MEGADYPTES ANTIPODES. 
The entire coat of down is hair, brown, slightly longer on the back, but 
generally short, dense and furry. Bill pinkish-brown, iris yellowish-hazel, feet 
fleshy-white above and black below. 
In the adult the fore part of the head area consists of elongated feathers 
which are straw-yellow with broad black shaft lines, the area being bounded 
posteriorly by the band of clear yellow. 
In an immature, -weighing nine pounds, and almost similar to the adult, 
the black shafted pale yellow feathers occur only in the superciliary region, 
running from the nasal angle of the bill above and behind the eye ; the central 
feathers of the crown are the same colour as the back, bluish with black shafts, 
and the continuity of this colour is not broken by any band behind the crown ; 
the white of the breast plumage continues unbroken along the mid-line of the 
throat and chin; the -white strip leading from the breast on to the fore-edge 
of the flipper is slightly interrupted by a few small dark feathers which are not 
present in adults ; the pale yellow tinge about the gape and the golden brown 
cheek of the adult plumage are present also in the first plumage. 
Distribution. The northern limit of the breeding range is the south side of 
Otago Peninsula ; the birds also nest about Nugget Point, and on the east 
coast of Steward Island. Nests are usually found in the fringe of forest or 
scrub that runs down, to stretches of coast that front the open sea, and yet are 
not exposed to the prevailing wdnd and sea. On the west coast some were 
nesting on the more sheltered and less precipitous sides of the two Ernest Island. 
These nesting groups are in no strict sense of the term “ colonies”, but are due 
to suitable nesting conditions, in an area being available for more than one pair. 
Otherwise the pahs are entirety independent and solitary, and in some places only 
one pair seem to be established. 
In spite of Guthrie Smith’s remarks in 1914 this bird can walk, not hop, 
over the sandy beach. 
Nests. Situations varied from the hollows between the buttresses of rata 
trunks to places in the undergrowth shaded only by Blechnum fern. Both 
sexes were found sitting, vdth the partner often standing in the scrub near by. 
The sitting birds v r ere invariably in the recumbent position. Both chicks are 
usually reared. 
The moult of the adults begin in March, when the young have already taken 
to the sea and begun to feed themselves. An adult ready to moult (March, 1935) 
weighed fourteen pounds. 
The birds from Stewart Island measure as follows Elipper 195-210 mm. 
(202); culmen 54-59 (55.8) ; tail 50-63 (57.6) ; tarsus 30-35 (32.8); toe 77-83 
(80.6). 
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