

45 



Young. — Entire plumage dull black, the breast strongly tinged with brown, the mantle 

 slightly so. 



Progress towards maturity. — In the next year the plumage is of a satiny or shining black, 

 and there are a few white filaments about the throat and on the abdomen. 



Nestling. — The newly-hatched young has a flesh-coloured head and neck, and throat, 

 with a narrow black line through the eyes and across the face ; the whole of the body dark 

 slate-colour, with peculiar, reticulated black markings, like the feathers on the back of a 

 penguin, being produced, as a matter of fact, by the undeveloped growth of down; a 

 white line down the centre of the breast and abdomen. Bill black, with a raised white 

 point at the tip ; legs and feet greyish-black on their upper surface, greyish white under- 

 neath. 



The egg of this species is almost a perfect ellipse in shape, measuring 2 in. in 

 length by 1*2 in. in its greatest breadth. It is pale bluish-green, thickly covered with chalky 

 incrustations of a dirty white colour, sometimes almost continuous, giving the egg a much 

 lighter appearance, or disposed at intervals all over the surface in pimples or warts, to the 

 thickness even of a sixteenth of an inch, and in round splashes of varying extent. 



On one occasion, some years ago, I counted thirty small Shags on the outside pier at 

 Sulphur Island, Tauranga. Eight among them had pure white underparts, and were presumably 

 P. melanoleucus, but I could not approach near enough to identify them. The rest were 

 white-throated, there being no black ones in the flock. 



The Wanganui Museum possesses a young specimen shot by Mr. Drew in Australia. 

 It is of an uniform brownish-black, with some white filaments on the fore-neck. 



According to the British Museum 'Catalogue' (vol. xxvi., p. 401), there is an undoubted 

 specimen of P. melanoleuciis in the Tring Museum, received from New Zealand. 



In the Otago Museum there is a Erilled Shag from Oamaru, conspicuously white on 

 the face, sides of neck and under-parts, but without any appearance of frill or crest ; so this 

 is probably only a seasonal character. 



The species has a rather wide distribution, being met with on the coasts and rivers of 

 Australia, ranging east to New Zealand and New Caledonia, north to New Guinea, the Moluccas 

 and the Pelew Islands, and west to Lamboch. 



The Papaitonga specimen, referred to above (which is now in my son's collection), has the 

 frontal or vertical crest so conspicuous that I made a sketch of the head from the fresh bird, 

 which I now reproduce. 



HEAD OP P. MELANOLEUCUS. 



