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Show 1893.] PETRELS FROM THE KERMADEC ISLANDS. 755 variations; for it seems to be certain that no individuals of the variety occur on Meyer Island when the winter Mutton-bird is breeding. (ESTRELATA PHILLIPI, Gray. Norfolk Island Petrel, Phillip's Voyage to Botany Bay, p. 161 (London, 1789). Procellaria phillipii, G. R. Gray, Ibis, 1862, p. 246. CE. mollis, dark variety, Buller, Trans. N. Z. Inst. vol. xxiv. p. 85. Three specimens from Sunday Island. Length 16 inches, wing 11-5, tail 4-75, bill 1'2, tarsus 1-5, mid toe 1-8. Upper surface sooty black, the feathers on the forehead and on the back (in one specimen only) margined with brown. Under surface grey, washed with brown on the abdomen. Sometimes some light feathers on the lores and chin, and a dark mark in front of the eye. Bases of all the contour feathers white. Primaries white on the inner webs for the greater part of their length, the white terminating bluntly and reaching the shaft some distance outside of the tips of the lower wing-coverts. Outer tad-feathers brown, with white at the inner bases only. Bill black. Tarsi, first joint of inner and middle toes, and the web between them, brownish; the distal parts of the foot black. The wings when folded exceed the tail by more than an inch. I have little doubt but that this bird is tbe same species as the Norfolk Island Petrel of Governor Phillips. It approaches the last species, but can be distinguished by the shape of the white on the inner web of the primaries as well as by its colours. Having examined three specimens which, although varying slightly in colour, are constant in this respect, I have no hesitation in admitting it as distinct. It is this bird, probably, when flying on the N e w Zealand coast, that I formerly mistook for Pterodroma atlantica (Gould)1, of which there is no authentic record of its having been taken near N e w Zealand. Mr. Cheeseman informs m e that he did not see this species at the Kermadecs and knows nothing about its breeding-habits ; but that Mr. Bell sent him specimens with the summer Mutton-birds, so that it probably breeds with them from September to November. The Norfolk Island Petrel is said to form burrows in the sand. It is a remarkable fact that in the genus CEstrelata there are three bicolour species each closely related to a unicolour species- viz. CE. neglecta to Gl. solandri, Gl. armingoniana to (E. trini-tatis, and OI. mollis to (E. brevirostris-the two forms appearing in all three cases to breed near together on the same islands. I am not aware of the same thing occurring in any other genus of 1 This species has been identified with Procellaria fuliginosa, Forster, but it is not the (Estrelata fuliginosa of Buller's' Birds of N e w Zealand,' which appears to be the larger species Pterodroma macroptera (Smith). |