THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
dimidio exteriore intense glaucis interiore albis. Longitude 15 poll. The feet are black, 
the bill is greatly lengthened, and the interior border of the sixth, seventh, and eighth 
remiges, which is white, is very regularly defined. 
It has been generally overlooked that this name is preoccupied by Vieillot, 
who in the previous year had introduced it for a quite different bird, thus 
{Tdbl. Ency. MHh. Ornith.y Vol. I., p. 347, 1820) : “ Latham rapporte a 
cette espece, comme un jeune oiseau, la Guissette, de la pi. enlum. de Buffon, 
n. 924 (Sterna media) ; mais nous croyons qu’il se meprend.” 
The next name is that of Lesson {Traite d'Orn., p. 621, 1831), who called 
it Sterna hengalensis : “ Mus. de Paris. Katel Kako des Indus. Front et 
tete blanc tachete de noir ; occiput noir ; corps blanc ; manteau et ailes gris ; 
bee jaune ; tarses noirs. Cotes de ITnde.” 
In RiippeU’s Atlas, Vol. II., taf. 14, p. 23, 1827, Cretzschmar described 
a form from the Red Sea as Sterna afflnis, but as that name is preoccupied by 
Sterrm afJinisHovs^eld, 1821, it is unavailable. In the last volume of the second 
edition of his Manuel d’Orn., p. 456, 1840, Temminck, having used Cretzschmar’s 
name, as he argued that Horsfield’s name, being a sjmonym, did not invalidate 
Cretzschmar’s later use, noted : “ M. Ehremberg en a fait Sterna arahica, 
parce qu’il s’est procure cet oiseau, grand voilier et cosmopolite, dans le cadre 
geographique de F Arabic.” This must be considered a noynen nuduin, as is 
also Lichtenstein’s Th. ynaxuriensis {Noynencl. Av. Mus. Zool. Berol., p. 98, 1854), 
proposed for birds from the same locality. 
Gould named the Australian form Th. torresii, thus : — 
Thalasseus Torresii. Thai, fronte, facie, et cello dorse superiore, partibusque infe- 
rioribus lucide albis, plumis verticis et illis oculos circumdantibus albis, gutta parvula 
centrali nigra notatis, occipite et nucha nigerrimis ; dorso alisque staurate cinereis, cauda 
pallide cinerea. 
Forehead, sides of the face and neck, upper part of the back and all the under surface 
silky white ; feathers of the crown and surrounding the eye white, with a minute spot 
of black in the centre of each ; occiput and back of neck black ; back and wings deep 
grey ; tail grey ; primaries gre 5 dsh-black, broadly margined on the inner web with white ; 
the shafts white ; irides dark brown ; bill ochre yellow ; feet blackish grey. 
Total length, 13| inches ; bill 2| ; wing 11| ; tail 4| ; tarsi 1. 
Hab. Port Essington. 
Nearly allied to S. poliocerca, but much smaller in size. 
Reputedly common in places as a breeding bird, long series are not at 
hand, but the specimens available point to the fact that the plumage-changes 
of the subspecies follow those of its larger congener Thalasseus hergii : thus 
the Indian birds are darker and larger than those from the Red Sea, while the 
North Australian ones are lighter. 
At present I would recognise : — 
Thalasseus hengalensis hengalensis (Lesson) ; India. 
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