Captain Hutton also adds, l.c., a valuable description of the skeleton. One species known. CABALUS MODESTUS (HUTTON). (PLATE 28.) _Rallus modestus_ Hutton, Ibis 1872, p. 247. (Mangare, Chatham Islands.) _Cabalus modestus_ Hutton, Trans. New Zeal. Inst. VI p. 108. (The genus _Cabalus_ established.) _Rallus dieffenbachii_ juv. Buller, B. New Zealand, Ed. I pp. 179, 180; Ed. II p. 121 (1888). _Cabalus dieffenbachii_ (part., juv.!) Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. XXIII p. 47 (1894); corr. p. 331. _Cabalus modestus_ Forbes, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. No. IV. p. XX (Dec. 1892); Salvadori, op. cit. V p. XXIII (Jan., 1893); Forbes, Ibis 1893, pp. 532, 544, pl. XIV, fig. 4, egg; Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. XXIII p. 331 (1893); Buller, Suppl. B.N.Z. I p. 45, pl. III (1905). _Ocydromus pygmaeus_ Forbes, Nature XLVI, p. 252 (1892--nomen nudum! cf. Ibis 1893, p. 544). Captain Hutton (Ibis 1872, p. 247) described this interesting species as follows: "Olivaceous brown, bases of the feathers plumbeous; feathers of the breast slightly tipped with pale fulvous, those of the abdomen and flanks with two narrow bars of the same colour; {128} throat dark grey, each feather slightly tipped with brown. Quills soft brown, the first three faintly barred with reddish fulvous, fourth and fifth the longest. Tail very soft and short, brown. Irides light brown, bill and legs light brown. Length 8.75 inches, wing 3.15, bill from gape 1.4, tarsus 1, middle toe and claw 1.4. _Young._ Uniform brownish black. A single specimen and young from Mangare; also a specimen in spirits." The author knew perfectly well what he was doing when he described this excellent species. Sir Walter Buller afterwards (B. New Zealand, Ed. I, pp. 179, 180) declared "after carefully comparing it with the type of _Rallus dieffenbachii_, and submitting the matter to the judgment of other competent ornithologists, I have no hesitation in considering it the same species, in an immature state of plumage." (_Sic!_) Unfortunately, Dr. Sharpe, in the Catalogue of Birds XXIII, repeated Buller's error, and, on Plate VI, figured _Cabalus modestus_ under the name of _Cabalus dieffenbachii_, though the latter is not congeneric with _C. modestus_, and must be called _Nesolimnas dieffenbachii_, while the third form included in _Cabalus_ by Dr. Sharpe, viz. _sylvestris_ of Lord Howe's Island, must also be separated genetically from _Cabalus_.