208 Transactions. — 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 fi-om a rusty or brownish to a glossy black, 

 without any ajopearance of white on the throat or fore-neck. 



Phalaceocokax 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 gouhli) 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 httle one's 

 crop. All this time the dehghted recipient is swaying its body to and fi'O, 

 vibrating its flippers and uttering a perpetual scream of joy." 



At the Eurima Eocks 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. 



Phalacrocobax nov^-hollandi^, Steph. — Black Shag. 

 Captain Mair states that this species is rarely seen in the Bay of Plenty. 

 But he distinguishes from this what he terms the ' ' Large Brown Eiver 



* "^Trans. N.Z. Inst.," Vn., page 225. 



