THE NEW HOLLAND CEREOPSIS. 319 



mistake, not only in his description but in his figure, 

 which has also the same light yellow legs with that of 

 JM. Temminck. In other respects, were it not for the 

 fading of the white used in the colouring, this is also a 

 characteristic figure. 



Such is the history of the genus Cereopsis as far as 

 it has hitherto been investigated. But we have strong 

 reasons for believing that the bird which forms its type 

 has been unwittingly described by several ornithological 

 writers under different names ; and these names, if we 

 are right in our opinion, must consequently be regarded 

 in futm-e merely as synonyms of the New Holland 

 Cereopsis. M. Labillardiere, in his account of the 

 voyage of D'Entrecasteaux, which took place in 1792, 

 mentions the occurrence, in Esperance Bay on the 

 south coast of New Holland, of a new species of Swan, 

 which he describes as rather smaller than the Wild 

 Swan, of an ashy gray colour somewhat lighter beneath, 

 with a blackish bill covered at the base by a tumid 

 brimstone-coloured cere, and legs slightly tinged with 

 red. This description agrees so well with our bird, that 

 we cannot doubt of the identity of the Cereopsis with 

 M. Labillardiere's Swan. In the Nouveau Dictionnaire 

 d'Histoire Naturelle, published by Deterville in 1803, 

 M. Vieillot named this supposed species, in conformity 

 with the description above given, le Cygiie cendre ; but 

 in the second edition of that work, without quoting any 

 new authority, and probably from mere hypothesis, he 

 asserts that it is the young of the Black Swan of the 

 same country, an idea too absurd to require refutation. 

 It appears from D'Entrecasteaux's own account of his 

 voyage, that the unfortunate Riche, another of the 

 naturalists attached to the expedition, had described 

 the same bird, which he calls a Goose, under the name 

 of Anas Terras-Leeuwin. 



But the foregoing was not the only error which 



