CAPE TOWN PALM COCKATOO. 
Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, and also Rothschild and Hartert, whose conclusions have 
been accepted, in my ‘Birds of Australia.’ At the present time, the 
undoubted fact is that my name must be used for the Australian form, and 
consequently Ogilvie-Grant’s nomenclature, so far as that is concerned, 
is wrong. If Rothschild and Hartert be right, which I doubt, then the 
name of the bird Ogilvie-Grant is dealing with is Solenoglossus aterrimus 
aterrimus .” 
Without making any further investigation into the matter, or referring 
to my note, Ogilvie-Grant replied (p. 311) : “ There can be no question that 
Gmelin did give ‘New Holland’ as the locality of his Psittacus aterrimus, and 
that a Black Cockatoo does occur in Queensland. There is, therefore, no 
getting away from the fact that Solenoglossus aterrimus (Gmel.) is the proper 
name for the Australian form, and that S. a. maegillivrayi is synonymous.” 
Such a reply is absurd, in view of the known history of the name, and is 
unworthy of Mr. Ogilvie-Grant. The superficiality of his investigation has 
been already shown, when it was pointed out that Gmelin added “ Nova 
Hollandia ” from the reference by Latham to Parkinson, which error Latham 
himself corrected. 
Ogilvie-Grant’s reference to M. a. stenolophus of Van Oort may be here 
explained. But before doing so I might point out that Meyer had proposed 
a “ Microglossus salvadori (Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, V ol. IV., p. vi., 1894), Hab. 
Nova Guinea, in montibus Arfak,” which appears to have been based on a 
juvenile aberration, judging from the description alone. 
Dr. Van Oort in the “Notes from the Leyden Museum,” Vol. XXXIII., 
Apl. 29, 1911, p. 239, wrote “On an undescribed form of Microglossus 
aterrimus .” As this is a valuable contribution, which is not commonly 
accessible to Australian ornithologists, I reproduce the whole of it. 
“ The typical habitat of Microglossus aterrimus (Gmelin) is Australia, where 
the bird is found only in the northern part. Under this name black cockatoos 
from New Guinea, and by some authors also from the Aroe Islands, Misool, 
Salawatti and Waigeoe, have been mentioned. Messrs. Rothschild and Hartert, 
however, separate buds from the last-named islands sub specifically from 
those of New Guinea. Specimens from the Aroe Islands are, as a rule, 
much smaller than those from New Guinea and the western Papuan Islands, 
so that it is correct to recognise them as a subspecies, named Microglossus 
aterrimus alecto (Temminck), or, probably more correctly, M. a. intermedia 
(Schlegel), as the type specimen of Ara alecto Temminck is without indication 
of habitat, and as there have been observed also very small specimens in the 
western Papuan Islands ; Schlegel in 1861 mentioned under the name of 
Cue. intermedia birds from the Aroe Islands. In the Leyden Museum are 
VOL. VI. 
89 
