116 T'ransactions.— Zoology. 
Miro longipes, Garn. 
Miro albifrons, Gml. 
Dr. Finsch kindly wrote to me last year, pointing out that these birds 
were not true Pefroice, and proposed restoring them to Reichenbach's genus 
Myioscopus. Upon investigation I found that the genus Miro, of Lesson, 
had an older claim to recognition, and I accordingly substituted that for 
Petroica. 
I cannot understand how Dr. Finsch could confound the two species as 
being “scarcely distinct." It is true that they are closely allied, but they are 
nevertheless so different in appearance that one specimen of P. longipes could 
be readily picked out of a hundred or more of P. albifrons, and vice versd. 
The former species is confined strictly to the North Island, and the latter to 
the South Island. 
The habits of these birds, it may be remarked, approaches very nearly to 
those of the true Zrythaci. 
Myiomoira toitoi, Less. Š 
I have adopted Dr. Finsch's example in referring this and the allied species 
(M. maerocephala) to the genus defined by Reichenbach, to which they clearly 
belong. 
Sphenoeacus rufescens, Buller. 
I am much surprised to find Dr. Finsch confounding this very distinct 
species with Gray's Sphenwacus fulvus. S. fulvus closely resembles 
S. punctatus, so much so in fact that I was for some time in doubt whether to 
keep them separate or not; and the coloured figures of $$. punctatus and 
S. rufescens, facing page 128 of my “ Birds of New Zealand," will satisfy the 
student, at a glance, that these are very distinct species. 
The specimens in the Canterbury Museum first decided me to retain 
S. fulvus, at least provisionally, and Capt. Hutton, from an independent 
examination of the same specimens, appears to have arrived at a similar 
conclusion. (Cat. Birds of N.Z., p. 9.) 
The type of Sphencacus fulvus is still in the British Museum. In company 
with Mr. G. R. Gray, who originally distinguished the species, I made a 
careful comparison of it with specimens of Spheneacus punctatus, and 
ultimately admitted it into my work, but without attempting to figure it. I 
still look upon it as a doubtful species, and had Dr. Finsch proposed uniting 
this form (instead of jS. rufescens) to S. punctatus, there would have been 
some show of reason for it. 
Creadion carunculatus, Qml. 
It was not the “examination of the types by Capt. Hutton" that proved 
my C. cinereus to be the young of this species, but the examination by myself 
