THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
instance) may commonly call “ More Pork,” it may be a very rare occurrence 
for the South Australian form to give that call. Such an explanation 
Would fulfil the records and, moreover, be quite a natural result of subspecific 
differentiation. 
The first note of this species is when Latham proposed three new species 
of Goatsuckers : the Strigoid, the Great-headed and the Gracile, all from New 
South Wales. These were introduced in the Second Supplement of the General 
Synopsis of Birds, published in 1801, and Latin names corresponding to the 
vernaculars given were added in the Supplement to the Index Ornithologicus, 
simultaneously published. The source of information was not given by 
Latham, so that it was not until over one hundred years afterwards that it 
became known that Latham’s descriptions were based on pictures. In the 
Hist. Coll. Nat. Hist. Brit. Mus., Vol. II., Sharpe elucidated the set of 
paintings known as the Watling drawings and there simply noted (p. 145) : — 
“ No 220. Strigoid Goatsucker Lath., etc. 
[This drawing is the type of Latham’s description of the Strigoid 
Goatsucker.] 
No. 221. Great-headed Goatsucker Lath., etc. 
No. 222. Gracile Goatsucker Lath., etc.” 
No discussion was given nor attempt to account for the non-recognition 
that the three pictures represented the same species. I have re-examined 
those pictures and conclude that the three were drawn by different artists who 
each emphasised the coloration which attracted him, but they do not seem to 
have been drawn from the same specimens. No reference was made to the 
fact that G. R. Gray, Strickland and Gould had studied these drawings and 
reported upon them sixty odd years before and that it was due to the sight of 
these that Latham’s specific name strigoides came into use. When specimens 
were received in the succeeding twenty years they were never contrasted with 
the drawings : this was probably due to Latham’s old age and, without due 
consideration by others, his conclusions were accepted, though it should have 
been remembered that names for similar birds were in existence. 
A further complication was introduced by Vigors and Horsfield in their 
famous essay on the Australian Birds in the Collection of the Linnean Society. 
Ignoring the Lathamian names given twenty-odd years before, they described 
the specimens before them. As Latham himself in his extreme old age had not 
recognised the specimens as agreeing with the pictures he had worked over 
twenty years previously, they accepted his latter determination. They noted 
that Latham had proposed some new names and that with his concurrence they 
made use of them. They thus proposed Podargus stanleyanus for the bird 
presented by Lord Stanley and which had been described by Latham under 
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