144 



NOTORNIS ALBA (WHITE). 



(Plate 33.) 



? White gallinule Callam, Voy. Botany Bay (1783?) (teste Gray). 

 Fulica alba White, Journ. Voy. N.S.W., p. 238 and plate (1790). 

 Gallinula alba Latham, Ind. Orn. I, p. 768 (1790). 

 Porphyrio albus Temminck, Man. d'Orn. II, p. 701 (1820). 



Porphyrio melanotus var. alba Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p. 19 (1144). 

 Porphyrio melanotus Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Ed. II (1846), p. 14. 

 Notornis? alba Pelzeln, Sitz. k. Akad. Wiss. Wien. XLI, p. 328 (i860). 

 Notornis alba Salvin, Ibis 1873, p. 295, pi. X. 



THERE has been considerable confusion in connection with this bird 

 and the following species, owing to the fact of White not having 

 given any locality for the specimen on which Latham founded his 

 Gallinula alba, and which is now in the Vienna Museum. That the Vienna 

 specimen is really White's bird is proved because it was bought at the sale 

 of the Leverian Museum, and White expressly states that all his birds were 

 deposited in the Leverian Museum. 



It is quite impossible to say with certainty which of the two forms, 

 Notornis alba or N. stanleyi, came from Norfolk Island, as we have no 

 indication of the origin of the Liverpool specimen. But seeing that in 

 the anonymous work, "The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay," 

 the first mentioned habitat is Lord Howe Island, and the figure shows a 

 bird with the shorter wing-coverts of N. stanleyi, I think I am justified in 

 taking the bird with longer wing-coverts — viz., Notornis alba, to be the bird 

 from Norfolk Island. 



White's description is as follows : — " White Fulica, with bill and front 

 red, shoulders spined, legs and feet yellow." White's figure clearly shows 

 the long wing coverts characteristic of the genus Notornis. Von Pelzeln 

 says in his account of this bird that there is a label on it bearing the number 

 102, and giving as place of origin Norfolk Island, but White makes no 

 mention of this. There are traces of a bluish shade, and two or three dark 

 spots on the plumage, which has led many ornithologists to consider N. alba 

 an albino. Gray, in "A List of Birds from New Zealand, &c.,"* remarked 

 that some Norfolk Island specimens had blue between the shoulders, and 

 the back spotted with the same colour. He also states that the young are 

 said to be black, then become bluish grey, and afterwards pure white. 

 From these and other authors' similar remarks I believe we have not here 

 a case of albinism, but a bird which was in a stage of evolution towards 

 becoming a fixed white species. Wing 9 inches (measured by myself in the 

 Vienna Museum). 



Habitat : Norfolk Island. 



* Ibis 1862, p. 214. 



