179 
Vol. XXIV. -| 
1925. J 
LEACH, Naming Australian Birds 
of the Official Checklist were changed because the same bird 
had already been described elsewhere. Even Gould named many 
birds, including migrating waders, as new, though they spent 
only the period of the northern winter here. Perhaps there was 
some excuse. A Siberian migration would, in his day, have 
been regarded as inconceivable, and the birds when seen here 
were in their plainer “winter” plumage. Altogether Gould named 
more than two-thirds of these “extra-limital” birds as distinct. 
One great benefit conferred by Mathews and Iredale is that they 
have placed Australian birds in proper relation to the birds 
of the world. Possibly it was not previously realised that birds 
were such wanderers. Peregrine Falcon, Barn Owl, Little and 
Crested Grebes, are four birds common to Britain and Australia. 
Listed in Australia as the Black-cheeked Falcon, Delicate Owl, 
Black-throated and Tippet Grebes respectively, relationships were 
hidden, more names had to be learned, and the mass of knowledge 
of these birds in Europe was not available for students here. 
TYPE DESIGNATION. 
George Robert Gray (British Museum) gave eight valid 
generic and fourteen specific names. He listed genera and 
species, and issued beautifully illustrated works. He paid special 
attention to designating type species of genera. These designa¬ 
tions caused several changes. Meliphaga went from the Regent 
Honeyeater to the group previously called Ptilotis. 
The five methods of type fixation allowed by the Rules are: 
(1) When there is but one species in the genus, that is the type 
species; type designation by monotypy. (2) When a species has 
the same name as the genus, or when the species name means 
the same as the generic name, or when a species is called typns 
or typicus, that species is the type species; type designation by 
tautonomy. (3) When creating the genus, if the author indi¬ 
cates one species as the type; type designation by original desig¬ 
nation. (4) If later, the author or some other author designates 
one species as type, type designation by subsequent designation. 
(5) When of two or more species in a genus all but one are 
removed to another genus, type fixation by elimination. Mathews, 
Hartert, and A.O.U. do not recognise the fifth method. 
Only one Australian generic name—that for the Wattle-Birds 
—does not fall definitely under the four recognised methods. In 
1816, Vieillot, in his Analyse, used Creadion for the Australian 
Wattle-Birds and the New Zealand Saddleback. In 1827, Vigors 
and Horsfield considered the Saddleback was not congeneric with 
the Wattle-Birds for which they used Anthochaera. They left 
Crcadion for the Saddleback. At least, j s type designation 
by elimination, Creadion for the New Zealand bird. It is also 
possibly type fixation of Creadion by subsequent designation. In 
1830, Lesson designated paradoxus (Yellow Wattle-Bird) as 
the type species of Creadion. Consideration is being given to this 
case. 
