THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
with the preceding species and as noted in its habits it is certainly not 
Platycercine. D’Arcy Thompson stated he examined a skull of this species 
but gives no further comment whatever. In view of Forbes’ results 
this is somewhat astonishing, as Forbes only showed that it generally 
seemed Platycercine. Salvadori, in his diagnosis of the sub-family Platy- 
cercinse wrote : “ Tongue simple, except in N anodes, which has a brush 
tongue. . . . Furcule wanting, except in N anodes. ” It would be advan- 
tageous to osteologically contrast Lathamus with Platycercus ( S . str.) 
and Glossopsitta, and compare the balance of characters. It is interesting 
to note that Gould used the generic name here accepted, though his 
statement of the case is inaccurate. He wrote : “ The single species 
known of this form has been assigned to a different genus by almost every 
writer in ornithology, Vigors and Horsfield placing it in their genus 
N anodes, Wagler in his genus Euphema ; but Lesson, perceiving that 
it did not belong to either of these forms, made it the type of his genus 
Lathamus.” The facts are : Vigors and Horsfield proposed Nanodes for a 
series of small Parrots, including this and the small ground-parrots : they 
designated this species as the type and noted the others were more or 
less aberrant. Wagler noted that Nanodes had been used for a generic 
name before Vigors and Horsfield selected it, and therefore introduced 
Euphema as absolutely a substitute. The two names are exactly co-equal. 
Simultaneously Lesson proposed Lathamus as a substitute for Nanodes, 
having also observed that name was invalid. Gould’s selection was 
unanimously accepted until Salvadori prepared the Catalogue of Birds in the 
British Museum, Vol. XX., 1891, when he rejected it, reinstating Nanodes. 
This illegal and incorrect action was, of course, accepted by all writers who 
were unable to criticise the facts. However, Oberholser pointed out that 
this was untenable and, noting that Euphema and Lathamus had been 
introduced about the same time, concluded that the former had priority and 
advocated its usage. However, upon my looking up Oberholser’s statements 
I found the matter much more complicated than was superficially observed, 
and much research was necessary to accurately determine the exact truth. 
The facts were detailed in the Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., p. 14, June, 1911, 
when I showed that Lesson had published his name Lathamus in 1830, while 
Euphema was not published until 1832. I also noted that Nanodes published 
by Vigors and Horsfield was clearly antedated by Nanodes Schoenherr, 
published in 1825 (Isis, col. 587). I accepted the date of publication of 
Vigors and Horsfield’s Nanodes as 1826, but since 1911 I have discovered that 
1827 is the correct date, but that Stephens published the name in 1826. 
Moreover, Wagler’s paper was probably not published until 1833 or later, 
466 
