THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
absolutely right and the B.O.U. Committee quite wrong. Convenience 
cannot be justly urged as a valid reason for such action, as it must be 
very inconvenient to an earnest worker to find a bird in a genus in each 
characteristic of which it obviously differs. 
When Rothschild and Hartert separated the bird wrongly confused by 
Sharpe with MegatriorcTiis dorice they referred it to Accipiter (Astur). I 
cannot understand how Sharpe ever mixed the two species up^ as they are 
so very different in coloration as well as in structural proportions. I suppose 
the change in coloration from immature to adult in the genus Urospiza 
prejudiced him, but then the -wing formation should have set hi m thinking. 
However, how a bird with a wing formula fike Accipiter {Astur) eudiaholus (for 
that is the very appropriate name Rothschild and Hartert applied to the bird 
confused) could be expected to develop into one with the wing formula of 
Megatriorchis dorice is quite beyond my comprehension. Personally I do not 
see that reference to Erythrotriorchis solved the matter, which is extraordinary, 
as that genus was proposed by Sharpe nimself. 
Examination of specimens of the true Megatriorchis causes me to suggest 
that they are not closely allied to the Erythrotriorchis-Astur group, admitting 
that Erythrotriorchis is allied to Astur : or further that Megatriorchis has not 
its nearest relatives in either Erythrotriorchis or Astur. 
86 
