339 
moi'pha, often selecting a branch not much thicker than a man’s wrist, and placing its eggs in a little 
depression thereon. I hear of several Petrels breeding on the same islands, clearly different from our 
species, and hope to get specimens next season.” 
Apart from the serious work of the naturalist, whose duty it is to observe and record, there is 
pleasure in the mere watching of birds in their native haunts : to witness the ever-varying evolutions 
of the sea-birds in their tireless flight ; to follow the stately White Crane or the Bittern in their 
lonely wanderings through the swamp ; to sit on some mossy bank, Avith the scented karetu at your 
feet and the soft hum of insect-life all round, w'atching the playful flight of the Tiwaiwaka, as it 
opens its pretty fan and hunts in the air for invisible flies ; or even to gaze on the solitary bird whose 
life is thus charmingly sketched by Sir Emerson Tennent (in his ‘Natural History of Ceylon, p. 249) . 
“ In solitary places, where no sound breaks the silence except the gurgle of the river as it sweeps 
round the rocks, the lonely Kingfisher, the emblem of vigilance and patience, sits upon an overhanging 
branch, his turquoise plumage hardly less intense in its lustre than the deep blue of the sky above 
him ; and so intent is his watch upon the passing fish that intrusion fails to scare him from his post.” 
Some curious facts relating to the distribution of New-Zealand birds have been recently recorded 
by Dr. Finsch in ‘The Ibis’ (1888, pp. 307-309) from specimens obtained by Mr. A. Keischek. The 
latter naturalist lately accompanied the ‘Stella ’ on one of her trips to the outlying islands in search of 
castaways on the Snares, two small wooded islands with rocks adjacent lying about sixty miles to the 
south-west of Stewart’s Island, and among the birds collected on the larger of the islands was a speci- 
men of Sphenoeacus fulviis. This species is very rare in New' Zealand; but its congener, A. 
is common in both islands, frequenting the stunted fern in the open land, but more generally the 
thick vegetation of the swamps. In its island-home, Avhere there is no open land and no swamp, it 
has changed its habits and lives in the bush. As I have stated at page 62 (Vol. I.) there is another 
allied, but very distinct species (/S', mfescens), inhabiting the Chatham Islands, which does not occur 
in New Zealand. Another bird met with on this island was the Black Tomtit {Miro traversi), a form 
absent from New Zealand, but common at the Chatham Islands. Several examples were observed, 
and it is stated that their habits are exactly similar to those of the North-Island Tomtit {Myiomoira 
toitoi). After leaving the Snares, the ‘ Stella ’ visited the Auckland, Campbell, Antipodes, and Bounty 
Islands. Neither of the above mentioned birds was found in any of these localities ; but, curiously 
enough, another allied species, the South-Island Tomtit {Myiomoira macrocephala), was met rvith on 
the Auckland Islands. 
Mr. Keischek reports that on the Auckland Islands he found a species of Skua feeding on the 
young Penguins. This was doubtless Stercorarius antarcticus, the form Avhich I have described above 
at page 63. Mr. Howard Saunders, in Avriting of this species (Journ. L. S., Zool. vol. xiv. pp. 392, 393), 
says; — “ The largest birds are from the Southern Ocean, betAveen New Zealand and the Cape of Good 
Hope, and they are also the duskiest in colour ; those from the South Atlantic are smaller, and have a 
tendency to a pale frill of acuminate feathers, similar to that Avhich is more or less marked in all the 
other Skuas ; whilst the three individuals obtained by the ‘ Erebus ’ and ‘ Terror ’ Expedition from 
the edge of the pack-ice, noAV in the British Museum, are w'onderfully bleached and Aveird-looking birds. 
Both these species possess great powers of flight, so that they are able to pursue and rob, not 
only the smaller Gulls, but also the Terns ; and as the latter are found in an uninterrupted succession 
throughout the Avhole of the indicated range, there is at once an assignable reason for great extension 
in the range of the latter of these two Skuas.” 
