44 BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 



in the British Museum, are different sexes, then both sexes have the spur. 

 Body heavy. Wing-feathers soft. Supposed to be flightless. Secondaries 

 longer than the primaries. 



Colour : one dress blue-green ; beak red, with yellow tip ; legs red. 



For further description vide :— Buller's Birds of New Zealand ; Gould's 

 Birds of Australia; Owen, Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iii. p. 377. 



Compare with Porphyrio. 



Porphyrio.— Middle toe longer than tarsus ; body slender ; tibia feathered 

 about three parts down to tarsus. Frontal extending beyond the eye. Wing 

 pointed, sharp, and feathers hard ; toes longer, claws less curved than in the 

 Notornithidse. 



On the bend of the wing a sharp spur in some species, in one sex 

 (query, in both ?) . 



NOTORNIS ALBA, Pclzcln. 



Hab. Norfolk Island, Lord Howe's Island ? 



Differs from N. mantelli. Middle toe shorter than tarsus, hind toe short. 

 Frontal plate going beyond the eye ; tibia feathered as in Porphyrio, not as 

 in Notornis. Feathers of wing soft. Said to be flightless. Secondaries longer 

 than primaries. Colour in one dress white. Legs (in ' Ibis '-plate) yellow, 

 beak red ; but probably in the flesh both red, with yellow tip to beak. N ot 

 so heavy in body as Notornis. On bend of wing a sharp spur (vide Miss 

 Stone's plate in White's 'Voyage,' also his description as above). Miss Stone's 

 plate differs from the ' Ibis '-plate in certain particulars. A tender regard 

 for ornithic taxonomy causes me to leave this bird alone ; but the circum- 

 stance of a Notornis out of New Zealand appears to me suspicious, and I 

 consider this a very aberrant species in that genus ! 



Porphyrio stanleyi. 

 Hab. Lord Howe's Island ? or New Zealand. . 

 Differs from Notornithidse. Middle toe equal in length to tarsus. Tibia 



