184 Proceedings of the Boyal Physiccd Society. . 



science. This list, along with the birds, was sent to Mr 

 Vigors, at that time facile princejps among ornithologists, who 

 published Captain King's paper in vols. iii. and iv. of the 

 Zoological Journal. A considerable proportion of the birds 

 described as new were fonnd to be actually so, and these 

 have retained the names given them by their first describer. 



During a recent re-arrangement of the general collection of 

 birds in the Museum of Science and Art, I had occasion to 

 consult Sclater and Salvin's splendid work on " Exotic Orni- 

 thology " regarding the species of South American coots, and 

 found the following passage by way of preface to the descrip- 

 tion of one of these species : " In a letter addressed to Mr 

 Vigors, and subsequently published in the fourth volume of 

 the Zoological Journal, the late Captain King gave some very 

 short and insufficient descriptions of supposed new species of 

 birds discovered during his survey of the Magellan Straits in 

 1826. Amongst the birds thus characterised as new to science 

 were two coots, named by Captain King F. chloropoides and 

 F. gallimdoides. In order to ascertain positively what species 

 were designated by these names, it would be necessary to 

 inspect the typical specimens which, if ever sent home to 

 this country, have unfortunately disappeared. It is only 

 therefore by a process of guess-work that we can refer F. gal- 

 li7inloides of King to F. armillata, and his F. chloropoides to 

 the present bird, F. leucopyga." Now it so happened that the 

 coot, whose specific name I was in search of, had an old parch- 

 ment label attached to one of its legs, with " Captain King, 

 Straits of Magellan," written on it; and on consulting the 

 register of the old College Museum it appeared that a collec- 

 tion of birds from the Straits of Magellan had been presented 

 to the Museum by Captain King in 1831. It occurred to me 

 very naturally that the unnamed coot might prove to be one 

 of the two typical specimens which, according to Messrs 

 Sclater and Salviu, had " unfortunately disappeared ; " and on 

 comparing it with the certainly brief and insufficient descrip- 

 tion given in the Zoological Journal, I became convinced that 

 it was King's type of Fulica gallimdoides. He states that in 

 his specimen "the throat is partially marked with white, 

 w^hich character, however, may be but temporary, the bird 



