BIRDS OR NEW ZEALAND NOT FIGURED BY BULLER. 
Nestling. Throat almost entirely naked, with only a few scattered downy plumes of light grey; 
entire body densely covered with long down, whitish down the centre and dark grey on the 
sides of the chest and body. Iris brown; bill black ; feet horn ; webs black. Culmen 20 mm., 
tarsus 23. Kandava Island, Fiji Group, June 6th, 1925. 
Breeding-season. May and June. 
I have copied the following from Dr. R. C. Murphy’s account in 
American Museum Novit., No. 370, as quoted :— 
“ Subspecific characters : Smaller than any of the preceding races of 
Pterodroma leucoptera except in length of tail, in which it equals or slightly 
exceeds the typical form ; occurs in two phases, of which the gray is diagnostic; 
white-breasted examples are distinguishable from other sub-species by one or 
more of the following characters : primary-quills entirely dark (as in the larger 
P. 1. hypoleuca) ; white fore-head very narrow (as in P. 1. leucoptera) ; a tendency 
toward fine, dark grey peppering of the white ventral plumage, apparently 
always present at the sides of the breast, and extending in many specimens 
as a band across the breast and along the whole length of the flanks. In fact, 
the varying density and extent of this dark speckling produces every stage of 
intergradation between white-breasted and grey-breasted phases of the 
sub-species. 
“ Our Fijian adults had mud from their burrows upon the bills and feet, but 
no details about the capture can be found in Beck’s notes. The young are 
mostly well advanced, and some of them have all but lost the down. According 
to the labels, the tarsi and upper-part of the feet were fresh-colored in nestling 
birds and blue in adults, the distal parts of webs and toes being black. 
“ Mature specimen of this race in the wliite-breasted phase, and with a 
minimum amount of fine grey speckling at the sides of the breast, are almost 
counterparts of typical leucoptera. No doubt the two have often been confused, 
as they probably were by Salvin (1876) when he recorded ‘ (Estrelata leucoptera ’ 
as a breeding bud of the Fiji Islands. The presence or absence of the white 
patch on the inner vanes of the primaries may, however, always serve to 
distinguish the two forms, besides which they are of slightly different proportions, 
brevipes having a smaller bill, tarsus and foot. Moreover, the gray speckling 
referred to is never entirely absent from specimens of brevipes. Ordinarily it 
extends more or less across the breast, down the flanks, and on to the white 
under tail-coverts. Other specimens are far more heavily marked, the ultimate 
state being complete saturation of the ventral plumage, caudal from the throat, 
with dark pigment. The race should not properly be called dichromatic, 
because the extreme phases are connected by specimens exhibiting every 
intergrading stage from pure white to very dark grey. 
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