BuLLER. — On the Ornithology of New Zealand. 201 



name is always to be preferred, but to reject a specific title simply on the 

 score of bad taste is about as unreasonable as to refuse the inherited surname 

 of Redhead to a dark-haired man, or Bluebeard to another wanting this 

 adornment. 



It may be objected to the very common practice of associating the names 

 of discoverers and others with new species that this fails to convey any correct 

 impression of the objects themselves ; nevertheless this is found to be a most 

 effective mode of honouring those who have benefitted science by their 

 exertions or researches without involving any practical inconvenience in 

 systematic nomenclature. 



As a general rule, however, there can be no doubt that in selecting a 

 specific name it is better to fix upon some characteristic feature by which the 

 species may be readily distinguished from other related forms, or from 

 members of the same group. * 



Spiloglaux nov^-zealandije, Gmelin. — Morepork. 



Judge Munro informs me that some years ago on opening a bird of this 

 species he found in its stomach a specimen of the Weta-punga, or tree-cricket 

 {Hemideina heteracantha), with a body as large as a magnum-bonum plum. 



A nestling of this Owl obtained in Westland (and apparently a fortnight 

 old) is covered with thick, fluffy down, of a sooty-brown colour, with loose 

 white filaments ; inclined to tawny on the under parts, and whiter on the 

 sides of the head and neck j the bill dark brown, with a whitish ridge ; legs 

 and feet yellow. 



Stringops habroptilus, Gray. — Ground Parrot. 



Of this species there is a beautifully marked variety in Mr James 

 Brosjden's fine collection of New Zealand birds. The whole of the plumage is 

 largely suffused with yellow, especially on the under parts, where each feather 

 has a broad irregular central spot of pale yellow, edged with dusky brown j 

 towards the tips the feathers are greenish-yellow. The upper parts are bright 

 green, prettily rayed with black, and varied more or less obscurely with 

 yellow, the feathers of the nape and sides of the neck having spear-head 

 points of bright yellow near the tips. The tail is conspicuously marked at 

 regular intervals with vandyked bars of clear lemon yellow, getting darker 

 towards the tips j these yellow markings are edged with black, and the 

 interspaces are yellowish-brown, more or less freckled and marbled with 

 black. The primaries and secondaries are similarly marked on their outer 

 webs, but the yellow is not quite so clear. 



Nestor meridionalis, Gmelin. — Kaka. 



The tail-feathers of a Nestor noticed by Mr. Potts (Trans. N. Z. Inst., Vol. 



VI.. p. 148), and now in the Canterbury Museum, belong evidently to a 



Al 



