117 



PROSOBONIA bp. 



THIS genus is, in the Catalogue of Birds, placed in a section with 

 somewhat long tarsus, the latter being longer than the culmen, 

 containing in addition to Prosobonia the genera Tringites, and 

 Aechmorhynchus (see afterwards), and it differs from the latter by its 

 long hind toe, from the former by its square tail. The position of this 

 singular bird is, however, not quite certain. The late Henry Seebohm 

 placed it in the genus Phegornis, though the latter has no hind toe whatever, 

 and it has even — but doubtless wrongly — been suggested that it belonged to 

 the Rallidae, rather than to the Charadriidae. We know only one species. 

 It is true that Dr. Sharpe bestowed a new name on the figure of Ellis, 

 which is said to have been taken from an Eimeo-specimen, but it is hardly 

 creditable that it belongs to a different species. Latham appears to have 

 had three specimens, which were all three different from each other. Both 

 Forster and Ellis, in their unpublished drawings in the British Museum, as 

 well as Latham, evidently considered all three to belong to the same species, 

 and it is not advisable now to over-rule their verdict, given with the 

 specimens before them, merely on account of the different plumages, since 

 we all know that most waders, and especially brightly-coloured ones, differ 

 considerably in plumage, according to age and seasons. We are convinced 

 that "P. ellisi" has been a younger bird. Sharpe attaches importance to 

 the different habitat, but this is no argument in this instance, because Eimeo 

 is, at the nearest point, not more than seven and a half miles from Tahiti,* 

 and it is quite against all precedents among Charadriidae and beyond all 

 plausibility that two such closely situated islands have closely allied forms 

 of a Wader. 



*See Findlay's South Pacific Ocean Directory, p. 642. 



