. Transactions and proceedings of the New Zealand Institute . terrupted bars of sooty brown. In both,however, the under surface of the wings and the axillary plumes are of auniform dark ashy-grey. These individual differences are thus accountedfor by Mr. Saunders in treating of S. crepuhitus:— It is now well knownthat there are two very distinct plumages to be found in birds of thisspecies, even in the same breeding-places—an entirely sooty form, and onewith light underparts—and that white-breasted pair with whole-colouredbirds as well as with those of their respective varieties. If this sjDec
. Transactions and proceedings of the New Zealand Institute . terrupted bars of sooty brown. In both,however, the under surface of the wings and the axillary plumes are of auniform dark ashy-grey. These individual differences are thus accountedfor by Mr. Saunders in treating of S. crepuhitus:— It is now well knownthat there are two very distinct plumages to be found in birds of thisspecies, even in the same breeding-places—an entirely sooty form, and onewith light underparts—and that white-breasted pair with whole-colouredbirds as well as with those of their respective varieties. If this sjDecies is dimorphic, the offspring of one parti-coloured and one white-coloured birdought to resemble one or other of their i)arent3 without reference to examination of upwards of a hundred specimens from widely differentlocalities, and in all stages, inclines me to the belief that this is not the case,and that the young of such Union will be intermediate, whilst the offspringof two similar parents will breed true, This point can only be solved by. BuLLER,—Note On Mr. H. Saunders Revieiu of the Larin^. 359 some ornithologist, who ■Uill devote liis attention to a colony during thebreeding-season, observing the produce of all these unions, and, if possible,marking the nestlings before they take wiag. It is worthy of notice that inSpitzbergen, its most northern breeding-ground, neither Dr. Malmgren norProfessor Newton found a single example of the dark whole-coloured form ;all those which Admiral Collinsons and Dr. Eaes expeditions broughthome from the far North are also white-breasted specimens, which looks asif the dark form was a more exclusively Southern one. Aet.—XLYI.—Xote on Mr. Howard Saunders Review of the Lariuse, orGuJh. By De. Duller, [Read before the Wellington riiilosoplncal Society, lltJi January, 1879.]Mr. Howard Saunders, in his revision of the Larince, in the Proc. , Part I., 1878, steps out of his way (at page 161) to notice m
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