134 Transactions. — Zoology. 



[Dr. Finscli is probably right in distinguishing a second species {Ocydromus 

 troglodytes). I have myself stated ("Birds of New Zealand," p. 171) that 

 " examples from different localities exhibit so much variety in size and 

 plumage as to suggest the existence of another closely-allied species."] 



" Charadrius fulvus. 



" Dr. Buller states that this bird ' occurs occasionally on the New Zealand 

 coast ;' but as both Mr. Gould and Dr. Jerdon state that it resembles in habits 

 the Golden Plover of Europe, this is very unlikely to be the case. He also 

 makes no mention of the only specimen contained in any New Zealand 

 collection, viz., that in the Auckland Museum, which was presented by 

 Dr. Buller himself, but without any mention of the locality." 



[Captain Hutton is under a wrong impression as to my having presented 

 the specimen of C. fulvus which exists in the Auckland Museum. It was 

 there as far back as 1855 ; and, beyond the assurance of the curator that it 

 was a New Zealand example, I know nothing whatever about it. The 

 species (according to Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub) is distributed over the islands 

 of the South Pacific, and there is nothing unlikely in its occurrence in New 

 Zealand.] 



" Anarhynchus frontalis. 



" I cannot follow Mr. Potts and Dr. Buller in thinking that the bent bill 

 of this bird is useful in enabling it ' to follow up retreating insects by making 

 the circuit of a water-worn stone with far greater ease than if it had been 

 furnished with a straight beak.' In the first place, unless the bird is also 

 furnished with some means of seeing round a coi-nei', it would not be able to 

 see the insect it wanted to catch ; in the second place, the bird is just as 

 common in the sandy bed of the Waikato, and on the mud-flats of the 

 Manukau harbour, where there are no stones, as it is in the shingle-beds of 

 the rivers of the South Island ; and, in the third place, I have often watched 

 the bird feeding and never yet saw it run round a stone more than any other 

 bird might do. 



" It seems to me that a bill bent on one side would be very useful to a bird 

 whose usual food was either minute but numerous organisms, such as Diato- 

 macese, etc., or small animals hidden among fine Algse, etc. ; for by slightly 

 inclining its head it could lay a considerable part of its bill flat on the ground, 

 and thus, in the first case, take up a much larger quantity of those minute 

 organisms at a time, or, in the latter, could search over a greater extent of 

 Algse for creatures that it could not see, than if it used only the point of the 

 bill. The broad bill of the duck performs the same office in a diflerent 

 manner. I by no means assert, however, that this is the use of the peculiar 

 shape of the bill ; for I have had no opportunity of observing one through a 



