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"Habitat: Stephens Island, New Zealand. Discovered by Mr. D. Lyall, lighthouse-keeper, and sent to me by Mr. Henry H. Travers."
I received nine specimens of this new bird, and was not aware that any others had been taken at that time. As I was unable to attend the December meeting, 1894, of the British Ornithologists Club, I asked Dr. Hartert to exhibit the birds in my name. When he had done so and had read the description, the Chairman, Dr. P. L. Sclater, said that the bird had also been received for illustration and description in the Ibis, from Sir Walter Buller, and he asked Dr. Hartert if I would not withdraw my description. Dr. Hartert said that this was unfortunate, but he had no authority to withdraw my description, and he and Dr. Sharpe thought that the proceedings of the meeting should be printed without consideration of any manuscripts which might refer to the same bird. No doubt this was hard luck on Sir Walter Buller, but it would have been equally hard luck for me if he had forestalled me with the new bird. He had only one specimen, I had nine, of both sexes, and I had paid a high price for them, as types of a new bird. My type is in Tring, and, as everybody knows, available for study by any competent ornithologist, while Buller's type was not in any museum, and it was uncertain to whom he would sell it afterwards. I suppose it is now in the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, to which Buller's third collection, 625 specimens, was sold for a thousand pounds, as Buller himself tells us in his Supplement II, p. 167, under the heading of Glaucopis wilsoni! On the same page Sir Walter Buller also tells us that his "second collection" was sold to me, but he makes a mistake about the price, as I certainly did not pay a thousand pounds for it.
I mentioned these unimportant details, because Buller rather bitterly and severely complained about my describing the Stephens' Island Wren, on p. 111 of his supplement. I may only add that of course my name, being published in December, 1894, has the priority over his, which was not published before April, 1895.
The history of Traversia lyalli is perhaps the most extraordinary of any bird known. All the specimens I am aware of, viz., the eight now in my collection, the type of "Xenicus insularis" in Buller's former collection, one in the late Canon Tristram's collection, one in the British Museum (ex Tring), and two or more offered some years ago by Mr. Travers, were brought in by the lighthouse-keeper's cat. Evidently this feline discoverer has at the same time been the exterminator of Traversia lyalli, and many may have been digested by that unique cat, as in letters received from Mr. Travers I
