Part 52

The name Notornis mantelli having been based on a cranium and some leg-bones from the North Island, and the bones of a specimen from the South Island, showing marked differences, Dr. A. B. Meyer was fully justified in describing the latter form as different, under the name of N. hochstetteri.

According to the describer there are considerable differences in the cranial bones, but the comparison of the leg-bones shows such differences in size that these alone would be sufficient to separate the North and South Island forms. The femur of N. hochstetteri measures 109, that of N. mantelli 122, the tibia of the former 165, the tarso-metatarsus 109, the tibia of the latter 200, the tarso-metatarsus 129 mm. For further measurements see A. B. Meyer, Abbild. Vogelskelett I, p. 30.

The upper surface is olive-green with some slaty-blue shading, the quills are black with purplish blue outer webs; rectrices blackish, green on the outer webs. Head, neck, and under surface purplish blue, thighs more blackish. Under tail-coverts white, frontal plate and bill bright red, yellow towards the tip of both mandibles. Feet red.

Although this bird is evidently not extinct, a specimen having been captured as late as 1898, it seems that not many examples live at present in New Zealand, as they have been sought after a good deal, and yet only four have been taken so far, i.e., the two in the British Museum, one in the Dresden Museum, and the last-mentioned one.

Full accounts of the capture of this last specimen have been given in the Trans. New Zealand Institute, XXXI, pp. 146-150, and in Sir Walter Buller's Supplement to the Birds of New Zealand, I, pp. 66-74, where, however, the year of the capture is not mentioned, though one can guess that it must have taken place shortly before the articles on it appeared.

Habitat: Middle Island, usually called South Island, apparently nearly extinct. {143}

NOTORNIS STANLEYI (ROWLEY).

White gallinule, Voy. of Gov. Phillip to N.S.W., p. 273, cum tab. (1789).

Porphyrio stanleyi Rowley, Orn. Misc. I, p. 36, pl. IX (1875).

Porphyrio melanotus (part.) Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. XXIII, p. 205 (1894).

Porphyrio alba G. R. Gray, List Birds N.Z., &c., Ibis 1862, p. 214.

The first to point out the differences between the bird now in the Liverpool Museum and the specimen in Vienna was Mr. Dawson Rowley. The original description of the anonymous author of Phillip's Voyage is as follows:--

"This beautiful bird greatly resembles the purple Gallinule in shape and make, but is much superior in size, being as large as a dunghill fowl. The length from end of bill to that of the claws is two feet three inches. The bill is very stout, and the colour of it, the whole of the top of the head and the irides red; the sides of the head round the eyes are reddish, very thinly sprinkled with white feathers; the whole of the plumage is, without exception, white. The legs the colour of the bill. This species is pretty common on Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, and other places, and is a very tame species. The other sex, supposed to be the male, is said to have some blue on the wings."

Gray states under Porphyrio alba, in Ibis 1862, p. 214: "It is stated that a similar kind was found on Lord Howe Island which was incapable of flight. The wings of the male were beautifully mottled with blue."

Dr. H. O. Forbes, in the Bulletin of the Liverpool Museums, Vol. III, No. 2, pp. 62-68 (1901), gives an exhaustive account of Rowley's type, in which he comes to the conclusion that the bird is not a Porphyrio but a Notornis, and that it is also probably a specimen of Notornis alba. That it is a Notornis I equally believe; but I think the length of the wing-coverts in the type of N. alba, puts it out of the question that the two birds could be the same. Moreover, the two original pictures of Phillip and White show this difference of the wings very well. I have therefore kept the two separate, and I feel sure if we had other specimens with exact data we should find this a parallel case to that of Nesonetta aucklandica of the Auckland Islands and Anas chlorotis of New Zealand, and that Notornis alba of Norfolk Island was a still further degenerate form to the already flightless N. stanleyi of Lord Howe Island. Wing nine inches.

Habitat: Lord Howe Island. {144}

NOTORNIS ALBA (WHITE).

(PLATE 33.)

? White gallinule Callam, Voy. Botany Bay (1783?) (teste Gray).

Fulica alba White, Journ. Voy. N.S.W., p. 238 and plate (1790).

Gallinula alba Latham, Ind. Orn. I, p. 768 (1790).

Porphyrio albus Temminck, Man. d'Orn. II, p. 701 (1820).

Porphyrio melanotus var. alba Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 19 (1844).

Porphyrio melanotus Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Ed. II (1846), p. 14.

Notornis ? alba Pelzeln, Sitz. k. Akad. Wiss. Wien. XLI, p. 328 (1860).

Notornis alba Salvin, Ibis 1873, p. 295, pl. X.

There has been considerable confusion in connection with this bird and the following species, owing to the fact of White not having given any locality for the specimen on which Latham founded his Gallinula alba, and which is now in the Vienna Museum. That the Vienna specimen is really White's bird is proved because it was bought at the sale of the Leverian Museum, and White expressly states that all his birds were deposited in the Leverian Museum.

It is quite impossible to say with certainty which of the two forms, Notornis alba or N. stanleyi, came from Norfolk Island, as we have no indication of the origin of the Liverpool specimen. But seeing that in the anonymous work, "The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay," the first mentioned habitat is Lord Howe Island, and the figure shows a bird with the shorter wing-coverts of N. stanleyi, I think I am justified in taking the bird with longer wing-coverts--viz., Notornis alba, to be the bird from Norfolk Island.