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brown. There is no appearance of yellow on the cheeks, but both here and on the throat the fulvous browm 
fades away into the white, the rounded apical margin presented by the male being wholly obliterated. On 
the cheeks each feather has an extremely minute central mark of brown, giving a somewhat stippled 
appearance to the plumage of these parts. Underparts glossy white. 
Obs. The bird from which the above description is taken has the claws much blunted and worn, indicating 
maturity, and the tail-feathers abraded to mere shafts, like strips of elastic whalebone (the middle ones to 
the length of three inches), denoting, as I think, an adult female at the close of the breeding-season. In 
both sexes the bill appears to have been originally of a dull brownish orange, darker on the ridge and in the 
terminal part of the lower mandible. 
Young. The white of the fore neck extends right up to the bill and spreads on to the face ; there is a broad 
mark of brown behind the eyes and on the sides of the upper neck ; the coronal band is absent, but there is 
a tinge of yellow on the vertex, with some indistinct pencilled markings of brown. 
The above description of the adult male, which appeared in my first edition, was taken from a fine 
specimen in the British Museum. At that period there was only a single example known in the 
Colony — an immature specimen obtained at Oamaru on the east coast of the South Island. Nume* 
rous individuals have since been taken, but in every instance further south. The description of the 
female is from one obtained at Cape Campbell and presented to me by Mr. Eobson, who also forwarded 
a pair to the Colonial Museum. There is an example from Akaroa in the Canterbury Museum ; and 
the young bird described above was captured near Dunedin in December 1873, and is now preserved 
in the Otago Museum. 
The egg is broadly ovoido-conical, measuring 2'85 inches in length by IT 5 in breadth, creamy- 
white and having a roughish surface with a thin chalky covering. I have two before me, and in one 
the outline is slightly pyriform ; in other respects they are alike. Both specimens were collected 
on Campbell Island. 
Mr. Percy Seymour, who is a very zealous oologist, has favoured me with the following notes : — 
» At Otago Peninsula, on the 9th November, I found a nest of this species containing two eggs, 
on which the female bird was sitting. The eggs were white, and uniform in shape and size, measuring 
2-95 inches by 2T6. The nest consisted of a mere platform of sticks, about 18 inches in diameter, and 
was situated at the foot of a leaning tree in thick bush, on a steep ascent from a sandy beach. The 
birds in their journeys to and from the beach had made a beaten track up the hill, on which the 
marks of their claws were plainly perceptible in the soft clay. Two other nests, found on the same 
occasion, also contained two eggs each, resembling in appearance and size those described above, but 
I did not get an opportunity to measure them. The nests were constructed principally of coarse 
grass, on a ledge at the foot of a small clitf near the water. 
“ Another nest had been found on the 26th of October in the same locality under a log. It 
contained two fresh eggs, measuring 2'75 inches by 2T. 
“ I visited the beach again on the 9th of August in the year following, and found, near an old 
nest, two young birds, both males. They were fully feathered, but still had a little down about their 
plumage. There were plenty of footprints of the birds on the track leading up the hill, but all the 
tracks on the sandy beach below high-water mark pointed seawards, showing that the birds, at that 
time of the year, came ashore only at night and left again in the morning.” 
