THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
this specimen, but my friend Dr. Sassi has courteously forwarded me measure- 
ments accurately taken, and also had the skin photographed in various positions, 
so that I can give details and criticism almost as fully as if I had handled it. 
By means of these photographs I think I can explain much that has been at 
issue for so many years. 
The Vienna bird is a Porphyrio, not a Mantellornis ; but it is very doubtful 
if it could be referred to P. melanotus. From the history and figures of this bird, 
I should conclude that it was a fixed albinistic form of Porphyrio. 
Rothschild* noted that the Vienna and Liverpool specimens were separable, 
but classing both as Notornis, suggested that the former came from Norfolk Island 
and the latter from Lord Howe Island. I have shown that the latter probably 
came from New Zealand, as it certainly did not from Lord Howe Island. It 
should be recorded that Plate 33 in Rothschild’s Extinct Birds, purporting to 
represent Notornis alba, was not drawn from either of the specimens under 
discussion, but is a fictitious figure. The wing measurement of each is given as 
Nine inches,” and though that figure is marked “ five-ninths natural size,” 
it does not agree with this measurement. 
Iredalef has pointed out that the only habitat that can be recognised for the 
White GaUinule is Lord Howe Island, and that the Norfolk Island habitat is 
erroneous. With the Liverpool specimen and the photos of the Vienna bird, I 
am enabled to complement and revise the results arrived at in that paper. 
White’s figure was certainly drawn from the Vienna specimen — he gives 
the tarsus short ; Phillip’s Plate suggests a bird with long legs, while Watling, 
who appears to have drawn his figures from life, has committed a common 
artistic error, in making the legs far too long m proportion. A striking feature of 
every drawing of the White GaUinule, is the large shield extending weU behind 
the eyes. Anyone who has examined a series of Porphyrio wUl have noted that 
the shield extends weU behind the eyes, while in Mantellornis it does not. 
According to Watluig, the bird “ fed itseK with its foot like a parrot.” 
This at once suggests Porphyrio, as no one who has ever examined a Mantellornis 
skin would believe that that genus could act in that manner, while P. melanotus 
is known to do so. 
Moreover, the scuteUations of the tarsus are obviously porphyrioid, and this 
has been clearly shown by every artist who has drawn the bird, as instance the 
plates in White’s Journal, PhUlip’s Voyage, the Watling Drawings, and a more 
accessible figure — the one of the Vienna bird in the Ibis of 1873, J p. 295 ; though 
* Extinct Birds, pp. 143-4. 
t P L.S., N.S.W., XXXV., p. 778 (1911). 
J Tlie pose in tliis figiire is obviously incorrect, tbe artist being prejudiced by the supposed generic location 
of tbe bird. 
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