Order NATATORES,Ill.
Upon taking a general view of the birds of this Order inhabiting Europe and Australia, our attention cannot fail to be arrested by some remarkable contrasts which present themselves to our notice. I allude to the great excess in the number of species of some of the principal groups, and the paucity of others; for instance, of the trueAnatidæor Ducks, exclusive of the Mergansers, the European fauna comprises at least forty species, while eighteen are all that are known in Australia; of theLaridæor Gulls, exclusive of the Terns, twenty species inhabit Europe, while three are all that are known in Australia; on the other hand, sixteen species of Terns frequent the shores of Australia, while only twelve resort to those of Europe; of the familyProcellaridæor Petrels, nearly forty species enliven the Australian seas, while seven are all that are known to inhabit the seas of Europe; no Puffins or Guillemots are found in the seas south of the Equator; while the Penguins are unknown north of the line; and the Grebes and Cormorants are equally numerous in both hemispheres.
But one species of this singular and strictly Australian form has yet been discovered.
GenusAnseranas,Less.
LikeCereopsis, this genus contains but a single species, which is equally confined to Australia.
The Australian bird hitherto referred to this genus should certainly receive a new generic appellation, since it does not agree either in form or habits with the trueBerniclæ.
Of this beautiful genus of Pygmy Geese there are at least four species known; one inhabiting Africa, one India, and two Australia.
I feel confident that the Australian bird which I have figured under the name ofN. Coromandelianus, is quite distinct from the Indian, and I have therefore assigned it a new name.
My figures are stated to be of the natural size, but this is an error: they are considerably smaller.
Only one species, theC. atratus, is, I believe, found south of the line; for the Black-necked Swan of Chili will doubtless prove to be generically distinct.
This “rara avis in terris” is not only strictly confined to Australia, but is so exclusively an inhabitant of the southern districts, that no notice has been recorded of its having been seen in Torres’ Straits, or on any part of the north coast.
This ornamental section of theAnatidæis not very numerous in species.
A beautiful representative of theC. rutilaof Europe.
An equally beautiful representative of theT. Vulpanser.
Of true Ducks three species are found in Australia.
This bird assimilates very closely in its structure and in its economy to theAnas Boschasof Europe, but in its plumage it is very different.
A very singular Duck, perhaps more nearly allied toChaulelasmusthan toAnas. It is a very rare bird, and has only yet been seen on the western and southern coasts of Australia; its true habitat is probably the distant interior.
This species has much the appearance of the Teal (genusQuerquedula), but in its structure is nearly allied to the true ducks (genusAnas), with which I have provisionally placed it.
The great continents of America, Africa, Asia and Australia, are each inhabited by one or more species of this restricted genus.
This bird is, I believe, restricted to Australia.
A very delicate form, of which the single species, confined to Australia, is the only one known.
This form is found in India, Africa, America and Australia: the bird I have separated into a distinct genus, under the appellation ofLeptotarsis, should be included in this genus, the difference which it presents being too slight to warrant their separation.
“Many of the reaches,” says Captain Stokes, when speaking of the river Adelaide of the north-western part of Australia, “swarmed with wild fowl, consisting almost wholly of ducks, which, from a habit of perching on the trees, have received the name of Wood Ducks. Their singularly long legs, with the web very much arched near the toes, gives great pliability to the foot and a power of grasping, which enables them to perch on trees. When on the wing they make a peculiar pleasing, whistling sound, that can be heard at a great distance, and which changes as they alight into a sort of chatter. Their perching on trees is performed in a very clumsy manner, swinging and pitching to and fro. We subsequently often found them on the rivers of the north coast, but not within some miles of their mouths or near their upper waters, from which it would appear that they inhabit certain reaches of the rivers only; we never found them in swamps. The farthest south they were met with was on the Albert River, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, in lat. 18° S., which gives them a range of six and a half degrees of latitude over the northern part of the continent. These ducks are theLeptotarsis Eytoniof Mr. Gould.”
Two species at least of this genus are known, one inhabiting Europe and India and the other Australia: both have the irides white.
GenusErismatura,Bonap.
The members of this genus, although but few in number, are found in Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia.
This species, the only one of the genus inhabiting Australia, is, I believe, strictly confined to the western parts of the country, as hitherto it has not been seen elsewhere.
A genus of which only a single species is known to exist, and which is singularly different from every other member of the family. It is strictly Australian, and may be regarded as one of the anomalies of its fauna.
The members of this genus are distributed over the sea-shores of every part of the globe. Only one species inhabits Australia, to which country it is confined, and where it represents theLarus marinusof Europe and America.
A genus of Gulls, the members of which are delicate in their structure, elegant in their appearance, and graceful in all their actions. Many species are found in Europe and America, and others inhabit Africa; one species only has been characterized as Australian, but I believe that another will be found in Torres’ Straits very similar to, but much larger than, theX. Jamesoniiof the southern parts of that continent.
Subfamily ——?
The high latitudes of both the northern and southern hemispheres are frequented by parasitic Gulls.
One species of this form has been found in the Australian seas, and another has been discovered within the Antarctic circle.
Although I have figured and described this Australian bird as identical with the Skua Gull of Europe, it is likely that hereafter reasons may be found for separating them.
In a letter just arrived from Mr. J. M’Gillivray, dated on board H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Feb. 6, 1848, that gentleman says, “TheLestris Catarracteswas noticed on various occasions in different parts of the South Indian Ocean; while off the Cape of Good Hope a solitary individual and subsequently two in company were seen. I have observed it following and hovering over a bait towing astern, and once saw it chase a Cape Petrel and force it to alight on the water. This bird seldom remained with us for more than half an hour at a time, during which it made a few circular flights about the ship.”
Subfamily STERNINÆ,Bonap.
The members of this family inhabiting Australia and Europe are nearly equal in number, and in each country examples of the same forms are found to exist; the Australian fauna has also aGygisand anOnychoprionneither of which inhabit the European seas, and four species ofAnoüs, of which only one frequents the northern hemisphere.
A representative of theS. Caspiusof Europe.
The members of this genus, the type of which is theT. Cantiacusof the British Islands, are widely dispersed over most parts of the Old World, and three distinct species inhabit Australia.
Since my account of this species was printed I have seen adult specimens from Southern India, which country is in all probability its true habitat.
The members of this genus, as now restricted, enjoy so wide a range over the globe, that they may be said to be universally dispersed: three species are found in Australia.
“This beautiful bird,” says Mr. M’Gillivray, “is very local in its breeding-places, the only one known to me being one of the ‘three sand-banks’ near Sir Charles Hardy’s Islands. The eggs are two in number, deposited in a slight hollow in the sand. I have seen this bird on another neighbouring sand-bank, also on Solitary Island, near Cape York, and in Endeavour Straits, but was unable to procure a specimen from any of the three last-mentioned localities, on account of its excessive shyness. It is one of the most noisy of the Terns, and I generally saw it in small parties of half-a-dozen, or thereabouts. The fully-fledged young of the year differs from the adult in having the black on the head dark brown mottled with white, and the whole of the upper surface and wings variegated with dark brownish grey.”
Europe and Australia are both tenanted by little Terns, the specific distinctness of which cannot be questioned, however much that of the large Terns (genusSylochelidon) may be: ought we not then to infer that some peculiar law prevails, and that if one be distinct the other is also? However that may be, it is certain that birds regarded as identically the same, because no external difference is perceptible, breed at opposite seasons in the two hemispheres, and that if the birds of one hemisphere be brought and retained in the other, they continue to moult their feathers and to breed at the same period that they would have done had they remained in their native country.
GenusGelochelidon,Brehm.
It would be strange if this form did not exist in Australia, when all the other European genera of Terns are found there; still I have no other evidence of such being the case, than that of a specimen in the collection of King’s College, London, which is said to be from Van Diemen’s Land, and to which in the year 1837 I gave the name ofSterna macrotarsa.
Crown of the head and back of the neck black; all the upper surface and primaries light silvery-grey; remainder of the plumage white; bill and feet black.
As I did not meet with this bird myself either in Van Diemen’s Land or in any other of the Australian regions, I have not figured it.
One species of this Polynesian genus of Terns is found in Australia.
The value of minor genera or subgenera, as naturalists may choose to designate them, is much strengthened, when species, which have been assigned to either of them from countries so distant from each other as Australia and Europe, are found to possess similar habits, but differing from those of the other members of the family. Thus the members of the present little group inhabit the inland waters and marshes of both countries; make their nests among the rushes, and lay thickly-marked eggs, in both of which particulars they differ from the other Terns; the generality of which deposit their eggs on the shingles of the sea-shore, while others, theGygis candidafor instance, lay their single egg on the horizontal branch of a tree, so totally unprotected, that how it is retained in its position during windy weather is a perfect mystery; others again, such as the Noddies, bring together large masses of sea-weed, which they either pile upon the swinging branch of a Mangrove or on the jutting point of a rock. All these facts should be studied by ornithologists before they discard subgenera proposed by their fellow-labourers, and replace the species they may have so divided in the genera of the older writers, who must necessarily have known less of the subject; for wherever a difference occurs in the habits of the members of any great family a variation more or less marked will be found in their structure. So far as my own observations go, and they have not been few, if I have read the great book of nature aright, the genera, instead of being reduced, might with propriety be multiplied without the risk of our being burthened with a genus for every species, as some writers affect to fear would then be the case.
A fine marsh Tern differing from its European prototypesH. nigra,H. leucopteraandH. leucopareia.
Of this form two species frequent the Australian seas.
Although I have figured one of the two Australian birds of this genus under the above appellation, rather than run the risk of unnecessarily adding to the number of species, I have no doubt it will prove to be distinct from the American bird.
“Found breeding in prodigious numbers on Raine’s Islet and Bramble Key in May and June, associated with Noddies (Anoüs stolidus). The Sooty Tern deposits its solitary egg in a slight excavation in the sand without lining of any kind. The egg varies considerably in its markings. After the party employed in building the beacon on Raine’s Islet had been on shore about ten days, and the Terns had had their nests robbed repeatedly, the birds collected into two or three large flocks and laid their eggs in company, shifting their quarters repeatedly on finding themselves continually molested; for new-laid eggs were much in request among people who had for some time been living upon ship’s fare. By sitting down and keeping quiet I have seen the poor birds dropping their eggs within two yards of where I sat, apparently glad to get rid of their burthen at all hazards. During the month of June 1844 about 1500 dozen of eggs were procured by the party upon the Island. About the 20th of June nearly one half of the young birds (hatched twenty-five or thirty days previously) were able to fly, and many were quite strong upon the wing. Great numbers of young birds unable to fly were killed for the pot;—in one mess of twenty-two men the average number consumed daily in June was fifty, and supposing the convicts (twenty in number) to have consumed as many, 3000 young birds must have been killed in one month; yet I could observe no sensible diminution of the number of young, a circumstance which will give the reader some idea of the vast numbers of birds of this species congregated on a mere vegetated sand-bank like Raine’s Islet.”—J. M’Gillivray.
Unlike other Terns which frequent the sea-shores and rivers, the Noddies inhabit the wide ocean, far remote from land, and which, like the Petrels, they seldom quit, except at the breeding season, when they congregate in vast multitudes on small islands suited to the purpose. Great nurseries of this kind are to be found in every ocean; in the North Atlantic, one of the Tortugas, called Noddy Key, is a favourite resort, and the Bahama Islands are another; in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, beside other situations, the Houtmann’s Abrolhos, off the western coast of Australia, are resorted to in such immense numbers that Mr. Gilbert was perfectly astonished at the multitudes with which he found himself surrounded, upon landing on those remote and little-explored islands.
“The large Noddy,” says Mr. M’Gillivray, “is abundantly distributed over Torres’ Straits, but I never met with it to the southward of Raine’s Islet, on which, as at Bramble Key, it was found breeding in prodigious numbers. Unlike its constant associate, the Sooty Tern, it constructs a shallow nest of small twigs arranged in a slovenly manner, over which are strewed about a handful of fragments of coral from the beach, shells, and occasionally portions of tortoise-shell and bones of turtle. The nest is sometimes placed upon the ground, but more usually upon tufts of grass and other herbage, at about a foot from the ground.”
There is perhaps no group of birds respecting which so much confusion exists and the extent of whose range over the ocean is so little known, as that forming the present family.
Having, as I have before stated, paid much attention to these birds during my voyages to and from Australia and in its neighbourhood, my researches were rewarded by my obtaining a knowledge of at least forty different species, nearly all of which are peculiar to the seas of the southern hemisphere. The powers of flight with which these birds are endowed are perfectly astonishing: they appear to be constantly performing migrations round the globe from west to east; and Australia lying in their tract, all the species may be found near its shores at one or other season of the year.
It is but natural to suppose that this great group of birds has been created for some especial purpose, and may we not infer that they have been placed in the Southern Ocean to prevent an undue increase of the myriads of mollusks and other low marine animals with which those seas abound, and upon which all theProcellaridæmainly subsist?
Of this genus, which comprises among its members the largest of the Oceanic birds, three species range over the North Pacific Ocean; and six others the seas southward of the equator.
The weight of this species varies from seventeen to twenty pounds, and the expanse of its extended wings averages the enormous breadth of 11 feet.
Face, ear-coverts, chin, abdomen, upper and under tail-coverts white; the remainder of the plumage very dark brown, approaching on the occiput, back of the neck and wings to black; bill yellowish horn-colour, becoming darker at the tip and at the base; feet in the dried specimen dark brown, but doubtless of a bluish grey, inclining to flesh-colour in the living bird.
The above is the description of a specimen in the collection of the Zoological Society of London, to which it was presented by F. Debell Bennett, Esq., who had procured it in the North Pacific. It differs from every other that has come under my notice in the peculiar swollen and raised form of the base of the upper mandible, which moreover advances high upon the forehead.
I propose this name for a species, examples of which are wanting to our collections, and of which a bill only has as yet come under my notice. It is in the possession of Sir Wm. Jardine, Bart., is 3 inches and ⅜ths long from the gape to the tip, of a uniform olive-green, and in form more slender and elegant than that of the other members of the genus. The locality in which it was procured is not known, but it is supposed to have been obtained in the China seas.
The last two species were not seen by me in the Australian seas, but are given in order to complete a monograph of theDiomedeæ.
Of the fifteen species I have placed in this genus as now restricted, figures of only eight have been given.
Male: the whole of the plumage deep chocolate-black; bill and feet jet-black.
This is one of the commonest species inhabiting the Atlantic, and no ship passes between our shores and the Cape of Good Hope without encountering it; it is a species respecting which very considerable confusion exists in the writings of nearly all the older authors. It is theP. fuliginosaof Forster’s Drawings, No. 93 B, and theP. fuliginosaof Lichtenstein’s edition of Forster’s MSS. p. 23, which term cannot be retained, as it had already been applied by Latham to a very different bird from Otaheite; it is theP. griseaof Kuhl but not of Linnæus, who has given the term to another species, consequentlygriseacannot be retained for it; and hence I have been induced to give it a new appellation, and thereby prevent misapprehension for the future.
I think that a bird I killed in the seas off Van Diemen’s Land, where it was tolerably abundant, and which differs from the last in being of a larger size, in having much longer wings and a greyer face, may be identical with theP. macropteraof Smith, and I therefore retain it under that appellation, in preference to assigning it a new name.
Head, back of the neck, shoulders, primaries and tail dark brown; back, wing-coverts and upper tail-coverts slate-grey, each feather margined with dark brown; face and all the under surface brown, washed with grey on the abdomen; bill, tarsi, toes and membranes black.
This is a remarkably robust and compact bird. I shot a single individual in Bass’s Straits on the 13th of March 1839. M. Natterer thought that it might be identical with the bird figured in Banks’s drawings, to which Dr. Solander has affixed the termmelanopus, an opinion in which I cannot concur; I have therefore named it in honour of that celebrated botanist. The specimen above described may possibly not be fully adult, as the dark colouring of the under surface only occupies the extreme tips of the feathers, the basal portions of which are snow-white.
Feathers of the head and all the upper surface brown with pearl edges, fading into white on the tips of the upper tail-coverts; wings and tail deep blackish brown; all the under surface pure white; the feathers of the under surface of the shoulder with a streak of brown down the centre; bill yellow, passing into dark horn-colour at the tip; tarsi and feet fleshy white.
This fine species was procured off the Cape of Good Hope, in lat. 36° 39′ S., long. 10° 3′ E., by His Excellency Governor Grey, on his passage to South Australia. It is distinguished from its congeners by its much larger size, and by the yellow colouring of the bill. The female is somewhat smaller than her mate.
This bird so nearly approaches in form the members of the genusPuffinus, that it is almost questionable whether it should not be included in that group.
GenusDaption,Steph.
A genus established for the reception of theProcellaria Capensisof Linnæus, a species abounding in all the temperate latitudes of the southern seas.
A genus of fairy-like Petrels confined to the southern hemisphere: much confusion exists respecting these birds, and they are so puzzling that I regret to say I have not been able to throw any light upon the subject.
Of the following species two only have been figured:—
Found in the temperate latitudes of the Atlantic and Pacific, and I believe in similar latitudes all round the globe.
I killed this species in Bass’s Straits, where it was rather numerous.
The members of this genus inhabit the seas of both the northern and southern hemisphere, but are nowhere more abundant than round Australia, the fauna of which country comprises four species, which make one or other of the groups of islands lying off the coast their great nurseries or breeding-places.
It will be seen that I have alluded in forcible terms to the great abundance of this species in Bass’s Straits, in confirmation of which I annex the following extract from Flinders’ Voyage, vol. i. p. 170:—
“A large flock of Gannets was observed at daylight, and they were followed by such a number of the sooty petrels as we had never seen equalled. There was a stream of from fifty to eighty yards in depth, and of three hundred yards or more in breadth; the birds were not scattered, but were flying as compactly as a free movement of their wings seemed to allow; and during a fullhour and a halfthis stream of Petrels continued to pass without interruption, at a rate little inferior to the swiftness of the Pigeon. On the lowest computation I think the number could not have been less than a hundred millions. Taking the stream to have been fifty yards deep by three hundred in width, and that it moved at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and allowing nine cubic yards of space to each bird, the number would amount to 151,500,000. The burrows required to lodge this quantity of birds would be 75,750,000; and allowing a square yard to each burrow, they would cover something more than 18½ geographic square miles of ground.”
GenusPuffinuria,Less.
One species of this genus inhabits the Australian seas.
The little tenants of the ocean belonging to this genus are so universally dispersed, that they are found in all the seas except those of the very high latitudes of both hemispheres. The Australian fauna is particularly rich in birds of this form, inasmuch as no less than five distinct species frequent the seas which wash the shores of that country.
Head, back, wings, tail and breast dark sooty black; chin, under coverts of the wings, abdomen, flanks, under tail-coverts, and a broad crescent-shaped band across the upper tail-coverts snow-white; bill, feet and legs black.
Total length, 7¾ inches; bill, ⅞; wing, 6½; tail, 3½; tarsi, 1¾; middle toe and nail, 1¼.
I observed this species in the Atlantic, where it is confined to the equatorial regions, being most abundant in the vicinity of the line. It is the largest member of the genus with which I am acquainted, and is rendered very conspicuous by the white mark on its throat.
The great family of the Cormorants, whose range is universal, are well represented in Australia, since five species inhabit and are peculiar to that country, where they perform precisely the same offices as the other species of the genus do in Europe and America.
Although I have figured but one, there are evidently two if not three species of this genus which visit the Australian shores; but I have not had sufficient opportunities to investigate the subject satisfactorily.