A Reference List of the Birds of New Zealand. 433 



into different families. Regarding the species and subspecies 

 of this family much remains to be worked out. Grant, in the 

 Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vol. xv. 1905, p. 82, and in the ' Ibis,' 

 1905, pp. 594-597, contended that two species were re- 

 presented in the South Island to which he assigned the 

 names Acanthidositta chloris (Sparrman) and A. citrina 

 (Gmelin). Unfortunately, whatever the truth may be. 

 Grant's nomenclature is inadmissible. In the first place, 

 Sitta chloris Sparrman was inaccurately used : no type- 

 locality was fixed for the species ; Sparrman accom- 

 panied Captain Cook on his second voyage in the pay of 

 Forster, who was official naturalist to the Voyage. What- 

 ever birds Sparrman described must have been collected 

 under Forster's supervision. We have, therefore, decided 

 to fix as the type-locality of Sparrman's species that 

 absolutely known from Forster's descriptions and figures. 

 This is a very necessary duty, as Sparrman got his localities 

 mixed up and described many New Zealand birds from 

 " Cape of Good Hope "; this instance is one of them. Now, 

 Forster described the present species from Dusky Sound, 

 South Island, and we therefore select the same place as the 

 type-locality of Sparrman's Sitta chloris. Grant received a 

 bird from Dusky Sound, and observing it differed somewhat 

 from the accepted A. chloris, recognised in it Graeliu's 

 M. citrina from that locality, but Gmelin's name was 

 founded on Latham's description, which in turn was based 

 on Forster's specimen and consequently was identical with 

 Sparrman's bird. 



Grant noted that the Dusky Sound bird had " the 

 rump and upper tail-coverts yellow" .... "sides, flanks 

 and under tail-coverts bright yellow." Sparrman wrote, 

 ''Uropygium flavicans. Abdomen crissuraque alba," and 

 the figure shews a yellow rump and the lower under parts 

 washed with yellow. 



There can be no doubt that Grant's A. citrina is identical 

 with Gmelin's M. citrina, and this is as surely Sparrman's 

 /S'. cldoris. 



But Grant's A. chloris was mainly allotted to specimens 



