THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Again, on December Ilth, the same writer goes on : “ To-day I passed 
the swamp in which I obtained the Marsh Tern’s eggs, at the end of October 
and beginning of November, and noticed they were in far greater numbers than 
on the previous occasion, and that they were breeding all over the swamp, 
and had not only constructed fresh nests, but had utilised the ones from which 
I had taken the eggs, and also the disused ones of Trihonyx ventralis, and other 
birds. I examined a great number of nests, all of which contained eggs.” 
Mr. Edwin Ashby says a large flock of these birds were Ashing on Lake 
Alexandrina in South Australia on December 30th, 1901. 
Though this species has been burdened with many names it has never yet 
received fair treatment ; at about the same time four names were given it, 
and the one formerly accepted as having nine years priority has recently been 
shown not to have been published until sixteen years after the presumed date 
and therefore seven years later than the others. I refer to Sterna hylrida 
Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso. Asiat., Vol. II., p. 338, 1827, more commonly quoted as 
of 1811, which is wrong. In the second edition of his Manuel d’Orn.^ Vol. IL, 
p. 746, Temminck introduced Sterna leucopareia ; in the TaU. Ency. Meth. 
Ornith., Vol. I., p. 350, Vieillot proposed Sterna delainotta, while in the Trans. 
Linn. Soc. (Lond.), Vol. XIII., p. 198, Horsfield described a bird as Sterna 
javanica. These three names were nominally of the same date, but investigation 
shows that Temminck’s Manuel d'‘Orn., in two volumes, was published in 
October, 1820, while the part of the Tabl. Ency. Meth. Ornith. containing 
Vieillot’s name was not recorded in the Bihl. Franc, until the January-6th-1821 
number, and Horsfield’s name was not issued until late in 1821. Owing to 
the difference between the summer- and winter-plumage, this bird continued 
to receive names, the Indian form or forms apparently suffering the most, as 
Saunders considers that Stephens’s Viralva indica (1826), Gray’s S. shnilis, 
Blyth’s H. marginata (1846), and Beavan’s S. innotata (1868), were all given 
to this species in India. Gould named the Australian form H. fluviatilis in 1842, 
and Boie in 1844 recorded a H. leucogenys Licht., a nude name at that time. 
Brehm however, in 1855, describes the typical bird as H. leucogenys, and added 
H. meridionalis for an Egyptian bird, recognising also in this species Gmelin’s 
S. nilotica. Though the Cape bird was named H. delalandii by Bonaparte in 
1856, it has not yet been described. 
In the Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., Vol. XXV., pursuing the lumping policy he 
had adopted, Saunders called the species H. hybrida and gave it an Old-World 
range. He however carefully noted that the Indian, South African, and 
Australian races were well characterised. 
Examination shows that this bird has very many easily-defined subspecies 
when breeding series are examined, but that there are not long enough series of 
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