290 : Transactions.— Zoology. 
Mr. Gould, who has figured the species with his usual skillin ** The 
Birds of Australia," states that it “ is very generally dispersed over the 
temperate and warmer latitudes of the Indian Ocean and the South Beas, 
where it often hovers round ships and occasionally alights on their rigging. 
During the months of August and September it retires to various islands for 
the purpose of breeding ; among other places seleeted for the performance 
of this duty are Norfolk Island off the east coast of Australia, and Raine 
Islets in Torres Straits, from both of which localities I possess specimens 
ofthe bird and its eggs." He states further that the young birds for the 
first year are very different from the adults, being of a silky-white without 
the beautiful roseate blush (so conspicuous in the specimen now exhibited), 
with the whole of the upper surface broadly barred with black, and with the 
black of the shafts of the primaries expanded into a spatulate form at the 
tips of the feathers. 
Mr. Macgillivray, who obtained several on Raine Islet in the month of 
June, gives the following account:—« Upon one occasion three were 
observed performing sweeping flights over and about the island, and soon 
afterwards one of them alighted. Keeping my eye upon the spot, I ran up 
and found a male bird in a hole under the low shelving margin of the 
island bordering the beach, and succeeded in capturing it after a short 
scuffle, during which it snapped at me with its beak, and uttered a loud, 
harsh, and oft-repeated croak. It makes no nest but deposits its two eggs 
on the bare floor of the hole, and both sexes assist in the task of incubation. 
It usually returns from sea about noon, soaring high in the air and wheeling 
round in circles before alighting. The eggs are blotched and speckled with 
brownish-red on a pale reddish-grey ground, and are two inches three- 
eighths long by one inch four-eighths-and-a-half broad. The contents of the 
stomach consisted of beaks of cuttle-fish. The only outward sexual differ- 
ence that I could detect consists in the more decided roseate blush upon the 
plumage of the male, especially on the back ; but this varies slightly in 
intensity in different individuals of the same sex, and fades considerably in 
a preserved skin." 
Arr. XXVIL.— Notice of a new Variety of Tuatara Lizard (Sphenodon) from 
East Cape Island. By Warren L. Burrzm, C.M.G., Sc.D., F.L.8. 
(Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 17th November, 1877.] 
Durixe a recent visit to Napier I saw in the possession of Mr. John White 
a live tuatara, which he had obtained from the natives more than a year 
ago as a chief's gift, and which one of his sons had succeeded in completely 
.. domesticating. 
Na TET OUT 
QM el s c M EE Fa C Le Ts 
