THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
and about the lagoons and mud flats it frequents. Its note may best be 
described as somewhat similar in sound to the barking of a pup.”* * * § 
“ Several of these birds visited the swamps near the Fitzroy River [North- 
west Australia] during our stay in that locahty. They were observed feeding 
in company with Avocets and White-headed Stilts.”! 
“ Towards the close of my stay this species was beginning to arrive [on 
Rottnest Island]. A flock of 70 or 80 took up their quarters on the largest 
of the salt lagoons. The majority appeared to be adults. They were very 
wary, and on being disturbed, flew to the centre of the lagoon, where they 
floated lightly on the water till the danger had passed.”! 
Mr. Milligan § found that tliis species did not fly away on being fired at, 
on Rottnest Island ; seventeen birds being killed, the result of four barrels. 
The whole plumage of each of the seventeen birds was white, excepting the 
wings, which were brownish-grey.” 
The bird figured and described was collected in Victoria. 
This bird is confined to Australia, and is such a distinct form that it is 
peculiar in that it has such a complicated synonymy. 
In August, 1835, Du Bus described it in the Mag. de ZooL, pi. 45, 
that paper being published, as the account read before the Acad. Roy. Sci. 
Bruxelles on January 17th, 1835, had not been brought out at that date. It, 
appeared however in the Bull. Acad. Roy. Sci. Brux., Vol. VI., p. 419, 
pi. 7, included in the December number, which probably did not come out 
until 1836. This latter entrance has generally been quoted as the earliest 
but the one here used has precedence. There Du Bus proposed for it the new 
genus Leptorhynchus^ choosing for the species name pectoralis. 
Two years later Gould described the species again as Himantopus palmatus. 
Gray then pointed out that Du Bus’s genus-name was preoccupied many 
times and introduced the generic CladorhyncJius to replace it, at the same 
time synonymising Gould’s name with that of Du Bus. When Reichenbach 
pubhshed the German translation of Gould’s work, he considered Xiphidior- 
Tiynchus a preferable name to Cladorhynchus^ no other reason being given. In 
1848 Gistel proposed Thneta as a new name for Leptorhynchus Du Bus pre- 
occupied, apparently being unaware or careless of the fact that two earlier 
substitutes were already in literature. In 1851 Selys-Longchamps showed 
that the bird had been described by Cuvier many years before Du Bus or 
Gould, and revived Cuvier’s specific-name. Not much notice was taken of 
* Littler, Handb. Birds Tasm., p. 135, 1910. 
t Keartland, Trans. Boy. Soc. S. Austr., Vol. XXII., p. 187, 1898. 
J Lawson, Emu, Vol. IV., p. 131, 1905. 
§ Emu, Vol. III., p. 224, 1904. 
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