THE BIEDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Tbe synonyms given by Linne do not agree in any way with his 
description, all belonging to either P. leucogaster Boddaert, or being 
indeterminable as shown above. 
Apparently no one read the description but simply looked at the figures 
until Nelson did {Proceedings Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. XVIII., p. 121, 1905), 
as this name was used for Pelecanus leucogaster Boddaert, to which no word 
of Linne’s description applies, while it is an accurate one of the present species. 
Why Ogilvie-Grant used it I cannot say, as he rejected Sula fiber Linne, a 
name commonly in use for P. leucogaster Boddaert, recognising that as the 
immature of what he called “ piscatorf'^ suggesting that he had studied Linne’s 
description. In the present case it is very obvious that he used a name 
to displace an incorrect one without making any attempt to see what the 
displacing name referred to. 
The rejection of Linne’s P. piscator of the 10th Edition is therefore 
inevitable, but it is pleasing to find such an excellent substitute in his P. sula 
of the 12th Edition. We have no idea of the type locality of Linne’s bird, 
as “ Habitat in Pelago indico ” meant nothing in Linne’s usage. None of 
the synonyms help, so that an arbitrary selection must be made. We cannot 
use “ Java Sea,” as Osbeck’s bird is made the basis of the P. piscator of the 
twelfth. I suggest therefore that the description given by Linne fits the 
other bird noted by Osbeck as Diomedea adscensionis, and that it is based 
on Osbeck’s specimen. I therefore designate Ascension Island, Atlantic 
Ocean, as the type locality of Pelecanus sula Linne, Syst. Nat., 12th Ed., 
p. 218, 1766. 
The Pacific Ocean birds are larger in every dimension than Atlantic 
birds, and the soft parts seem to differ, but no series are available with fuU 
data showing local variation in this respect. 
216 
