THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
This description was based on a painting made by Watling, and when 
Gould, Gray and Strickland examined these paintings they were unable 
to recognise the species. Later Strickland allotted it to the present species 
as above quoted, but which the description does not warrant, and he was 
never followed. 
When Sharpe worked through the Watling Drawings, he was ignorant of 
the prior work of the above. In the Hist. Coll. Nat. Hist. Brit. Mus., 
Vol. II., p. Ill, 1906, Sharpe wrote: “I am unable to identify the bird here 
figured. It has a white head and neck . . . (Latham’s account) is a good 
description of the painting, but I cannot find any Australian bird of prey 
which corresponds with it. . . . The only species which it could possibly 
resemble might be a young Falco hypoleucus, but our specimens in the Museum 
do not favour the idea.” 
I have many times examined the Watling Drawing No. 13, but I have 
been unable to attach it to anything, and put the name in Appendix B, 
p. 327, of my List of the Birds of Australia^ writing : “ The only guess at 
identity is Strickland’s ‘ may be a peculiar state of Milvus isurus.^ ” 
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