THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
In the British Museum is a beautiful skin from the New Hebrides collected 
by Cuming and of which it is noted on the collector’s original label, “ Young 
in first plumage.” It has a longer, heavier bill than the Samoan bird, which it 
otherwise resembles, and has also the tarsus longer. In that institution is also 
a bird supposed to have come from New Zealand, but whose history is doubtful. 
It seems quite possible that the locality is correct, as the specimen agrees very 
closely with the New Hebrides bird. The measurements of the latter are : 
Culmen (exp.) 30 mm., wing 195, tarsus 39, while those of the supposed New 
Zealand bird are : Adult, culmen (exp.) 31 mm., wing 210, tarsus 40.5. 
All the preceding have the general upper-coloration blackish, with a 
distinctly brown shade, and with these must be compared the forms inhabiting 
the Galapagos Archipelago. There would appear to be a,t least two forms found 
therein, those from Wenman and Culpepper Islands being larger throughout 
in all their measurements than those found on the southern islands of the 
group. In addition, the former have the under wing-coverts much less 
dusky, and the axillaries also less so, but never white ; this difference in size is 
seen in the measurements given of a series in the original description of the 
Galapagos birds ; it was observed in the specimens in the British Museum and 
confirmed by the large suite in the Rothschild Museum, Tring. Both forms are 
separable at sight from any of the Pacific forms by their dusky flanks and dark 
under wing-coverts and axillaries, and, as noted by Rothschild and Hartert, by 
“ the line between the white and brownish slate-colour generally more sharply 
defined than in P. obscurus.'^ 
In the South Pacific, instead of a brown-black bird, there occurs a very 
similar species which has the upper-coloration of a blue-black, and which was 
associated with the preceding under the specific Puffinus obscurus by Rothschild 
and Hartert in their revision of these birds. 
The earliest to be made known, was the form breeding on Norfolk Island, 
which differs from all those hitherto noticed in its blue-black upper-coloration, 
its white under tail-coverts, and in that the white of the under-surface extends 
up above the eyes, and therefore the lores are mostty white. At the present 
time few specimens are at hand from Norfolk Island, but long series are available 
from the Kermadec group. These latter agree well with the few* from the former 
locality, and I am therefore regarding them as typical. 
From Ncav Zealand has been recorded a larger race, and the few specimens 
I have seen bear this out, also differing in that the lores as regards the upper part 
are blue. The measurements of a good series from Norfolk Island and the 
Kermadec group show : culmen (exp.) 26-27 mm., wing 184-193, tarsus 37. 
From the Chatham Islands, New Zealand, I have examined a nice series 
which differ from the Kermadec form in that the bill is noticeably heavier and 
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