BLOODSTAINED COCKATOO. 
would. I wrote to Dr. Macgillivray on the subject, as North had quoted him 
as expressing somewhat the same views, and noted that Berney’s views 
might explain the matter. 
Dr. Macgillivray then wrote me from Broken Hill, N.S.W., under date 
May 14, 1916 : 
“ I have been here for fifteen years and have examined thousands of 
these Cockatoos, both adult and young, and all that I have examined have 
the bare space round the eye bluish and elongate downwards. I have never 
seen the bird with the bare space round the eye whitish and round. McLennan 
in his travels through the Gulf of Carpentaria country saw numbers of the 
same Cockatoo that he knew so well when he lived here, all with the bare 
space bluish and extended downwards. You told me that your skins of 
D. sanguineus sanguineus came from Yanko Glen ; well, Yanko Glen is 
25 miles from here and I know pretty well every tree bird on it, and also the 
rest of the Yalcownina Creek of which it is a section, and no such bird exists 
there. The young of gymnopis when they leave the nest have the bare space 
round the eye the same as in the adult bird, if anything more bluish as they 
have less powder on it. I do not think that bird D. sanguineus as Gould 
described it exists in Australia at all.” 
With this emphatic declaration I renewed my researches after the truth 
in the matter and I now fully agree with Dr. Macgillivray. 
Re-examination of the British Museum specimens catalogued by Salvadori 
as C. sanguinea gave the following results : 
The specimen a marked as “ Type of species ” has no locality written 
by the collector, simply the date ; all the rest on the label has been since 
added. It does not agree in measurements with Gould’s description and 
it should be emphasised that in the original description nothing whatever 
is remarked about the shape or colour of the bare eye-space. Hence we hqve 
only the coloured figure and it may not be accurate. However, the specimen b 
from Port Essington, collected by Captain Chambers and considered by Gould 
himself as conspecific and so listed by Salvadori, has a small bare eye space, 
being also a small specimen, but the eye space is blue and is of the shape 
known as gymnopis. Further, C. gymnopis was given to a living bird and 
no measurements were taken and the type is not in existence : consequently 
this name can only be] cited as a synonym of G. sanguinea Gould. In 
view of the variation apparent no other course is open : Sclater’s mention 
of South Australia was only in connection with the Sturt birds, which might 
have disagreed in measurements, and as so much confusion has been brought 
about by the introduction of the name gymnopis , its utter rejection will be very 
helpful. What Sclater determined to be true G. sanguinea , also from a living 
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