1864.] DR. P, L. SCLATER ON THE SPECIES OF TADORNA. 191 
two years previously. She died in 1862. Ina previous communi- 
cation to the Society* I have already recorded the facts relative to 
the breeding of this rather remarkable bird. Her first mate was a 
Ruddy Sheldrake (1855 and 1856); her second, one of her own 
hybrid offspring, formed by the cross between herself and that bird 
(1857, 1858) ; and third (1859), a Common Sheldrake. 
5. TaporNA TaApoRNOIDES. (PI. XVIII.) 
Anas tadornoides, Jard. & Selb. Ill. Orn. ii. pl. 62. 
Casarca tadornoides, Kyt. Mon. Anat. p. 171; Gould, B. Austr. 
vil. pl. 7. 
Hab. Tasmania and Southern and South-western Australia 
( Gould). 
“Breeds on alluvial flats and also in holes of trees”? (Gould). 
** Mountain Goose” of settlers. 
Of this species four examples were first received by the Society in 
April 1862, having been kindly forwarded from Adelaide (S. A.) and 
presented to the collection by the Hon. J. C. Hawker, Speaker of 
the House of Assembly. Unfortunately these turned out to be all 
four females. Last year, however, additional exam ples of both sexes 
were transmitted to the Society by the Acclimatization Society of 
Melbourne, and we have now two fine pairs of this species. 
Mr. Gould, in his great work on the ‘ Birds of Australia,’ gives a 
good figure of the male of this species ; but the female (in the back- 
ground) is not quite so correctly portrayed, nor are his notes on the 
difference of the sexes quite exact. The female is in fact distinguish- 
able at first sight from the male, as is the case with all the species 
of this section. 
The male is considerably larger ; his head is wholly black, glossed 
with bronzy green; a broad ring of white encircles his neck ; a broad 
band round the lower neck and whole of breast are of a yellowish- 
rufous or fawn-colour, divided from the densely black freckled back 
and belly by a sharp line of demarcation. 
In the female a line round the bill and the ocular regions are 
white; but the white neck-collar is not so distinct as in the male ; 
the breast and lower neck are of a dark chestnut (instead of fawn- 
colour), and graduate gently into the densely freckled back and belly. 
6. Taporna varieGaTA. (Pl. XIX.) 
Anas variegata, Gm. 8. N. i. p. 505. 
Anas cheneros, Forst. Desc. An. p. 92. 
Casarca castanea, Eyt. Mon. Anat. pl.19, p. 108 (fcem. vix adult. ). 
Casarca variegata, G. R. Gray, Birds of N. Z. p. 15, pl. 16 (d). 
Hab. New Zealand, Dusky Bay (Forster). 
A pair of this Sheldrake were presented to the Society in August 
last by Mr. Sharpley, and are, I believe, the first examples of this 
curious species that have been brought to Europe alive. The pure 
white hood of the female and dark bronzy hood of the male offer a 
* See P. Z.S. 1859, p. 442. 
