15 



MIRO TRAVERSI BULLER. 



(Plate 5, Fig. 1.) 



Miro traversi Buller, B. New Zealand, Ed. I p. 123 (1873 — Chatham Islands). 

 Petroeca traversi Hutton, Ibis 1872, p. 245. 

 Myiomoira traversi Finsch, Journ.-f.-Orn. 1874, P* ^9- 

 Miro traversi Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. IV p. 236 (1879). 



Miro traversi (partim) Buller, Suppl. B. N. Zealand II p. 125 ? pi. XII (October, 1906). 

 HE late Sir Walter Buller described, in 1873, Miro traversi as follows: 



J. "Adult male. The whole of the plumage black, the base of the 

 feathers dark plumbeous; wing-feathers and their coverts tinged with 

 brown, the former greyish on their inner surface; tail-feathers black, very 

 slightly tinged with brown. I rides dark brown ; bill black ; tarsi and toes 

 blackish brown, the soles of the feet dull yellow. Total length 6 inches; 

 wing, from flexure, 3-4; tail 2-6; bill - 5, tarsus M; middle toe and claw 01, 

 hind toe and claw 0*8 inch." 



" Female. Slightly smaller than the male, and without the brown 

 tinge on the wings and tail." 



It may be added that Miro traversi is not pure black, but of a 

 somewhat brownish slaty black. 



Miro traversi is only known from the Chatham Islands, where it was 

 formerly very common, but, according to a letter from the late W. Hawkins, 

 the cats, which have been introduced to destroy rats and rabbits, have 

 exterminated it. It seems to have disapppeared from Warekauri, the main 

 island of the Chatham group, long ago, for H. O. Forbes (Ibis 1893, p. 524) 

 and Henry Palmer found it, in 1890 and 1892, only on the outlying islets of 

 Mangare and Little Mangare. 



The bird from the Snares is quite different, being deep glossy black 

 and having a shorter and narrower first primary. I named it M. dannefaerdi. 

 It is to be feared that a similar fate will one day befall it as has, apparently, 

 already befallen its congener from the Chatham Islands. 



Sir Walter Buller (Suppl. B.N.Z. II, p. 125) has confounded 

 M. traversi and dannefaerdi, and the figure he gave on his plate looks so 

 black, that 1 do not doubt it represents rather the latter than the former. 

 Of course M. dannefaerdi alone occurs on the Snares, and Buller's traversi 

 from the Snares were all dannefaerdi. Dr. Finsch's statement (Ibis 1888, 

 p. 308) that Reischek's specimen from the Snares "agreed in every respect 

 with specimens from the Chatham Islands " is entirely wrong, for, even if 



