HOODED DOTTEREL. 
To me it somewhat recalled C. cucullatus, but of course the red spot is 
fatal to that identification : Gray (for instance) suggested C. imlanops 
on account of the red spot. 
I obtained a clue by means of the exact locality given : students of 
Australian ornithology would recognise it as the place of call of Cook’s 
vessels on the Third Voyage. The artist who painted the birds on that 
Voyage was W. Ellis, and these drawings are preserved in the British Museum 
(Natural History). 
When Sharpe worked through the Ellis Drawings in the History of the 
Collections Nat. Hist. Brit. Mus., Vol. II., p. 205, he identified : “ PI. 67 ” as 
jEgialitis cucullatus (Vieill.) : “ Adventure Bay. W. EUis, ad vivum 1777.” 
This at once suggested reference to this plate as having some connection, 
but it was found to be a most accurate painting of G. cucullatus with no 
erroneous detail such as would cause Latham’s faulty description. Looking 
through the rest of the Ellis Drawings, however, the puzzle was solved. 
Plate No. 63 is a beautiful painting of the Red-necked Phalarope, and it 
is now certain that Latham’s description was drawn up from a study of these 
Ellis Drawings, and that in some inexplicable manner his notes concerning 
the Red-necked Phalarope and the Hooded Dotterel were confused and 
resulted in the description of his “ Red-necked Plover.” The words, “ and 
each side of the neck a large square chestnut spot, the size of a silver penny, 
almost meeting together at the back part,” with “ a little mixture of white 
about the bastard wing,” belong solely to the former, while the other words 
refer exactly to the latter. How the mistake was made by Latham cannot 
now be understood, but it seems reasonable to suggest that he had only a 
short time for consultation and his notes became mixed. In the Gen. Hist. 
Birds, Vol. IX., p. 341, 1824, Latham again gave the description above detailed 
of his Red-necked Plover, but the only locality there noted is, “ Foiind in 
Adventure Bay, Van Diemen’s Land ” ; but a note is then added, “ I observe 
one answering to this description among the drawings of Mr. Dent, but the 
spot on the sides of the neck, just below the nape, is white, instead of 
chestnut ; the side tail-feathers with a bar of black near the end. This may 
possibly differ from the other in sex, if at all allied, which, however, is by no 
means certain, the drawing not being accompanied with any account.” This 
latter description agrees exactly with the Hooded Dotterel and it may be that 
the drawing in the possession of Mr. Dent, whoever he was, was one made by 
the artists accompanying Flinders, for this species was procured by Robert 
Brown on the south coast of Australia, “ prope Bay X,” in 1801-2. He 
carefully described it in manuscript and later presented it to the British 
Museum by whose Keeper it was acknowledged as received in 1818, the year 
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