not help stopping to admire the grandly beautiful birds. The oldest are pure-white excepting the wings, which are pencilled with brown; the youngest are nearly black. They are supposed to turn whiter and whiter as they grow older. As we found them here, there were very few quite white; they were generally beautifully pencilled with dark lines. I have given the received explanation as to colour and age, but I am bound to say it does not answer all observations, as some of the young birds not fully fledged in the Otago Museum are quite white. Many birds which could not fly had a little down hanging about their necks still. Their condition shows that there are many young birds not yet fully fledged when the old birds lay their next year's eggs. When a bird is put off its nest it goes over in a helpless way. As you approach it it makes a demonstration, clapping with its beak. This clapping noise, which is even more used by nestlings than by old birds, probably serves to intimidate sea-hawks, but it often betrayed to us the unsuspected presence of nests among the tall tussock-grass. It is said it will snap at flesh, but not at a gloved hand. I generally gave them a bit of stick to bite, and gently turned them off backwards. Thus treated, the bird will fall upon its back, with its head and the elbow-joints of its long wings in the tussock, kicking helplessly with its feet. As soon as possible it would scramble back upon the nest, sometimes looking down occasionally with one eye at a time like a duck to see if the egg was there. When a bird had not yet laid it usually stood up as we came to the nest. When it had an egg nothing would induce it to rise and show it. It would sit close to the nest with the egg in the folds of its abdomen. By its sitting so close we could tell that it had an egg. In some places male and female stood by a half-made nest. We could see them gently curtseying to each other, and then rubbing their bills together. This undemonstrative style of courtship was going on everywhere. I do not suppose that one-half of the nesting birds were laying yet. In many places four, in some eight or ten birds stood in solemn conclave together, and scarcely stirred when we walked among them. I presume they were waiting on change for eligible offers of marriage. Very few birds showed any departure from the universal habit. Once one rushed at me to attack me as a goose does. Once, too, one ran away from me in great haste. Occasionally, as I came up to a bird which was not nesting, it ran along the grass and took flight, soaring away as they do at sea: this, however, was rare. Now and then we found their castings, and these were always found to contain masses of undigested beaks of small cuttlefish. We soon gathered a hundred eggs between four of us. These were blown on the spot with a blowpipe. They were nearly