432 G. JE. Verrill — Some Birds and JEggs collected at 



da Cunha Group.* It is situated in Lat. 40° 19' S. and Long. 9° 44' 

 W., and lies nearly on a line from Cape Horn to Cape of Good 

 Hope, about 1500 miles west by south from the latter, and about 

 200 miles south, and a little east, of Tristan da Cunha, in which group 

 it is sometimes included. It is a small island of volcanic origin,-)^ 

 about 7 miles long by 3 to 4 wide, rising to a height of about 4380 

 feet. Concerning the vegetation, Mr. Comer says in his notes : — 

 " There are two kinds of trees, though while one kind is plentiful, 

 the other is quite scarce. The grass and brakes grow very rank, 

 which makes the walking quite bad," " Wood is plenty. The trees 

 are stunted, but quite thick in some places on the island." "The 

 trees retain their leaves the year around." " The thick bushes 

 extend up to an elevation of about 2000 feet." 



Kerguelen, or Desolation Island, as it is often called, is in Lat» 

 48° 39' to 49° 44' S. and Long. 68° 42' to 70"^ 35'' E. Its greatest 

 dimensions are about 85 miles long by 79 miles wide and its area is 

 about 2050 square miles, but it has already been so well described 

 by former writers that a further description is out of place here.J 



I am under much obligation to Mr. J. A. Allen of the Amer. Mus. 

 of Nat. Hist, for kindly looking over and identifying all of the 

 skins with the exception of the Albatrosses and Penguins (which I 

 have attempted to work up myself), and for describing the new 

 species of Gallinule {Porpliyriornis comeri)^ tasks which I, myself, 

 did not feel competent to undertake with my small knowledge of the 

 avifauna of that region and the small amount of material at hand 

 for comparison. 



In preparing the following notes on the eggs, I have carefully 

 measured every specimen in the collections, but in the case of large 



* For accounts of the Tristan da Cuaha Group and its fauna see, Capt. Dugald 

 Carmicbaers account of Tristan da Cunha (Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., 1818, vol. xii, p. 

 483) ; Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger, by H. N. Moseley (p. 108) ; The Atlan- 

 tic, by Sir C. Wyville Thomson (vol. ii, p. 151); Voyage of the Challenger, Zoology, 

 vol. ii, 2d Memoir, pp. 110, 129, 134 et seq. 



I For an account of some of the rocks of this island see, Note on some volcanic 

 rocks from Gough's Island, by L. Y. Pirsson (Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. xlv.. p. 380). 

 These rocks were also collected by Mr. Comer, though Prof. Pirsson was not aware 

 of it at the time his article was published. 



\ For accounts of this island and its fauna and flora see, Contributions to the Nat- 

 ural History of Keiguelen Island, by Dr. J. H. Kidder (Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., Nos. 

 2 and 3) ; An account of the Botanical and Zo51ogical Collections made in Kerguelen's 

 Land by the English Transit of Yenus Expedition (Philos. Trans. Royal Soc. Lon- 

 don, vol. 168, p. 1); Notes of a Naturalist on the Challenger, by H. N. Moseley (p. 

 184); Voyage of the Challenger, Zoology, vol. ii, 2d Memoir, pp. 113, 122 et seq. 



