BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND NOT FIGURED BY BULLER. 
Male. Whole of the upper-parts, including the 'wings and tail, slate-black, with white bases to the 
feathers ; a line of white feathers below the eye ; chin, upper neck, sides of face, cheeks and 
sides of tliroat dark slate-grey ; throat white, sharply contrasting with the dark slate-grey 
of the lower neck ; chest, breast, and abdomen pure white ; axillaries, sides of the body 
and flanks dark slate-black ; shorter under tail-coverts white, barred with dark slate; the 
longer under tail-coverts with the greater part of the inner web slate-grey; eyes black; 
legs slightly pink ; feet black. Total length about 385 mm. : culmen 28, wing 277, tail 
115, tarsus 33.5. Sunday Island. March 7th, 1913. (Type of oliveri.) 
The sexes are alike. 
Chick. Covered with dark-grev down. 
Nests. None made ; a depression scooped out of the ground under low and tangled bushes. A 
surface nester like neglecta. 
Eggs. Clutch one ; white, round elliptical, with a smooth and translucent shell, 58 mm. by 42. 
Breeding-season. January (Christmas Island) ; June or July (Phoenix Island). 
Distribution. If the above synonymy is correct, this bird occurs over a wide part of the Pacific 
Ocean, viz. :—The Marquesa Group, north-east to 3° S., 118° 45 W., then directly west to 
Christmas Island ; then south-west to the Phoenix and then directly south to the Kermadec 
Islands. 
Loomis, p, 104, as quoted, gives the measurements of two specimens in the 
National Museum from Christmas Island, the type locality as :— 
Depth of Upper 
Width 
Whig. 
Tail. 
Culmen. Mandible. 
of same. 
282 
Ill 
28 10 
12.5 
285 
112 
28 10 
12.1 
Tarsus. 
Middle Toe and Claw. 
32.1 
45.5 
32.5 
46 
Streets U.S., Nat. Mus., 1877, No. 7, p. 30, says that this species breeds 
on Christmas Island in the Pacific, in January. 
The nests are placed on the ground, under low bushes, being merely a hole 
scooped out for the eggs. 
The egg is large, rotund elliptical, with a smooth, white and translucent 
shell. 
The birds are such close sitters that nothing will induce them to leave their 
eggs, and if removed from their nests they instantly return to their duty. 
Writing of the birds of the Phoenix Group, Lister, who was there about June 
and July, says :—“ There is a number of this species, wheeling rapidly hither 
and thither near the ground in wide figure-of-eight curves, just as the smaller 
Petrels do over the surface of the sea. They place their eggs with almost no nest, 
on the ground under the tangled branches of the bushes. The egg is white and 
measures 58 mm. by 42.” 
The newly hatched young one was covered with dark-grey down. 
82 
