Genus— M ATHEWSIA. 
Mathewsia Iredale, Bull. Brit. Ornith. Club, Vol. 
XXVn., p. 47, 1911 . . . . . . . . Type M. rubicunda. 
Antigone Reichenbach, Nat. Syst. Vogel., p. xxiii., 
1852 (not Antigone Gray 1847, Antigonus Hubner 
1816, Antigona Schumacher 1817, nor Antigonia 
Lowe 1844) . . . . . . . . . . . . Type M, collaris. 
PsoPHiiNE birds with long biUs, long neck, long wings, long legs and feet. 
The culmen is long, compressed, straight, and sharp pointed ; the upper 
mandible has on each side a depression extending rather more than half its 
length ; the nostrils covered with a membrane ; an obsolete groove can be 
traced in the lower mandible. The culmen is longer than the head, little 
shorter than the tail, and more than half the length of the metatarsus. 
The head is denuded of feathers save on the ear-coverts. The wing is long, 
with the inner secondaries longer and resolving themselves into drooping 
plumes. The tail, composed of twelve feathers, is more than one-third the 
length of the wing. The legs are very long, as also the exposed tibia, 
while the very long metatarsus is scutellate, and is equal to half the length 
of the wing. The toes are long with no webbing between; hind toe present 
and raised above the level of the others ; the middle toe is about half 
the length of the culmen. 
As regards the genus-name to be used, Iredale (l.c.) wrote: “^Reichenbach 
(c/. Nat. Syst. Vogel., p. xxiii., 1852) proposed Antigone for the species A. 
torquata, which is now known by the specific name of A. collaris Boddaert. 
Congeneric with this species is classed the bird described by Gould in 1847 
as Grus australasianus, but which Mr. Mathews has recently shown had been 
named Ardea rubicunda by Perry, nearly forty years previously (c/. Nov. 
Zool., XVII., p. 499, 1910). As a generic name Antigone seemed unsatis- 
factory, for Hubner had introduced Antigonus in 1816, Schumacher Antigona 
in 1817, and Lowe Antigonia in 1844. None of these, however, absolutely 
invahdated Antigone, but we were relieved from this annoying state of 
affairs by the action of Gray, who, in 1847, utilized Antigone for a mollusc. 
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