THE BIRDS OE AUSTRALIA. 
As no further instances have been recorded, and as it was a most unlikely 
bird to occur in Australia, I omitted it from my “Reference List” {Nov. Zool., 
Vol. XVIII., p. 217, 1912), and here note its inadmissibility on Gould’s 
specimen alone. 
I have shown that the genus-name to be used for the Ring-Plovers is 
Charadrius^ of which C. hiaticula is the type. This species has a short some- 
what conical bill with a slightly swollen dertrum ; short thick legs and strong 
feet ; the biU has the tip black but the major portion pale-coloured. Species 
which agree in having the same bill-characters, which I caU VaneUine, are 
dubius, semipahnatuSy melodus, cucullatus, melanops, bifrontatus, tricollaris, 
forbesi, and novce-zelandice. In the Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. the last-named was 
admitted to be genericaUy distinct under the name Thinornis, and the species 
semipahmdus was also separated as MgialeuSy while bifrontatus, tricollaris, and 
forbesi were classed in Oxyechus, the remaining five being placed in Mgialitis 
along with many others I have shown to be more correctly placed in Leucopolius. 
The three species bifrontatus, forbesi^ and tricollaris^ are marked off from the 
others on account of the double banding on the breast, the long wedge-tail, 
and longer tarsi and feet. 
The species cucullatus is also peculiar in its black head and throat, 
while 7mlanops is noteworthy in its small size, its longer bill, slender legs and 
feet, variegated coloration above with dark maroon scapulars. 
The interrelationships of the species seem to be much as Seebohm 
suggested ; the ancestor of hiaticula seems to have gone as far south in 
Australia and New Zealand as was possible, and then through isolation to have 
become quickly modified in the former country into cucullatus, in the latter 
into novce-zelandice. Probably the ancestor of dubius also accompanied that 
of hiaticula into Australia, where it became differentiated into inelanops, but no 
form like this appears to have penetrated into New Zealand. American ornith- 
ologists do not now recognise C. seinipahnatus as genericaUy separable from 
C. hiaticula, but in my opinion it is quite worthy of subgeneric distinction. 
The South African species bifrontatus, etc., which Baird, Brewer, and 
Ridgway considered referable to Oxyechus and wliich Sharpe placed in that 
genus, I would associate with Charadrius on account of the VaneUine biU, and 
quite set apart from Oxyechus which has a Pluvialine biU. 
On account of the characteristics of these species noted above, I would 
consider them genericaUy separable from Charadrius hiaticula and propose 
for them the new generic name AFROXYECHUS with C. tricollaris VieiUot 
as type. This is the only possible course, as I consider that the biU in 
Oxyechus is PluviaUne whereas in Afroxyechus it is VaneUine — to me an 
essential difference. 
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