It has long been a question whether _Nestor productus_ of Gould and _Nestor norfolcensis_ of Pelzeln were really distinct or only individual varieties of one species. I had for a long time considered them to be merely individual varieties, for I could not persuade myself that a small island like Philip Island, almost contiguous to Norfolk Island, could have a different species of _Nestor_ to that found on the larger island. Since commencing to write this book, however, I have come to somewhat different conclusions. In the first place no special locality is given for _N. productus_ by the earlier authors, in the same way as in the case of _Notornis alba_, which, like the _Nestor_, was said to come from N. S. Wales. This fact is easily explained, as N. S. Wales and Norfolk Island were both penal settlements in the early days, and there was intercourse by regular vessels plying between these colonies and Lord Howe's Island. Now we find in the case of several other birds that distinct local forms occur on Norfolk and Lord Howe's Islands, while as far as I know there is no other record of a distinct bird from Philip Island. I therefore believe that _Nestor productus_ inhabited both Norfolk and Philip Islands, and that all specimens extant are from Philip Island, where it lingered some years longer than on the main island, while the specimens of Ferdinand Bauer and Governor Hunter, and possibly the supposed _N. norfolcensis_ of {46} Canon Tristram's collection, now in Liverpool, had been brought from Lord Howe's Island in cages and were kept as pets in Norfolk Island; and then, as the value of exact data in those early days of our science was unknown, the references were made to the place whence the specimens were seen or brought. One thing however is certain, the bill in Ferdinand Bauer's sketch is evidently a monstrous growth produced by captivity, for Latham expressly describes the bill of Governor Hunter's bird as ending in a long thin point. The differences of _N. norfolcensis_ are the dull crimson sides of face, chin, and throat; dull green head and hind neck, and the total absence of bars on the tail. The plate given herewith is a reproduction of the Liverpool bird, with the bill of Ferdinand Bauer's sketch added, as this is wanting in that bird, and in the corner a head of the specimen of _N. productus_, purchased for the Tring Museum, when the late Mr. Wallace's Museum at Distington, Cumberland, was dispersed.