Goiigh, Kerguelen^ and South Georgia Islands. 459 



Plate ix, fig. 1. 



One skin and three eggs from Kerguelen Island and one skeleton 

 (with the skin and feathers remaining on the wings, and the skin on 

 the legs and feet), and ninety-eight eggs from Gough Island. 



Here again the synonymy is very badly confused, even worse than 

 in the last, various authors having described slight variations as 

 different species, and again, many have confused this and the preced- 

 ing species. Brandt clearly separated them, though for some 

 unaccountable reason his distinction does not seem to have been 

 well recognized by many authors until Mr. Sharpe pointed it out and 

 quoted his original description (1. c, p. 159). Mr. Sharpe, how- 

 ever, separated chrysocome into two species, calling the New Zealand 

 bird {U. pachyrhynchus Gray) the true chrysocome^ and describing 

 the birds from the Falklands, Tristan da Cunha, and Kerguelen 

 Island as E. saltator. Sir Walter Buller has since separated joacA^/- 

 rhynchus again, calling the common New Zealand bird by that 

 name, and the one from the Auckland Islands U. sclateri^ the main 

 difference between the tw^o being in the point at which the yellow 

 superciliary line commences, that in the former species commencing 

 in a line with, and close to the nostril, and in the latter species at the 

 base of the upper mandible immediately above the mouth, this latter 

 species also has a line of white along the base of the lower mandible. 



Dr. Coues confused Brandt's original two species, describing his 

 chrysolophus under Gould's name of diadematus and making the 

 length of the superciliary plumes and the general color of the back 

 the chief difference between chrysocome and chrysolophus. He also 

 recognized as a third species E. catarractes (Forst.), distinguished 

 by the short tail, inferior size and " quite blue upper parts." This is 

 undoubtedly, I think, simply an immature form of chrysocome, and 

 Dr. Coues himself says (op. cit. p. 205), that the distinctions between 

 the three species he has just enumerated are not very satisfactory, 

 adding, " I strongly suspect that when specimens enough shall have 

 been compared, the supposed specific characters will melt insensibly 

 into each other, so that, at most, only varietal distinction can be 

 reasonably asserted, indeed, I am not sure that difference of age or 

 season, or special conditions of plumage, may not be the sole basis 

 of the supposed species." 



* Birds of New Zealand by Sir Walter Buller, 2nd ed., vol. ii, p. 289 et P. Z. S., 

 1889, p. 82, pi. ix. 



