THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
consist of upward and forward motions, as if, while pressing against the 
wind, advantage is taken when a lull occurs (see fig, 1) ; and, secondly, 
with head still to windward, allowing itself to fall back a few yards as 
though for a ‘ breather,’ hut still 'rtiaiifitciining a slight u'pwuTd tendency dufing 
the progress (see fig. 2). Then repetitions ad. lib. (see diagram).* 
“ Thek rate of speed when with the wind would be quite 60 to 70 miles 
an hour, if not more.” f 
The first appearance of this speeies in Australian literature was when Gould 
in the Introduction of the Birds of Australia., 8vo., p. 119, 1848, wrote: 
“ Although I have figured but one, there are evidently two, if not three 
species of this genus in Australia, but I have not had sufficient opportunities 
to investigate the subject satisfactorily.” He then added to the Australian 
Avifauna Attagen aquila (?) 
In the Table of the Range of the species given on p. 134, he placed an 
asterisk under Northern Australia as the habitat of this form. 
In the Handbook^ Vol. II., p. 498-9, 1865, he amplified this by writing 
under the genus name T achy petes Vieillot : “ Two speeies of this aerial form 
inhabit Australia, both of which are common in Torres Straits at one or 
other season of the year. No birds differ more than the members of this 
genus, for some examples have white and others brown heads, and moreover 
exhibit many other conflicting differences, both in colour and size. Until 
the question is settled as to whether there be more than two species of this 
genus, whieh at present I have no means of determining, I shall refer both 
the Australian birds to the old T. aquila and T. minor. Then under 
T. aquila he noted : “I have received numerous skins of a Frigate Bird 
from Torres Straits which are much larger than the succeeding species 
{T. minor=iariel), and which may be referable to the Pelecanus aquilus of 
Linnaeus : but this requires confirmation.” 
Campbell, in his Nests and Eggs, p. 989, added: “The Frigate Bird . . . 
is to be found off Northern Australia. However, a few stragglers get into 
more temperate waters. A specimen was captured at Brighton, Port 
Phillip, and is now in the National Museum, Melbourne. I am not sure 
whether the bird has been taken off the New South Wales coast.” 
The determination of the species and subspecies of the genus Fregata 
has proved one of the most interesting studies yet made by me in connection 
with the Australian Avifauna. In the Catalogue of the Birds in the British 
Museum, Vol. XXVI., p. 443 et seq., 1898, Ogilvie-Grant admitted two 
species, Fregata aquila Linn, and Fregata ariel Gould, the distribution of the 
* These figures and diagrams are not here reproduced. 
t Vivian, Emu, Vol. IV., p. 55, 1904. 
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