274 The Nomenclature of the Rheas of South America. 



greyish white with black shafts and elongated hair-like tips 

 to the feathers, becoming buff-colour on the sides of the 

 neck; chin and upper throat white; sides of the upper 

 mantle and short wing-feathers lead-irrey, with black shaft- 

 lines ; the long wing-feathers are disintegrated and com- 

 posed of colours black, white, grey, and brown ; the upper 

 back is dusky black, becoming paler and gradually merging 

 on to the lower back, which is silvery grey with darker 

 shaft-lines like the flanks and tliighs ; middle of upper 

 breast ash-grey ; remainder of under surface pearl-white. 



Total length 53 inches ; exposed portion of culmen 3"5 ; 

 tarsus 13*0 ; middle toe and claw 6*0. 



The type, which was collected at Ynglases, Ajo, Buenos 

 Ayres, on the 27th of ^lay, 1909, is in the British Museum. 



We have much ])leasure in naming this Rhea in honour of 

 the Hon. Walter Rothschild, who has done so much for the 

 advancement of ornithology in various parts of the world. 



Since this was drawn up the Hon. Walter Rotlischild has 

 called our attention to a paper by himself, " On the former 

 and present Distribution of the so-called Ratitse/' which is 

 being puljlished in the 'Proceedings' of the Fifth Inter- 

 national Ornithological Congress held in Berlin, 1910. 



In this pa|>er he had anticipated us by pointing out that 

 Rhea macrorhyncha of Sclater was a synonym of Struthio 

 americanus of Linnaeus, but had accepted for Rhea aniericana 

 of authors (nee Linnseus) Rhea nandu of Lesson. 



We had already looked into this, and concluded that Rhea 

 nandu was simply a substitute name for the Rheas as a 

 whole, and consequently inacceptable for this species. In 

 support of which we copy Lesson's introduction of his name 

 (Man. d'Orn. ii. p. 208, 1828) :— ^'Ce genre ne renferme 

 qu'une cspece nommee nandu, churi, autruche d*Amerique, et 

 quclquefois j.ar erreur touyou. Cost le rhea nandu, ou 

 struthio rhea de Linue, qui vit sur les bords du detroit de 

 Magellan, ou les voyageurs Tout souvent prise pour uue 

 veritable cspece d'autruche.'' 



Moreover, Temminck, in the 40tli livraison of the Pi. Col., 

 text to ])1. 237 (1823), had already used Rhea nandua 

 as a substitute name for Rhea aintricana, and this usage 

 has five years priority over Lesson. 



We also find that d'Orbigny, in the Itinerary of his 

 Voyage (ii. p. 67, note, 1834), gave tlie chief diagnostic 

 ciiaractcr, when he proposed the name of Rhea pennata for 

 the species from Patagonia commonly known as Rhea 



