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167 



A perfect albino of this species, obtained in the Wairarapa Valley, has the whole of the 

 plumage pure white, with a tinge of cream colour on the under-parts of the body ; bill and 

 feet horn-coloured ; wattles flesh colour. Of this bird I have a beautiful portrait from the 

 pencil of Mr. Keulemans. 



Mr. T. W. Kirk has recorded several other cases of albinism in this species, more 

 or less complete. 



The four specimens dressed, as I have mentioned above, with loving hands, and prepared 

 with so much labour, were, in point of fact, the foundation of a collection which in after 

 years assumed important proportions, and was, on the publication of my first edition, in 

 1872-3, presented by me to the Colony, when it straightway became the " Type Collection " in 

 the Colonial Museum. This was done in recognition of the generous assistance accorded to 

 me by the Stafford Government in the prosecution of my scientific work. 



My second collection was sold by me, on the publication of my second edition, in 1888, 

 to the Hon. Walter Eothschild, for the Tring Museum — on the assessment of Professor 

 Newton, of Cambridge — for £1,000; and my third collection, on the completion of this 

 ' Supplement,' to the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, U.S.A., for a similar sum, the price having 

 been arrived at after a careful valuation by Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, the assistant keeper in charge 

 of the ornithological collections in the British Museum. All three collections will, therefore, 

 be available for the student of the future, when many, if not most, of the species will have 

 passed away for ever. I think these facts are worth recording, seeing that the collections 

 relate to a fauna characterised by Professor Newton as " the comparatively little changed 

 relic and representative of the early fauna of much wider range." In a private letter to 

 myself, this same high authority observes, " the New Zealand avifauna is undoubtedly the 

 most interesting avifauna in the world." 



The End. 



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