THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
This description is of a young bird, and when Sharpe investigated the 
WatHng Drawings {Hist. Coll. Nat. Hist. Brit. Mus., Vol. II., 1906) on p. 154, 
he wrote : 
“ No. 294. [Young Tropic-bird.] 
New Holland Tropic Bird, Lath., Gen. Hist. R., X., p. 448. 
Phaeton melanorhynchos Stephens, Gen. Zoql., XII., pt. i., p. 127. 
Ph(Bton ruhricauda (Bodd.) Grant, Cat. R., XXVI., p. 451. 
Watling says : ‘ From the extremity of the bill to the tail is eighteen 
inches.’ 
No. 295. Red-tailed Tropic-bird, Lath., Gen. Syn., VoL HI., pt. 2, 
p. 614, pi. cv. 
Phaeton ruhricauda (Bodd.) Grant, Gat. R., Vol. XXVI., p. 451. 
Watling says : ‘ This bird is from the tip of the biU to the rump 
eighteen inches, and from the rump to the end of the tail-feathers eighteen 
inches.’ ” 
The synonymy quoted by Sharpe with regard to No. 294 is not correct, 
as Phaeton melanorhynchos was not first proposed by Stephens but by Gmelin, 
and the name was not given to the New Holland Tropic Bird of Latham, but 
to the Black-billed Tropic Bird of the same author. That was not figured by 
Watling, as it came from Turtle and Palmerston Islands and will be later on 
noticed. 
The Watling figures were all of Australian birds, and as Brandt gave a 
name Phcethon novcehollandice to Latham’s description that name must come 
into use if none earlier be available. 
Rothschild’s subspecific name eruhescens had been used for some years, 
but I recognised that Brandt’s name should supersede it, and therefore in the 
Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., p. 243, 1912, I reinstated Brandt’s name for this 
form giving as reasons : “ Note. — This name was given to the bird described 
by Latham as the ‘ New Holland Tropic Bird ’ in the Gen. Synop. Birds y 
Vol. X., p. 448, no. 4. The drawing there referred to is one of the Watling 
Drawings in the British Museum, and is obviously the young of this species. 
The next drawing is a splendid one of this species, and the artist carefully 
noted that the former was the young of the latter. As Watling included 
many Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island birds in his drawings, and was 
certainly at these islands, there can be little doubt that he collected the birds 
he drew. I have therefore selected Lord Howe Island as the typical locality. 
Rothschild’s name must become a synonym.” 
The history of Rothschild’s name is as follows : 
In the Avifauna of Laysan, Vol. III., pp. 294-296, that worker gave 
detailed measurements of specimens of the Red-tailed Tropic Bird from the 
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