BROWN-HEADED HONEY-EATER, 
afterwards, who recommended the usage of Latham’s name for the species 
known as lunulatus Shaw, though recording the items of discrepancy. 
Apparently North had no idea that the name might apply to the present 
species on account of the prejudice of the “ black ” head. 
At the same time Sharpe published his account of the Watling drawings 
and with regard to No. 105 wrote : “ Tins figure is intended for the bird usually 
called Melithreptus lumdatus (Shaw r ),” and proposed to use Latham’s name in 
place of Shaw’s. This coming in conjunction with North’s independent 
advocacy of Latham’s name w r as sufficient for my usage at that date, so I 
accepted these two workers’ conclusions. 
Nevertheless neither was exactly correct, and upon my own examination 
of Watling drawing No. 105 I found that the figure was undoubtedly painted 
from a specimen of Vigors and Horsfield’s Meliphaga brevirostris. 
I therefore recorded this fact and it w r as demurred against on account 
of the misnomer involved in the term atricapillus, as the species is not really 
black-headed. Tins is mere quibbling, as the well-known case of the Common 
British Bird, the Black-headed Gull, proves : that bird has a brown head, 
yet the vernacular calls it Black, and it is known to millions by that name. 
Again, in the present genus a bird is now being called the Golden-backed 
Honey-eater, which is a mere figure of speech. 
As noted above, the complicated history is detailed in the Austral Avian 
Record with a good plate. 
There is no doubt that the earliest name is Latham’s Certhia atricapilla 
and that Meliphaga brevirostris Vigors and Horsfield is an absolute synonym. 
No subspecies or species were separated until Milligan described from 
the Stirling Ranges, South-west Australia, a new species as Melithreptus 
leucogenys, writing: “ The specific differences between them, briefly summarized, 
are (a) the new is less robust generally, and the bill in particular is shorter and 
more slender; (6) the bare spaces surrounding the eye are orange and bluish- 
emerald ; (c) the blackish chin is distinctly marked, as also the greyish breast; 
(' d ) the cheeks are white ; and (e) the head is blackish-brown.” 
Then North, who named very few subspecies, though commonly indicating 
such in his work, named the Kangaroo Island form as a new species on account 
of its larger bill with the name Melithreptus magnirostris. This was a poor 
“ specific ” name as we already had a good well-known species, Melithreptus 
validirostris, but it became a good subspecific name in connection with the 
specific atricapilla, as Melithreptus atricapillus magnirostris well describes this 
large-billed form of a species previously known as “ brevirostris.' 1 '' 
When I prepared my “Reference List” in 1912 I was surprised to see how 
variable geographically this species was, and recognising Milligan’s Melithreptus 
VOL. XI. 
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