WATTLE-BIRD 1025 
1788 by J. R. Forster (Hnchiridion, p. 35) Callwas, and by Gmelin 
(Syst. Nat. i. p. 363) Glaucopis.1 The Kokako of the Maories, it is 
now commonly known as the Wattle-Crow, and two species are 
recognized—the original C. or G. cinerea, belonging to the South 
Island, and the C. or G. wilsoni, which represents it in the North, 
almost the sole 
difference between 
them being the 
colour of the bare 
lobes or wattles 
that depend from 
the gape, which 
in the latter are 
wholly blue, but 
in the former blue 
at the base only, 
the rest being 
orange. The genus is usually placed in the Corvidx, but its fringed 
and ciliated tongue, which was duly noticed by the elder Forster, 
and is figured, though very indistinctly, by Latham, tends to throw 
doubt upon that assignment ; yet Dr. Gadow finds (cf. Buller, B. New 
Zeal. ed. 2, p. 4) that osteologically it is one of the Austrocoraces 
or Noto-Coracomorphe (cf. BIRD-OF-PARADISE, page 39, note ; GYMNO- 
RHINA, page 403; and SHRIKE, page 846, note). Both birds are 
about as big asa Jay, of a dark ash-colour, inclining to brown beneath 
and on the lower part of the back, and have the face black. They 
feed mostly on berries, and are very locally distributed. The males, 
in each species said to be smaller than the females, have loud and 
varied notes, one of them of great depth and richness. 
The Wattle-birds of Australia and Tasmania belong to a very 
different group, the Meliphagide (HONEY-EATER). The first of them 
was discovered at Port Jackson, 17th April 1788, and was de- 
scribed in 1789 by Phillip (bot. Bay, p. 164), as also in the next 
year by John White (Voy. New South Wales, p. 144), as a Bee-eater, 
receiving from Latham the name of Merops carunculatus. It is now 
the Anthochxra carunculata of ornithology, and is widely distributed in 
Australia, having a comparatively short red wattle hanging below the 
eye, while a second species, .4. inauris, is peculiar to Tasmania, and has 
a much longer pendant, white at the root deepening into orange. 
These birds are among the largest of the Meliphagidx, and have a 
very inconspicuous plumage of dull brown streaked with white.. 
Allied to them are two other genera, Acanthogenys with a single 
species, and Anellobium with two, the members of which are often 
CattzHas. (After Buller.) 
1 Forster’s preface is dated 15th February, Gmelin’s 16th March. One can- 
not but wish that priority of publication rests with the former, as one of the 
discoverers of the bird. 
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