NATATOIIES. 507 



the exception of the greater wing-coverts, primaries, seconda- 

 ries, tertiaries, the tips of the two central and the whole of 

 the lateral tail-feathers, which are of a rich chocolate-brown ; 

 irides yellow ; naked skin of the face and chin in specimen 

 dnll bluish black ; legs greenish blue. 



Total length 29 inches ; bill 5 ; wing 16^ ; tail 8^ ; tarsi 2 J. 



Sp. 663. SULA FIBER, Linn(Bus. 



Brown Gannet. 



Pelecanus sula et fiber, Linu. Syst. Nat., torn. i. p. 218. 



plotus, Forst. Drawings, 108. 



Sulafusca, Briss. Oru., torn. vi. p. 499, tab. 43. fig. 1. 



bi-asiliensis, Spix, Av. Sp. Nov., torn. ii. tab. 107. p. 84. 



fiber, G. R. Gray, List of Birds in Brit. Mus. Coll., part iii. p. 1 83. 



Brown Booby, Lath. Gen. Syn., vol. vi. p. 613. 



Dysporus fiber, Bonap. Compt. Rend, de I'Acad. Sci., 1856. 



sula, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av., torn. ii. p. 164; Dysporus, sp. 1. 



M'dr-ya, Aborigines of Port Essington. 

 Booby of the Colonists. 



Sula fasca, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. vii. pi. 78. 



The Gannet, which may perhaps be identical with the 

 Felecanus jiher of Linnaeus, is abundantly dispersed round 

 the northern shores of the Australian continent ; I have speci- 

 mens killed within the harbour at Port Essington, and from 

 Raine's Island in Torres' Straits, where it breeds in consider- 

 able numbers. 



"■ This species of Booby," says Mr. Macgillivray, " is gene- 

 rally distributed on the north-east and north coasts of New 

 Holland ; but I found it breeding only upon Bramble Key, 

 although I once, on Raine's Islet, found a solitary egg. The 

 nest is slovenly made, of dried herbage, a foot in diameter, 

 with scarcely any cavity, and contains two eggs, of which in 

 every instance one was clean and the other very dirty. The 

 eggs, which are white, vary considerably in size. The largest 



