Order PELECANIFORMES.] 



[Family PHALACRQCORACIM:. 



PHALACROCORAX CAMPBELLI. 



(CAMPBELL-ISLAND SHAG.) 



Phalacrocorax nycthemerus, Cab. ; Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. ii., p. 167. 

 Phalacrocorax campbelli, Filhol, Mem. Pass. Venus, iii., pt. ii., p. 55 (1885). 



I was allowed to examine a large series of Shags collected by Mr. Henry Travers, and 

 I have established the fact that Youil's Crested Shag (of which I have three or four speci- 

 mens) is found both at the Auckland Islands and at Campbell Island. It is quite distinct 

 from P. colensoi, which never has the central coronal crest, and I take it to be P. campbelli 

 of Dr. Filhol. Like P. brevirostris and other members of the group, this species evidently 

 passes through several phases of plumage in its progress towards maturity, and takes pro- 

 bably three years to attain the full adult livery. I have already mentioned elsewhere the 

 variable character of the fore-neck both in P. colensoi and in this species, the black from the 

 sides of the neck approximating more or less in the middle, and sometimes coalescing. In 

 the two birds in the Colonial Museum already referred to (both of them well crested) the 

 black is continuous in the middle of the neck for the space of an inch or more. In some of 

 Mr. Travers's specimens (all well crested) it is carried a stage further and, progressively, till 

 there is only a white stripe left on the throat, and all the fore-neck is black. I measured 

 the wings of all his specimens, and they were uniformly an inch shorter (from the flexure 

 to the tip) than in P. colensoi. Moreover, the latter species, which Mr. Travers collected at 

 the Auckland Islands in February, and again in May, never seems to possess the handsome 

 long coronal crest of the other. In some specimens there is certainly a lengthening of the 

 feathers of the vertex, forming an incipient crest ; but this is of a different character, pre- 

 senting the appearance of two occipito-lateral crests, instead of being strictly coronal. 

 Mr. Henry Travers was unable to give me any information about the colours of the irides 

 and the soft parts in the fresh bird, which was unfortunate. 



After examining, at a later period, a large series of specimens collected by Mr. Bethune 

 I have been confirmed in this identification. The young of this species has the throat and 

 upper part of fore-neck, as well as the under parts of the body, white ; there is a broad 

 band of dusky black crossing the lower fore-neck, and the bird is crestless. The second 

 year's plumage is the same, except that the brown is replaced by the burnished blue-black 

 plumage, whilst the head is ornamented with a fine crest of narrow plumes. In the third 

 year the white on the fore-neck extends, leaving only a narrow band, an inch wide, across 

 the lower fore-neck, or sometimes the white streak is continuous, but narrowed or con- 

 stricted, on that part of the neck. In the fourth year the bird assumes its full plumage, 

 the whole of the fore-neck becoming white. 



There is a young bird of this species in the Wanganui Museum, brought by Beischek 

 from Campbell Island. Bethune's specimens are principally from the same locality; but two 

 of them are marked as from Auckland Island; and all the adults are well crested. 



The two sexes are crested, and both appear to have exactly the same plumage in the 

 adult state. The specimens in my collection are all from Campbell Island ; but the species 

 exists on the Auckland Islands as well, for Captain Hutton, writing to me on March 18th, 

 1901, says: "Did I tell you that we obtained P. campbelli on the Auckland Islands? 



