular fact 

 that this little Rail should possess in its adult plumage the 

 exact dress which might have been expected to characterize 

 the young of C. diejfenbachii ; and even with the evidence 

 now before them it was difficult to believe that the birds 

 were fully adult. Count Salvadori's opinion ^Aith regard to 

 the specimen exhibited at the fifth meeting of the Club had 

 now been proved to be the correct one. 



The Chairman read a paper on behalf of Canon Tristram, 

 F. R.S., entitled '^ An undescribed Species of Snipe from the 

 New Zealand region/' in which the author made the following 

 remarks : — 



In 1846 Mr. G. R. Gray, in the ' Birds of the Ertbus and 



Terror/ described a Snipe from the Auckland Islands as 



GaUinar/o aucklandica. There is no evidence that this bird 



has ever occurred in New Zealand. In ' The Ibis "* for 1869, 



p. 41, Sir W. Buller described a second species from the 



Chatham Islands as GaUlnago piisilla. Very few specimens 



have been received, but the spec'es has twice been obtained in 



New Zealand (to which it is evidently an occasional wanderer) : 



once by Sir James Hector in the Gulf of Hauraki, and once 



by Mr. F. B. Hill on Little Barrier Island. All doubts as to 



its being a distinct species have recently been set at rest by 



the large number of specimens obtained in the Chatham 



Islands by the collectors of the Hon. "Walter Rothschild and 



Mr. H. 0. Forbes. I have examined more than twenty 



specimens, and find that all of them agree in every respect, 



and cannot be confused with the Auckland Island species. 



But when Sir W. Buller published his second edition of the 



' Birds of New Zealand,^ he had unfortunately sent back to 



New Zealand his only specimen from the Chatham Islands, 



and borrowed from me a specimen which had been obtained 



by Baron A. von Hiigel on the Snares, seventy miles south 



of the southern extremity of New Zeaianil. This I had put 



down as GuUhinrjo iinsilhi, huving at that time never seen a 



