THE BIRDS OF AUSTBALIA. 
Adult male {summer). General colour of the upper-surface sooty-black with ferruginous- 
and-white margins to the feathers ; bastard-wing and marginal wing-coverts dark 
brown, lesser and median-coverts grey with dark centres ; greater coverts pale 
brown, margined with white ; primary-coverts and primary-quiUs dark brown, 
the latter having white shafts and pale inner webs becoming white at the base ; 
secondary-quills pale dusky-bro\vn with white margins and white bases, the long 
innermost secondaries black, broadly margined with ferruginous ; upper tail-coverts 
black, narrowly fringed with ferruginous ; tail-feathers pale brown, margined 
with white, becoming much paler on the outer feathers ; crown of head black with 
shght ferruginous margins to the feathers and divided by a whitish streak on each 
side of the crown ; sides of forehead white, superciliary Hne also white, more or 
less intermixed with minute lines of pale brown Hke the cheeks and sides of neck ; 
loral spot blackish, sides of breast grey, narrowly centred with dark brown ; 
under-surface white with a bu% tinge ; axillaries and sides of rump pure white ; 
under wing-coverts white, mottled with pale brown on the margin ; primary- 
coverts and quill-lining pearl-grey. 
Nest and eggs. Undescribed. 
I FIRST added this bird to the Australian List, in the Austral Avian Record^ 
1912, from a skin collected by Mr. J. P. Bogers in North-west Australia, in 
October, 1903. Later on in the same journal I extended its Australian 
range to the Northern Territory, from skins collected by the same man 
on Melville Island in April, 1912. 
Middendorff says : “ During the first hah of July there were large flocks 
of this bird, both males and females, on the south coast of the Sea of Ochotsk, 
but they did not breed there.” Dybowski obtained it in east Siberia in August. 
Of the birds figured and described, the male in full breeding-plumage 
was collected in Siberia on August 2nd, and the male in 'vvlnter-plumage on 
Melville Island, Northern Territory, in April, 1912, by Mr. J. P. Bogers. 
When I introduced this bird to the notice of Austrahan ornithologists, 
I gave the result of my researches into the nomenclature of the form, 
but as it is probable that many readers of this book will not care to refer 
back, I will again detail the facts. 
It is quite probable that no previous writer had seriously attempted to 
identify the beautiful description given by Brunnich, as it is so clear and 
characteristic. 
In Der DansTce Atlas, Vol. I., 1763, Pontoppidan gave an account of the 
Natural History of Denmark with plates of figures. The plates are signed 
“ ad naturam dehn. P. Brunniche,” and are very crude. On pi. xxvi. a 
Sandpiper-Hke bird with a curved bill is figured as “ Scolopax falcinellus,” 
and on p. 623 (not 402 as erroneously given in the Austral Avian Record, 
Vol. I., p. 84, 1912) the legend reads : “ Scolopax falcinellus Byle oder 
Domschnepfe mit einem flachen und am Ende niedergebeugten Schnabel.” 
This description is diagnostic, and shows that the writer was more observant 
than the artist, as the latter quite failed to reproduce the bill-characters. 
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