AUSTEALTAN THIN-BILLED PRION. 
and with it two birds and two heads ; one of these was the present bird 
which was included in a ; one of the others also included in a was the 
young of the next, which probably constitutes the majority of b ; but one 
of the broadest of b was the young of a bird closely allied to my P. vittatus 
7nissus ; it may be the young of P. v. gouldi. 
I have not seen the specimens included in c, but they were undoubtedly 
correctly identified. I have detailed this story to show the necessity of 
preservuig every specimen of this kmd of bird, as it seems from my studies 
that each island may have its own subspecies. 
It would also seem that there are races of this species in existence, 
as Eaton procured a specimen at Kerguelen Island which is narrow-billed like 
this ; broader than H. belcheri, but still much narrower than the young of 
H, desolatus. 
In the British Museum is a specimen labelled by Gould, “ The true Turtur 
of Banks’s Drawings 15 and of Kuhl ; velox of Kuhl is different.” This 
specimen was procured at sea, “ Lat 35° 19' S. Long. 10° 32' E., Aug. 6, 1838, 
Male. J.G.” It is a thin-billed specimen, approaching the present species 
more than any other, and not much hke P. ariel. It does not agree however 
with his description of his P. turtur in his Birds of Australia^ which I think 
was made from specimens of “P. ariel, as he wrote : — 
“ I find by my notes that I killed four specimens off Cape Howe on the 
1 6th of April, during my passage from Tasmania to Sydney ; ” and of P. ariel, 
which he later described, he noted : “I procured several examples of this 
bird in Bass’s Straits on the 1 6th of April, 1839, when many were flying 
round me.” 
The measurements of P. ariel given by Gould were : “ Total length 9 inches ; 
bill 1 and iV ; wing 6| ; tail 3| ; tarsi I^.” 
VOL. 11. 
225 
