Birds Collected in the Straits of Magellan, 1826-27. 185 



being evidently a young individual." This mark, though pro- 

 bably useless as a means of identifying a species, is manifestly 

 of importance in seeking to identify an individual specimen, 

 and the museum specimen agrees in possessing this white 

 marking on the throat. Premising that in this specimen we 

 have the F. gallinuloidcs of King, an examination of it leads 

 me to the conclusion that it cannot be referred to the F. armil- 

 lata of Vieillot, as suggested by Messrs Sclater and Salvin. It 

 is, in my opinion, an immature specimen of Strickland's coot 

 {Fulica leucoptcra), a figure of which is given in the " Exotic 

 Ornithology." According to Messrs Sclater and Salvin, " this 

 species is readily distinguished from all its South American 

 congeners by having the ends of the first five or six second- 

 aries next adjoining the primaries tipped with white, and in 

 the museum specimen six of these feathers are thus tipped. 

 In the British Museum hand-list of birds, F. gallinuloides 

 appears as a synonym of F. armillatay with a query attached ; 

 if the view here taken be correct, it should now appear as a 

 synonym of F. leiccoptera. The latter appears to be a rare 

 species, as at the time of the publication of the hand-list 

 already referred to there was no specimen of it in the British 

 Museum, and the authors of the " Exotic Ornithology " were in- 

 debted to Dr Hartland of the Bremen Museum for the loan of 

 the specimen from which their figure was taken. The number of 

 specimens presented by Captain King to the College Museum 

 appears to have been about twenty, at least that is the 

 number of stuffed birds now exhibited as from hmi, and many, 

 if not the most of these, appear to me to be the individual 

 specimens referred to, briefly described by Captain King in 

 his letter published in the Zoological Journal. Of those 

 named by him as new, and which were found to be so, the 

 following occur in the collection presented by him to the 

 museum : Athene nana, King ; Syrniihm rufi'pes, King ; Ficns 

 MagellanicuSy King. 



Captain King also described as new the Steamer duck, 

 under the name Oidemia Patachonica. It had, however, been 

 previously described, so that 0. Patachonica is now a synonym. 

 The individual on which he founded his description was 

 stated by him to measure forty inches in length. Eeferring 



