THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
drawings he noted a strange new bird which he described as Columha pallida, 
the artist having painted the Cuckoo feet incorrectly. The name was therefore 
unrecognised until 1843, when Gray, Strickland and Gould criticised the dravungs 
in the possession of the Earl of Derby. Gray did not accept the drawing as 
representing any bird he was familiar with, marking it “ Columha — ? ” but 
one of the others, Strickland or Gould, recognised the painting as depicting 
not a Pigeon, but a Cuckoo. The name pallida was then used until 1905, when 
Hartert concluded this was incorrect, basing his conclusion upon the des- 
cription, and ignorant of the fact that recognition had been made through the 
recover}^ of the painting, which had served Latham for his description. He 
selected variegatus of Vieillot as the correct name for the Cuckoo, but this was 
immediately rejected by North, who considered that also imperfect and desired 
the acceptance of inornatus, the name given by Vigors and Horsfield. Wlien 
Sharpe recorded the Watling drawings, by a peculiar blunder he determined 
No. 226 as Lopholcemus antarcticus Shaw, observing : “ Although this figure is 
very incorrect, I am inchned to think that it is intended for Lopholcemus 
antarcticus. My own examination of the Watling drawings served to convince 
me that Gould’s acceptance was correct, and I reinstated pallida and have 
used it ever since. In order to make this point clear to the worker who has 
not access to the original drawings, I had an exact reproduction made and 
pubhshed it in the Austral Avian Record, Vol. III., 1915, pt. 1, where I also 
gave a full account of the history of the name, so that my conclusions could be 
fairly criticised. 
The coloration of the female has now been settled as being different, but it 
is interesting to note how the mistake arose. Gould noted : “ It breeds in this 
state, and it is doubtful whether in the female it is ever entirely cast off. . . . 
The female differs ... all which markings may in very old birds give place 
to a style of colouring similar to the male.” 
Subsequently authorities stated that the sexes were alike, apparently 
considering Gould’s suggestion as a feasible one and inaccurately making 
it into a fact. When I examined my birds in 1911 I found no female that 
was like the male, so I wrote in the Austral Avian Record, Vol. I., p. 10, 
Jan. 2nd, 1912 : “ I had assumed, as most other writers have, that the 
adult female was like the adult male. . . . From my series I can only 
conclude that the female is never absolutely uniform above and below, like 
the male.” 
At the same time I wrote to Captain S. A. White on the subject, and he 
communicated his results to the South Australian Ornithologist, Vol. II., p. 7, 
1915 : “ After several years of close observation in districts where this bird is 
very common, and after handling over thirty birds in the flesh, I can positively 
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