Nos. 4 & 5.] THE AUSTRAL AVIAN RECORD 121 



the species discussed above. The paintings call to mind some 

 of the ones included in the Watling drawings as if they had 

 been painted by the same artist. That would negative their 

 ascription to General Davies himself, but they could have been 

 copied by him. We once saw a painting, signed by John 

 Hunter, of the Austrahan Jabiru which recalled others among 

 the Watling drawings, but we would hesitate before concluding 

 that Hunter had drawn any of the so-called Wathng drawings. 



Further, in the present volume, pages 95 and 97 show 

 paintings of the Emu and Owlet Nightjar agreeing absolutely 

 with the ones reproduced in White's Journal, but we would 

 not consider these had been painted by White without further 

 evidence. 



Then on p. 124 is a painting quite unidentifiable, signed 

 W. T., which agrees exactly with some of the unidentifiable 

 paintings in the Watling series as to workmanship, etc., and 

 pp. 126 and 127, though unsigned, are by the same artist and 

 are also quite unrecognisable. The only member of the ship's 

 companies we have noted with these initials is Watkin Tench, 

 but of course this is merely a guess. 



Then who was General Davies ? His name has cropped 

 up quite commonly in the above connection, and it will be 

 remembered that he apparently received the first Lyre-Bird 

 in England, and, moreover, he was so struck by its beauty 

 that he described it. Apparently he was no systematist, and 

 he got Latham to draw up the description and mayhap select 

 the name, so that Latham included it as a last item in his 

 work, and due to the slowness in publication of the learned 

 Society before which Davies read his account, Latham's name 

 was pubUshed first. Further, he also secured the first Emu 

 Wren, but did not describe it but allowed Shaw, the Director 

 of the British Museum, to do so, who acknowledged " we are 

 indebted to General Davies for the above." 



In 1787 Latham had described in the First Supplement, 

 p. 59, a var. C of the Blue-beUied Parrot, noting : " This variety 

 differs merely in having four or six spots of red tipped with 

 yeUow on the scapulars and inner bend of the wing, and the 

 blue bounded with reddish at the nape. I observed it among 



