220 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Mr. Gould, wlio lias figured the species with his usual skill in " The 

 Birds of Australia," states that it "is very generally dispersed over the 

 temperate and warmer latitudes of the Indian Ocean and the South Seas, 

 where it often hovers round ships and occasionally alights on their rigging. 

 During the months of August and September it retnes to various islands for 

 the purpose of breeding ; among other places selected for the performance 

 of this duty are Norfolk Island off the east coast of Australia, and Eaine 

 Islets in Torres Straits, fi-om both of which localities I possess specimens 

 of the 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 Eaine 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 ch-cles 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." 



Art. XXVII. — Notice of a new Variety of Tuatara Lizard (Sphenodon)/ro/?i 

 East Cape Island. By Walter L. Bullee, C.M.G., Sc.D., F.L.S. 

 \_Bead before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 11th November, 1877.] 

 During 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. 



