Art. XVI.—On Majaqueus aequinoctialis, from Antipodes Island.

By Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S.

[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 1st August, 1894.]

Last December Mr. A. W. Bethune, of the colonial steamer “Hinemoa,” presented to the Canterbury Museum a fine specimen of the petrel Majaqueus cequinoctialis—known to sailors as the “stinker”—which he had obtained at Antipodes Island. The bird—which is a male—is entirely brownishblack, except the chin, which is white; and Mr. Bethune informs me that all the birds he saw were similar in plumage, and none had any white markings on the face. The legs and feet are black. The bill, when fresh, had the sides of the upper mandible and the tubes blue, the culmen and unguis black; the lower edge of the lower mandible was flesh-colour. The following are its dimensions: Length, 21in.; wing, 16in.; tail, 5 ½ in.; bill, chord of culmen 2.2in., to gape 2.5in., height 0.55in.; tarsus, 2.55in.; middle toe, without claw 2.95in., with claw 3.6in. The nests are in holes, made in the side of a slope, which are hollowed out into a circular chamber at the end. In this chamber the nest is raised several inches from the bottom, leaving a circular ditch round it. A single egg is laid. The old birds were sitting on fresh-laid eggs in December, while in the following May the young birds were fully fledged, although still in their nests. These young birds had the plumage in every respect similar to that of the adult.