208 T'ransactions.— Zoology. 
to the opinion that they are distinct species, and has promised to send me 
nestlings of both for comparison. 
It will be remembered that at one of our meetings in 1875,* I exhibited 
an adult bird, supposed to be of this species, in which there were indications 
of a seasonal change of plumage from a rusty or brownish to à glossy black, 
without any appearance of white on the throat or fore-neck. 
PnuaracRocomax varius, Gmel.—Pied Shag. 
Captain Mair informs me that at a place called Whakarewha, near 
Matata on the East Coast, there is a colony of the white-bellied shag where 
thousands of them breed together. The nests are crowded together on the 
branches of a clump of pohutukawa trees growing on the cliff; and the old 
birds may often be seen fighting fiercely for the possession of a dry stick or 
piece of sea-weed, required for building purposes, or endeavouring to dis- 
possess each other of nests already made. In these fights the young birds are 
not unfrequently knocked out of the nests, and numbers of dead ones are found 
lying on the beach at the base of the cliff. The nests are rude structures 
formed of dry twigs and sticks, bound together by means of a peculiar kind 
of kelp for which the shags may be observed diving in the sea, sometimes 
in four fathoms of water. The harrier (Circus gouldi) hovers about this 
breeding- place and makes an occasional attempt to carry off a young bird 
from the nest by boldly attacking it; whereupon numbers of the old birds 
sally forth with loud guttural cries and. chase the intruder to a considerable 
distance. 
Captain Mair, who has often visited this “ shaggery," says :—* It is 
very amusing to watch the old birds feeding the young ones. With a slow 
flapping of its ample wings the parent bird comes in from her fishing 
excursion, her capacious throat distended with food. There is much excite- 
ment in the nest on her approach. The young birds open wide their 
mandibles, and thrusting her beak down the throat of her offspring, the 
careful mother empties the contents of her pouch right into the little one’s 
crop. All this time the delighted recipient is swaying its body to and fro, 
vibrating its flippers and uttering a perpetual scream of joy.” 
At the Rurima Rocks in the Bay of Plenty, six miles from the shore, 
where some three or four hundred shags congregate every year to refit 
their nests in the tall pohutukawa trees, the birds are almost exclusively of 
this species. 
PHALACROCORAX NOVE-HOLLANDUE, Steph.—Black Shag. 
Captain Mair states that this species is rarely seen in the Bay of Plenty. 
Mak he peccunia from this what he terms the “Large Brown River 
** Trans. N.Z, Inst.,” VIL, page 225. 
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