44 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



author of his discovery, that the common Woodhen of the North 

 Island, till then supposed to be Ocydromus earli, was really without 

 name. Finding, when he looked over the old type-collection of birds 

 in the British Museum, that Sir George Grey had been one of the 

 earliest and most liberal contributors of specimens from New Zealand, 

 he decided to dedicate the species to him, and named it accordingly 

 Ocydromus greyi. 



Nycbicorax caledonicus, Gmelin. A very beautiful specimen of the 

 Nankeen Night Heron, with white occipital plumes, rolled in the form 

 of a queue and fully seven inches in length, was then handed round, 

 and gave the author further subject-matter. This bird, presumably a 

 visitant from Australia, was shot at the mouth of Catlins River, in 

 Otago. 



Diomedea fuliginosa, Latham. The next subject was a nestling- 

 Sooty Albatross, remarkable for its thick covering of warm woolly 

 down, enveloping the body like a great blanket. 



(Estrelata mollis, GmeLj (Estrdata affinis, Buller ; and Pufflnus 

 gavia, Forster. The exhibition of a series of specimens of these 

 somewhat rare species was accompanied by a dissertation on Petrels, in 

 the course of which some very curious facts were given. 



Puffinus bullerl (so named by Mr. Salvin, the great authority on 

 Petrels) and a species of Eudyptes (Crested Penguin), which the author 

 had not yet been able to determine, were the last birds noticed. Of 

 Pujfinus bidleri, only three specimens are known, one of which is in 

 the Colony, and another in the British Museum collection. Of the 

 Penguin supposed to be new, the author has lately received two 

 specimens from the West Coast Sounds. He concluded his paper with 

 an expression of regret that the unique example of Hutton's Black 

 Penguin (Eudyptes atratus) had been lost, with many other treasures, 

 by the wreck of the " Assaye." 



Mr. Maskell : The remarks made by Sir Walter Buller, who was 

 an acknowledged authority on the subject of Ornithology, were most 

 interesting, and the specimens exhibited very beautiful. Without 

 wishing to make any reflections on the work done by Sir Walter 

 Buller, he would like to say a few words regarding the establishment of 

 species. It was a rule in almost all branches of science to establish 

 what they called species on grounds that seemed to him very unsatis- 

 factory, and from his own experience and reading for over twenty years 

 he was led to the conviction that scientific works generally were 

 ovei loaded with species determined in a very vague manner. This 

 applied to all brandies of natural science. Mere differences in colour 

 seemed sufficient to account, for thousands of so-called species when in 

 his opinion the birds or insects were really the same, but slightly varied. 

 He thought it would be quite as correct to say that all bay horses were 

 of one species and all black horses another, as to say that birds in other 

 respects alike were of different species because they were different in 

 colour. Why should science be so loaded up with differences merely on 

 account of colour, especially as so few agree as to colour, which depends 

 so much on the formation of the human eye 1 If there is any organic 

 difference that would be quite another matter. 



