346 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



Ducks, one of which, the Biziura lohata, is confined to the 

 country ; these, with the Uttle Nettapi and the members of 

 two or three other genera, comprise the whole of her Anatidce. 

 The absence of large rivers and the non-existence of great 

 lakes is doubtless the cause of this paucity of aquatic birds in 

 the interior ; but how are we to account for the absence from 

 her seas and rocky shores of the huge Steamer Ducks so 

 common in similar latitudes of South America, and of the 

 BerniclcB which are so numerous at the Falklands ? 



Genus CHENOPIS, Wagler. 



Subdivided as the avifauna of the world now is, it would 

 have been surprising, indeed, if the Black Swan had been left 

 in the old genus Cygnus, from which it departs in many par- 

 ticulars ; I accordingly adopt the above generic term, which 

 Wagler had the honour of proposing for it. 



Sp. 577. CHENOPIS ATRATA. 



Black Swan. 



Black Swan, Philip^s Voy., p. 96. — White's Journ., p. 137. 

 Anas atrata, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. ii. p. 834. 



plutonia, Shaw, Nat. Misc., pi. 108. 



Black Swan of Van Diemen, D'Entrecast. Voy., 8vo, vol. i. p. 140, 



pi. 9. 

 Shawian oi- Black Swan, Penn. Outl., vol. iv. p. 130. 

 Cygnus atratus, Steph. Cont. of Shaw's Gen. Zool., vol. xii. p. 18. 

 Chenopis atrata, "Wagl. in Oken's Isis, 1832, p. 1234. 

 Le Cygne noir, Cuv. Regne Anira., torn. i. p. 529. 

 Mul-go, Aborigines of New South Wales. 

 G(il-jak, Aborigines of Perth. 

 M'dl-lee, Aborigines northward of Perth. 



Cygnus atratus, G-ould, Birds of Australia, fol., vol. vii. pi. 6. 



This " rara avis in terris " is not only strictly confined to 

 Australia, of which country it forms one of the most orna- 



