Official Organ of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union. 



Birds of a feather.' 



Vol. XV.] ist APRIL, 1916. [Part 4. 



Avifauna of New South Wales Islands. 

 By a. F. Basset Hull, R.A.O.U., Sydney. 

 Part III.* 

 In his " Birds of Australia" Mathews separates the western from 

 the eastern form of the Wedge-tailed Petrel {Puffinus sphenurus, 

 Gould). The former he catalogues in his 1913 " Hand-list " as 

 Thyellodroma pacifica chlororhyncha, Lesson, and the latter as 

 T. p. royana, Mathews. He describes the western form as 

 differing from the eastern " in its generally lighter colour, 

 especially on the under surface, and probably also in the coloration 

 of the bill." He quotes Gould's description of P. sphenurus, in 

 which the bill is stated to be " reddish fleshy-brown, darker on 

 the culmen and tip ; legs and feet yellowish flesh colour." Gould's 

 type came from Houtman's Abrolhos, Western Australia, and 

 Lesson's type from Shark Bay, W.A. Mathews says : — " Coues, 

 with Gould's specimens in front of him, wrote : ' The bill is flesh 

 colour, tinged with brown ; much darker along the culmen and 

 on the unguis.' Hall states that the bill is slate colour, with 

 the tip or nail black, and now Campbell and White aver that the 

 western form has the bill the same colour as the eastern, which 

 they call ' dark horn or bone-brown.' As the characters of these 

 dark Puffinus lie mainly in the bills, further investigations are 

 necessary, and a series of birds studied." Mathews's figiu'e of 

 T. p. royana (lettered Puffinus chlororhynchus) shows the bill a 

 fleshy-pink colour, with black unguis, the feet and tarsi being 

 flesh colour. These details agree with the description of the 

 adult bird quoted from Campbell and White. Mathews gives 

 the range of the eastern bird as " Eastern AustraHa, Lord Howe 

 and Norfolk Islands." He refers to a bird from Broughton 

 Island (N.S.W.), sent to him by me for examination, which " has 

 quite a small bill, the coloration of which, in the dried state, 

 seems to be darker on the unguis, and not all uniform as given by 

 Messrs. Campbell and White, though otherwise agreeing closely." 



It appears to me that Mathews separates these two forms on 

 the too unstable characters of the coloration of the soft parts in 

 the dried skin. I have examined some hundreds of the eastern 



* Vide Emu, voL xi., p. 202 (1912). 



