HHlHH 



25 



the bird remained under water a second beyond two minutes ! During the forenoon one of these 

 Shags settled in a boat hanging in our davits, and suffered one of the sailors to capture it without 

 offering any resistance. I handled it afterwards and found it quite docile, but it was in very poor 

 condition, and probably out of health." 



In the Wanganui Museum there is a specimen of this Shag obtained by the late Mr. Drew 

 on the Waitara Eiver. It is a young bird, but Mr. Drew informed me that he saw on the same 

 occasion several adults there. 



Mr. Cheeseman, the Curator of the Auckland Museum, who kindly sent me a couple of good 

 specimens of P. varius for a special purpose, wrote : — " With the specimens I am sending you a 

 rough, coloured sketch showing the colouration of the fleshy parts of the head, as seen in the 

 most brightly coloured specimen we got. I find that the yellow is pretty constant, but as for the 

 blue, no two specimens appear to have the same hue ; it varies from dark azure to the slightest 

 possible trace of this colour; and the differences do not seem to be due to either immaturity 

 or sex." 



Further on (at page 31) I have dealt with Mr. Ogilvie Grant's suggestion that my 

 Phalacrocorax huttoni is the young of P. varius (' Cat. B. Brit. Mus.,' vol. xxvi., p. 331). 

 Captain Hutton is equally wrong in treating it (' Animals of New Zealand,' p. 303) as the 

 young of P. carunculatus, for that species is very local, and has never been found south of 

 Queen Charlotte Sound. My type (now in the Otago Museum) was undoubtedly an immature 

 bird, but it was not the young of either of these species. I am quite satisfied, in my own mind, 

 that it is the same as that since described by Mr. Ogilvie Grant (Z. c, p. 331) under the name 

 of P. stewarti, the beautiful Crested Shag inhabiting Stewart Island, and occasionally met with 

 on the opposite coast. (See infra, pp. 30-32). 



Order PELECANIFOEMES.] 



[Family PHALACROCOEACID^]. 



PHALACEOCORAX C A ETJ N C U L AT U S . 



(EOUGH-FACED SHAG. 



Phalacrocorax carunculatus (Gmelin), Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. ii., p. 155. 



The late Captain Fairchild brought me a fine specimen of this Shag from Queen Charlotte 

 Sound ; and, as this is the first adult bird of that species I have had an opportunity of examining 

 in the flesh, I give the actual measurements : Extreme length, 32 in. ; extent of wings, 49 in. ; 

 wing from flexure, 1275 in.; tail, 6 in.; bill, along the ridge, 2'9 in., along the edge of lower 

 mandible, 3*75 in. ; tarsus, 2*5 in. ; longest toe and claw, 5 in. Irides clear hazel-grey ; orbits of 

 the eyes naked, slightly raised, and of a beautiful blue colour. The bare space surrounding the 

 orbits and filling the lores has a roughened surface as if covered with minute papilla, and is of a 

 greyish-brown colour ; on each side of the forehead these papillae develop into small caruncles 

 of a bright orange-yellow colour. Bill whitish horn-colour, changing to dull-brown on the rido-e 

 Yol. ii.— 4 



