BLACK DUCK. 
may be displayed. Workers engaged upon Palaearctic birds, when they make 
incursions into extra-limital regions, often fail to realise that south of the 
Equator very different barriers act and that boundaries may be framed 
which would look very erratic if placed upon a map, yet are natural and 
governed by natural conditions in reality. Thus it may be suggested that 
the White birds are more Northern than the Grey ones, and as facts might 
be adduced the observations that Grey birds only occur in New Zealand and 
are the commonest in Southern Australia, both East and West, while since 
my article was prepared MacgiUivray has recorded {Emu, Vol. XIII., p. 145-6, 
1914) that on islands near Cape York, North Australia, “ the birds were in 
hundreds — nearly all white birds, only a few odd grey ones amongst them.” 
Such facts as these, which are of great interest, are lost sight of when a policy 
such as that advocated by Rothschild and Hartert is adopted. 
This paper by Rothschild and Hartert otherwise shows signs that these 
authors are not paying sufficient attention to literature to do exact work. 
Thus, in connection with Nycticorax caledonicus, they wrote: “We apparently 
do not know whether the rufous Night Heron is resident and breeding in New 
Caledonia, or whether it is only an occasional visitor. Dr. Sarasin seems to 
have seen it only once, though he says there is a series in the Museum at 
Noumea.” The fact that it was obtained by Forster in 1774 should have 
suggested it was more than an accidental visitor, while reference to the 
Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum, Vol. XXVI., would have shown 
that many writers on New Caledonia had noticed it, and to quote the first 
one I looked up, Messrs. E. L. and L. C. Layard write {Ihis 1882, p. 531): 
“ This Night Heron is found sparingly wherever we have been. ... It may 
be that they [white occipital plumes] are only assumed during the breeding- 
season, and that they breed only in the north of the island.” 
Again, on p. 287, Rothschild and Hartert still persist in the use of the 
preoccupied and invalid generic name Carpophaga, and on p. 295 there 
appears — \ 
Monarcha chalyheocephalus chalyheocephalus, as the original reference 
appearing : 
“ Muscicapa chalyheocephalus Gamier, Voy. Coquille Zool. Atlas, pi. XV., 
fig. 1 ($), 1.2, p. 589 (1826-1828 — ^New Ireland).” Had the writers continued 
their reference to my List of the Birds of Australia, they would have seen that 
on p. 190 I used as the species name alecto Temminck 1827. Had they 
continued their investigation they would have seen that in the Austral Avian 
Record, Vol. II., 1913, pp. 49-54, I gave the exact dates of publication of the 
plates of the birds figured in the Yoy. Coquille in conjunction with the data 
regarding the text already provided by Sherborn. Consideration of that 
93 
