100 Alf.xander, WIn'fe-wivged Black Terns in W .A . [,<,t "oct. 



for this bird. The name White -winged Black Tern is given to 

 this bird by British ornithologists to distinguish it from the Black 

 Tern {Hydrochelidon nigra). It is true that the Latin name 

 leucoptera bestowed on the bird by Temminck means " white- 

 winged," but the white on the wing is a comparatively small 

 amount on the coverts. I would suggest that it should be known 

 in Australian books as the Black Tern, this being the only Black 

 Tern in Australian literature, and hence not needing the prefix 

 " White-winged " to distinguish it. It would be less misleading 

 than dropping the word "Black" out of the name, as is 

 commonly done. 



A much happier name, as anyone who has seen the birds alive 

 will agree, would be White-tailed Tern. The white tail, in contrast 

 even with the speckled plumage of the majority of the birds seen 

 in Western Australia, was very conspicuous, and in the adult 

 this contrast is even more striking. 



The Nestlings of Australian Finches : What do we 



Know about Them ? 



By Gregory M. Mathews, F.R.S.E., R.A.O.U. 



A RECENT paper in an American scientific journal would not, 

 perhaps, be noted by every Australian ornithologist, and, as it 

 touches upon a subject which is of great interest to such, I here 

 make some notes. 



The paper is entitled " The Classification of the Weaver-Birds," 

 and the author is James P. Chapin ; it was published in the 

 Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. xxxvii., 

 pp. 243-280, 8th May, 1917. It begins : — " The one external 

 character which enables us to distinguish the Ploceidae, or Weavers, 

 from the Fringillidse at a glance is the condition of the tenth or 

 outermost primary." We have no members of the FringillidcC 

 in Australia, but we have a series of Finches which are classed in 

 the Ploceidae. The British custom, so far accepted by Australian 

 ornithologists, is to call the outermost primary the first, whereas 

 Americans count from the inside and term it the tenth. Much 

 of Chapin's paper deals with the size and value in classification 

 of this outermost primary, which is a very small one. Chapin's 

 conclusions were drawn up from field study of the African 

 members of the family Ploceida; in the Congo, where he collected 

 birds for some years. During this period he noted the coloration 

 of the mouths of nestlings, and observed that peculiarities in that 

 connection could be reconciled with other data, and thereby a 

 more definite and conclusive classification be achieved. As 

 regards the Australian forms, he had recourse to literature, and 

 from this deducted certain items, which I now consider, and it is 

 certain that such facts, when confirmed, will add to the value of 



