trvx* 



■1H 



Oeder PASSEEIFOEMES.] 



[Family MUSCICAPIME. 



MIEO TRAVEESI. 



(CHATHAM-ISLAND EOBIN.) 



Miro traversi, Buller, Birds of New Zealand, 1st ed., p. 123 (1872). 



I have in my collection a series of specimens, obtained at the Snares, where this bird is said 

 to be comparatively numerous. Now, it is a very curious circumstance that this bird is not 

 found on the Auckland Islands, nor on Antipodes Island, nor on Campbell Island, nor on 

 the Bounty Islands. It occurs on the Chatham Islands, and on Pitt's Island, adjacent thereto, 

 but it has never been met with in New Zealand. The set of the sea-current is from the 

 Snares to the Chatham Islands, as was shown in the case of the barque 'Assaye,' which was 

 totally wrecked by being driven upon the Snares, whilst a portion of her wreckage was washed 

 up, two months later, on the Chathams. This bird possesses very indifferent powers of flight, 

 and its distribution between places so far apart must have been accomplished by the 

 accidental floatage of a great mass of timber-growth or island debris of some sort. 



The sexes are absolutely alike in plumage. The young differs from the adult only in 

 its duller plumage. On close examination it will be seen that the plumage of the upper 

 surface is marked transversely by extremely minute bars of brown, so small, indeed, as to 

 be almost microscopic. 



M 1 11 DANNEFOEDI, 



(SNAEES-ISLAND EOBIN.) 



Miro dannefordi, Rothschild, Nov. ZooL, i., p. 688 (1894). 



Me. Waltee Eothschild has characterised the bird from the Snares as a distinct species 

 under the name of Miro dannefordi ; * but Dr. Finsch, who received a specimen from Mr. 

 Eeischek, identified it with Miro traversi. He writes (' Ibis,' 1888, p. 308) : " One male of 

 this uniform black species, hitherto known only from the Chatham Islands, and agreeing in 

 every respect with specimens from that locality." 



I am very much in doubt about the propriety of separating this form, as a species, 

 from Miro traversi of the Chatham Islands ; but I do not wish to disallow, without 

 further enquiry, a species set up by so careful a naturalist as Mr. Walter Eothschild. 



All I am inclined to admit to the Snares bird, is the rank of a local race or so-called 

 sub-species. 



* In characterising this bird as a new species (' Nov. Zool.,' vol. i., p. 688), Mr. Eothschild says : " When 

 receiving, among many other birds, a large series of uniform black Miro from the Snares Islands, I was first struck 

 by their beautiful glossy black plumage, which I had not seen in this series of Miro traversi (Buller) from the 

 Chatham Islands, collected by Henry Palmer and W. Hawkins. On comparing these birds I found that the Miro from 

 the Snares was constantly (I can say this because I have before me over twenty specimens of each) of a deeper 

 and more glossy black than this rather brownish-black Miro traversi from Mangare and Little Mangare, Chatham 

 Islands, that the former was smaller, and, above all, that its first primary was constantly not much smaller and 

 narrower, being less or equal to half the second primary, while in M. traversi it is longer than half the second. 

 I therefore do not hesitate to distinguish the Snares bird as a new species, which I name after the collector, 

 Miro dannefordi." 



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