Order BALLIFOBMES.] 



[Family KALLIM5. 



HYPOTJENIDIA PHILIPPENSIS. 



(BANDED EAIL.) 



Rallus philippensis, Linn. ; Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. ii., p. 95. 



At the end of February I found a party of three young birds in a crop of dry oats at Papaitonga. 

 I placed them in an aviary, where they partook readily of boiled potato, but remained very shy, 

 always keeping under cover during the day and coming out only after dark. 



I have received a specimen from Stephen's Island. Mr. Lyall, who sent it, writes: "I am 

 sending you a Eail, now very scarce. Saddlebacks are not very plentiful. Thrushes are fairly 

 numerous, but in a short time there will not be many left, as the cats have become wild and are 

 making sad havoc among all the birds." 



During my last visit to Fiji, when out shooting on the Island of Wakaya, I heard the unmis- 

 takable note of this species. I also received two skins from one of the other islands of the group. 

 They differ from the typical form in the more spotted character of the wings and in the total 

 absence of the chestnut-coloured pectoral band.* 



This species is said to have been introduced into Lord Howe's Island; but there is no 

 positive evidence of this. 



Professor Hutton considered the Macquarie Island bird— of which there is a single specimen 

 in the Otago Museum— distinct and named it (Ibis, 1879, p. 454) Ballus macquariensis. I have 

 given my reasons (vol. ii., p. 95) for treating it as only a local (and perhaps immature) example of 

 B. philippensis ; and Professor Newton, in a letter to me (30th January, 1902) says : " I am quite 

 prepared to accept your determination of Ballus macquariensis being specifically identical with B. 

 philippensis— a bird which goes wandering about in the most extraordinary way, and might well 

 find its way to those islands. One was brought to my brother Edward, at Mauritius, having been 

 picked up on the race-course there. If it met with a mate and bred, the progeny would 

 very likely diverge somewhat from the original stock— that is only what might be expected ; 

 but the process would take some little time and the fact would be interesting. The British 

 Museum has two specimens, which I daresay you have seen, sent by Sir G. Grey to Sclater 

 some twenty years ago or more." 



In a small tank of birds, in formalin, sent to me from the Island of Nuiafoou in the Tonga 

 group, I was advised of a " Veka " (the name seeming to be the equivalent of the Maori " Weka ") 

 being among them. Hoping to discover a new Woodhen from this remote island, I anxiously 

 awaited the arrival of this consignment, when I found to my disappointment that the bird was 

 only this common form, but (like my specimens from the Fiji Islands) entirely lacking the pectoral 

 band of chestnut. 



* Lord Walden writes, (' Orn. Works,' p. 194) :— " The Celebean 'bird has the nape rusty as in Australian individuals. 

 In the event of the Philippine species proving distinct, the birds from the other localities above given will require a 

 different title. Messrs. Finsch and Hartlaub have adopted Cuvier's title of pectoralis copied by Lesson (Tr., p. 536) 

 for this species, although Dr. Pucheran had shown that the type of B. pectoralis, Guv., was B. leiuini, Swains, (conf. 

 Hartl. J. fiir Orn., 1855, p. 420)." (And, again, at p. 527): "In two specimens from Monte Alban (Luzon) the 

 pectoral band is just indicated by the tips of some of the feathers being tinged with pale rusty fulvous. In the third 

 the white bands are coloured with rusty fulvous, but the black bands show through. In the example which has the 

 pectoral band least developed the nape is most rufous, and this is the case in a Celebean individual without a trace 

 of pectoral band, the nape being pure bright rufous." 



