THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
juveniles would aid in correctly classifying this group, and would point out 
that the feather-growth differs essentially in Fregata from that observed in 
Sula^ Phalacrocorax, etc. I do not consider PJicBthon a true Steganopod. 
With regard to the genus-name, a few remarks should be made. Fregata 
of Lacepede has been recently commonly quoted, but it is obvious no writer 
so using it had previously read the diagnosis given by Lacepede. For in 
the Tableau Oiseaux, p. 15, we get : 
“ Deuxieme sous-division. Quatre doigts reunis par une large membrane. 
Oiseau d’eau latiremes. Bee crochu. Fregatte. Fregata. Le bee long et 
tres-crochu vers son extremite.” There is absolutely nothing in this at all 
diagnostic of this genus, while of the general characters the sentence : 
“Quatre doigts reunis par une large membrane” is quite inapplicable. At 
this quotation the name can therefore only be considered as a nouien nudum. 
In the Didot edition of Buffon^s Hist. Nat. Quadrupedes, Vol. XIV., the 
above was reprinted on p. 317, 1802, by Daudm, who added as the only 
species : “La Fregate. Fregata aquilus, XVI., 308.” The reference is to the 
volume of birds, where Buffon gives the history and a figure of La Fregate, 
and the name can be utilised as of Daudin : the type, however, is Fregata 
minor Gmelin, not F. aquilus Linne. 
