THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
This quotation has been included in the synonymy of the present 
species, but it seems quite a doubtful association, and I have so far been 
unable to trace the source of Latham’s description, whether it was made 
from a specimen or drawing. It is not included among the Watling Drawings 
and the first description appears to be that given by Vieillot as above 
quoted. Ignorant of VieiUot’s bird, when Vigors and Horsfield dealt with 
the Linnean Society’s Collection of Australian Birds they re-described it 
under the name Haliaeetus canorus, writing : “ We have felt much hesitation 
in describing this bird as a new species, the specimen in the Society’s 
collection being in bad condition, and in particular much faded in colour. 
We considered it to bear much resemblance, as far at least as could be 
Judged from a figure, to the young of Dr. Latham’s Falco Novce Zcelandice, 
which species has been ascertained to belong to the Australian Fauna. But 
it does not well accord with Mr. Temminck’s figures of that species, nor 
with those given in Forster’s Drawings in the Bahksian library. We 
consider it best to record it for the present as a distinct species, with an 
expression of doubt, until more perfect specimens permit us to speak with 
certainty. 
“ The native name of this bird is Mom, and also Wirwin, as we are 
informed by Mr. Caley. It is called the Whistling Hawk by the settlers. 
That gentleman adds that ‘ it makes a loud whistling noise when on the 
wing and sailing about in the air. It frequents the upper-parts of the 
harbour (Port Jackson) particularly about the Flats, a few miles below 
Paramatta. The natives teU me it feeds upon dead fish, and the bones 
(of fish, I apprehend) which they leave. The Flats is a noted fishing-place 
for the natives : the water there is shallow, and at ebb-tide a great portion 
of sand is left bare, which, with some marshy land adjoining, forms a 
convenient resort for several species of birds.’ ” 
Gould’s account is also worth quoting: “This species has been observed 
in every portion of Australia yet visited by Europeans. I did not meet 
with it in Tasmania : I am consequently led to believe that it rarely visits 
that island. In New South Wales it is quite as numerous in summer as it 
is in winter ; not that it is to be observed in the same locality at all 
times, the greater or less abundance of its favourite food inducing it to 
wander from one district to another, wherever the greatest supply is to 
be procured. It never attacks animals of a large size, but preys upon 
carrion, small and feeble quadrupeds, birds, lizards, fish, and the larvae of 
msects ; and while on the one hand it is the pest of the poultry-yard, on 
the other no species of the Falconidce effects more good during the fearful 
v^isitations of the caterpillar, a scourge of no infrequent occurrence in 
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