Adult: "General colour above, brown, banded on the mantle and scapulars, and spotted on the upper back with ochreous buff, these buff markings being margined with black, which takes the form of broad bars on the mantle; lower back and rump uniform brown; upper tail coverts brown, barred across with light rufous and black; lesser wing coverts like the back; median and greater coverts, as well as the primary coverts and quills, light chestnut, barred with black, the inner secondaries spotted and barred with ochre and black, like the back; tail feathers brown, mottled with chestnut near the base; crown of the head and nape uniform brown, followed by an indistinct patch of chestnut on the hindneck; lores dull rufous, surmounted by a broad line of bluish grey, extending from the base of the nostrils to the sides of the nape; rest of the sides of the face bluish grey, extending on to the lower throat; this grey area of the face separated from the grey eyebrow by a broad band of dark chestnut, which extends from the lores through the eye along the upper part of the ear-coverts; chin and upper throat white; lower throat black, barred across with white; fore neck and chest ochreous buff, banded rather narrowly with black, this pattern of colouration {126} extending up the sides of the neck to the chestnut on the ear coverts; lower breast and abdomen black, banded with white, the light bars on the flanks and vent feathers being tinged with ochreous; under-tail coverts broadly banded with black and ochre; under-wing coverts and axillaries blackish, barred with white; under surface of quills chestnut, with broad black bars. Wing 4.8 inches, culmen 1.35, tail 2.7" (Sharpe). Habitat: Chatham Islands. The type and only known specimen is that in the British Museum. {127} CABALUS HUTTON. _Cabalus_ Hutton, Trans. N.Z. Inst. Vol. VI p. 108, pl. XX (1874--Type and unique species _Cabalus modestus_). Captain Hutton characterized his new genus as follows: "Bill longer than the head, moderately slender and slightly curved, compressed in the middle and slightly expanding towards the tip; nostrils placed in a membranous groove which extends beyond the middle of the bill, openings exposed, oval, near the middle of the groove. Wings very short, rounded; quills soft, the outer webs as soft as the inner, fourth and fifth the longest, first nearly as long as the second; a short, compressed claw at the end of the thumb. Tail very short and soft, hidden by the coverts. Tarsi moderate, shorter than the middle toe, flattened in front, and covered with transverse scales; toes long and slender, inner nearly as long as the outer, hind toe short, very slender, and placed on the inner side of the tarsus; claws short, compressed, blunt. "The bird is incapable of flight, and the stomach of the specimen, dissected by Dr. Knox, contained only the legs and elytra of beetles."