No. 1.] THE AUSTRAL AVIAN RECORD 11 



regards the Australian Cacomantis group, and shown 

 that Sylvia rubricata Latham was founded on the species 

 at one time known by that specific name, and more 

 recently, following North (Ibis, 1906, p. 53), as in my 

 Handlist, by Vieillot's name of C. rufulus. In his 

 latest work North has reverted to the old nomenclature, 

 but that is certainly untenable. North writes : 

 " Latham's descriptions of birds, only taken from 

 drawings and without access to specimens, should 

 be discarded, for it would be impossible to tell in many 

 instances for what species they were intended, unless 

 he had indicated to which they were applied in his 

 General Synopsis of Birds." 



This sentence deserves notice as it suggests the rejection 

 of almost all the names given by Latham to Austra- 

 lian birds in the Supplement to the Index Orn. I 

 have just jotted down the chief names and find that 

 seventy of the best-known specific names are involved 

 in this tremendous upheaval, and of course no further 

 consideration can be given to such a proposition. It 

 should also be remarked that the birds were fully des- 

 cribed in English in the General Synopsis, and only 

 a short Latin diagnosis based on that description given 

 in the Index Orn. Supplement. From North's sentence 

 given above this is not made clear, but almost the con- 

 trary suggested. To advocate the elimination of some 

 seventy well-established specific names because there 

 has been confusion concerning some half-dozen of them, 

 seems rash, and I cannot understand the reasoning 

 that produced such a proposition. 



Examination of my own series proves this bird to be only 

 a partial migrant and apparently local in its movements. 



I find that the North Queensland birds differ from 

 typical New South Wales birds in being smaller and 

 darker in colour above and deeper below, and name this 

 subspecies : 



Ctjcttltjs rubricatus athertoni, subsp. n., 



type no. 9333, Atherton, North Queensland. 



