THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Gould separated the Australian bird as 8. placens 
Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser, iv., Vol. VIII., p. 192, 1871. 
Stemula placens Gould. Adult male. Bill yeUow, with the apical third of both 
mandibles black, as sharply defined as if they had been dipped in ink ; forehead white, 
advancing over each eye to near its posterior angle ; lores a narrow line above the eyes, 
crown and nape black ; upper surface of the body and wing coverts grey ; the first primary 
slaty black on the outer web and along the inner web next the shaft ; the shaft itself and 
the outer half of the inner web white ; the second primary similarly but a little less strongly 
marked ; the remainder of the primaries silvery grey, with lighter shafts ; throat and all 
the under surface of the body silky white ; tail white ; feet yellow. 
Total length 10 inches ; bill, from the gape If, wing 7|, tail 4f, ta,rsi |. 
Hab. Torres Straits. 
Masters described the same bird as 8. inconspicua {Proc. Linn. 8oc. N.8.W.f 
Vol. I., p. 63, 1876):— 
Forehead and line over the eye white ; a narrow line of black extends from lores 
over the eyelids ; central portion of the crown white, mottled with black, becoming black 
on the nape and hind -neck ; all the upper surface light grey, with a darker patch r unn ing 
back from the shoulders ; primaries blackish-brown on the outer and inner webs next 
the shaft ; secondaries grey margined with white ; tail white, slightly washed with grey ; 
bill of a brownish-black, lighter at the sides and gape ; legs and feet dark brown : irides 
black. Total length (without bill) to central tail feathers, 6.5 ; to outer tail feathers 7.7 ; 
wing 7.0 ; tail to centre feathers 1.9 ; to outer 3.15 ; tarsi 0.6 ; bill from forehead 1.25 ; 
from anterior margin of nostril 0.9 ; from gape 1.6. 
One male and four females, Mud Bay, Cape York. 
Ramsay, when he accepted 8. placens Gould as being identical with the 
prior 8. sinensis Gmelin, did not recognise that Masters’s bird was the same, 
and Saunders, in the Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., only placed it in the synonymy 
with a query. 
A complication had been introduced through the action of Hume, in 
8tray Feathers, Vol. V., pp. 324-326, 1877. 
Saunders had the previous year {Proc. Zool. 8oc. (Lond.) 1876, p. 663) 
reviewed the Terns, and had accepted 8. sumatrana Raffles for the Indian 
Ternlet. His key to the forms of Ternlets was based on the colour of the tail 
and primary- and primary-shaft coloration. It would appear that Saunders 
was not fully cognisant of the plumage changes which these species undergo. 
Hume however seemed to have no better idea, and admitted that he was 
very probably all wrong, also that both Saunders and himself were blundering 
in the dark. Having indicated that Saunders’s identification of Raffles’s 
8. sumatrana was wrong, he named the Indian Ternlet, so distinguished by 
Saunders, 8. saundersi, and wrote : — 
“ There is no mistake as to the race ; to it belong all the Kurrachee 
specimens, all my Laccadive specimens, to it belong some Ceylon specimens 
and a Madras specimen,” — and described it in detail, noting : “It has a 
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