Haast.—On a Curlew, probably Numenius cyanopus, in N.Z. 429 
in this peculiarity of plumage, as well as in the length of the bill, the New 
Zealand bird agrees with N. cyanopus of Vieillot. 
The back of the Australian specimen is described as blackish-brown, 
each feather irregularly blotched with reddish buff on the margin, whilst in 
the New Zealand specimen the feathers do not exhibit these reddish buff 
blotches. 
In the two specimens, male and female, from Silesia (1870), but no 
date when they were obtained, there is also no sign ot reddish buff on the 
back, the feathers being here more irregularly blotched with dark brown all 
over than in the New Zealand bird, where this tint is more confined to the 
central line of the feathers, and from which the brown bars run more regu- 
larly towards the edges than in the former. On the other hand the female 
bird, shot April 18th, 1875, near Bremen in Germany, exhibits the reddish 
buff blotehes well, but in all other respects agrees with the two other Euro- 
pean specimens. If it were not too hasty to draw a conclusion from two 
single specimens, of which the data of one of them are not known, we 
might infer that the reddish buff blotches on the back appear in both the 
European and Australian species before and at the breeding season. It is 
also impossible to say at present, if this specimen (like those before observed 
in New Zealand) is only a straggler from Australia, or if it is a distinct 
species which breeds in New Zealand and has some constant characteristic 
features of its own, and we have therefore to wait until more material is 
collected before we can settle that question. 
P.8.—Sinee these notes were written, another male specimen of the 
Curlew was obtained on the estuary of the Ashley River by Mr. Robert 
Haylett, who shot it on June 27th, when flying past alone. My informant 
believes that it was the specimen which had been seen at Saltwater Creek 
and the neighbourhood for some years past, and to which I have alluded in 
my first paper. The bill of this specimen is only 5:71 inches, and the 
metatarsus 8:85 inches long, it being thus of smaller dimensions than the 
first one obtained on the Kaiapoi Bar. 
With this latter it also agrees in the plumage, with the exception that 
its back is also irregularly blotched with reddish buff. 
As this bird was shot at the end of June, when the Curlew would 
already assume the vernal dress in New Zealand, my former inference in 
that respect might prove correct. At the same time it appears that the 
Curlew, of which two specimens were obtained in New Zealand, is interme- 
diate in plumage between the European and Australian species, and might 
thus rank as a variety, although I think it would be premature to designate 
it by a new specific term, until we shall know something more about it. 
