150 BIRDS OF AUSTBALIA. 



way allied. In general appearance the Me^apodida offer a 

 certain degree of alliance to the Gallinacece ; but in the pecu- 

 liar odour, shape, and colouring of their eggs, and in the 

 mode in which they are incubated, they are totally different, 

 and in some of these respects offer a resemblance to the 

 Tortoises and Turtles. Three species, pertaining to different 

 genera, inhabit Australia, others exist in New Guinea and 

 the neighbouring islands, and extend as far north as the Phi- 

 lippines. 



Genus TALEGALLUS, Lesson. 



The eastern portion of Australia is the habitat of the solitary 

 species of this form of mound-raising bird. 



Sp. 476. TALEGALLUS LATHAMI. 



Wattled Talegallus. 



New Holland Vulture, Lath. Gen. Hist.^ vol. i. p. 32. 

 Genus Alectura, Lath. Ibid., vol. x. p. 455. 

 Aledura lathami, Gray, Zool. Misc., No. I. p. 3. 

 Catheturus australis, Swains. Class, of Birds, vol. ii. p. 206. 

 Meleagris lindesayii, Jameson, Mem. Wern. Nat. Hist. Soc, vol. vii, 



p. 473. 

 Brush-Turkey of the Colonists ; Wee-lah, Aborigines of the Namoi. 



Talegalla lathami, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. v. pi. 77. 



This singular bird was originally described and figured 

 by Latham in the first volume of his * General History of 

 Birds,' under the name of New Holland Vulture ; but, subse- 

 quently, he conceived himself in error in classing it with the 

 Vtdturida, and at the end of the tenth volume of the same 

 work placed it among the Gallinacece, with the generic 

 appellation of Alectura : the species was afterwards dedicated 

 to that venerable ornithologist by Dr. Gray, in his ' Zoological 

 Miscellany,' as Alectura lathami. 



The generic and specific terms, Catheturus australis, were 



