Genus DOROTHINA. 
Dorothina Mathews, Austral Avian Record, 
Yol. II., pt. 5, p. Ill, Sept. 24th, 1914. Type 
(by original designation) .. .. .. Meliphagalewinii Swainson. 
Meliphaga Lewin, Birds New Holland, 1808. 
Type (by subsequent designation Gray 1840, 
List Genera Birds, p. 15) . . . . .. Melipliaga chrysotis Lewin 
= Meliphaga lewinii Swainson. 
Xot— 
Melophcigus Latreille in Sonnini's Buffon, Insect., Vol. III., p. 466, 1802. 
Ptilotis Swainson, Classif. Birds, Vol. II., p. 326, 
July 1837. Type (by subsequent designation 
Salvadori, Ornith. Pap. e Mol., Vol. 2, p. 326, 
1881) .. .. .. . . .. . . Meliphaga chrysotis 
=Melipliaga lewinii Swainson. 
Not- 
Ptilotus Fischer, Zoognosia, ed. 3, Vol. I., p 15, 1813. 
I introduced Dorothina for the species M. lewini Swainson as the generic 
names Meliphaga and Ptilotis previously in use were both invalid as above 
cited, and hereafter discussed. 
The species are larger than the preceding but of the same style, with long 
bills, long wings, long tail and short legs and feet. 
The bill is long and stout, like that of Ptilotina, but the gonys longer and 
not so marked. The head as in that genus has a very flattened appearance. 
The wing has the first primary short-, less than half the length of the second,, 
which is equalled by the secondaries; the third, fourth, fifth and sixth primaries 
subequal and longest. 
The tail is long and square. 
The legs are short, the anterior face of the tarsus obscurely scutellate, 
sometimes the scutes are easily seen ; the feet small, the hind-toe and claw 
longer than the middle toe and claw, the outer and inner toes subequal and 
with claAvs about equal to the middle toe-claw, all anterior toes delicate and 
claws delicate and short. 
The history of the generic names used for this group is a complex one, 
but it is necessary to incorporate the majority of the details here, though they 
have been already fully recorded by me else\A\here. 
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