36 



the three rocks I have mentioned had three or four hundred Crested Shags on each of 

 them. I got up to within twenty-five yards of about a hundred birds. The dark colour of 

 the face and the beautiful crest on the adult birds were very conspicuous." 



An albino of this species received by me from Canterbury has the whole of the under- 

 pays pure white; entire upper-surface very pale brown, the centre of each feather darker; 

 varied on the hind-neck and on the right shoulder with grey, the feathers on the latter 

 having darker margins ; back, rump, and thighs, also wings and tail, very pale-brown, varied 

 more or less with darker brown. On the left side the white on the neck and breast has an 

 ashy shade, the broad white stripe from the back of the eye down the side of the neck 

 being very conspicuous. 



I am also able to add to this list a pure albino obtained, as I am informed, at 

 Kaikoura. Being without crests, it is evidently a bird of the first year ; but it is in excellent 

 plumage, except that the tips of the tail-feathers are abraded by wear. 



Mr. Kirk states, on the authority of Mr. J. C. McLean,* that a colony of fifteen or 

 sixteen has for many years been established on a reef inside Cape Kidnappers. On the 

 occasion of Mr. McLean's visit (in December, 1885) there were five nests placed at equal 

 distances apart along a ledge which runs on the side of the rock about three feet from the 

 top. They were composed of seaweed ; one of them contained two eggs, and each of three 

 others contained two young birds covered with black down, the fifth being empty. 



Mr. J. C. McLean writes himself ('Ibis,' 1889, p. 301): 



The nests are repaired every year for each laying, the old nests being used as a foundation. When 



recently finished, the different coloured seaweeds used give the nests a very pretty appearance 



They are substantially built of twigs and coarse seaweed, and are neatly repaired and lined with small twigs, 

 fibrous roots, tufts of grass and fine seaweeds, with an occasional wing or tail feather of the parent bird. 

 The egg is elliptical in shape, and, when freshly laid, is of a pale bluish-green clouded with chalky-white. It 

 measures in length 2*2 inches, and in breadth 1*5. 



Order PELECANIFOKMES.] 



[Family PHALACBOCOBACIDiE. 



P H A L A B C O H A X FEATHERSTONI . 



(CHATHAM-ISLAND SHAG.) 



Phalacrocorax featherstoni, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. ii., p. 166. 



Captain Hood, of the Chatham Islands, informs me that this fine species of Shag is nearly 

 extinct. He speaks with the authority of twenty years' residence on those islands. According 

 to his account, like Phalacrocorax carunculatus in New Zealand, this bird has always been 

 restricted to one or two localities ; and of late years, like the latter species, it has been much 

 harried by natural history collectors. 



* Trans. N. Z. Inst., vol. xx., p. 30. 



