(PLATE 33.)
? _White gallinule_ Callam, Voy. Botany Bay (1783?) (teste Gray).
_Fulica alba_ White, Journ. Voy. N.S.W., p. 238 and plate (1790).
_Gallinula alba_ Latham, Ind. Orn. I, p. 768 (1790).
_Porphyrio albus_ Temminck, Man. d'Orn. II, p. 701 (1820).
_Porphyrio melanotus var. alba_ Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Birds, p.
19 (1844).
_Porphyrio melanotus_ Gray, Voy. Ereb. and Terror, Ed. II (1846), p.
14.
_Notornis ? alba_ Pelzeln, Sitz. k. Akad. Wiss. Wien. XLI, p. 328
(1860).
_Notornis alba_ Salvin, Ibis 1873, p. 295, pl. X.
There has been considerable confusion in connection with this bird and the
following species, owing to the fact of White not having given any locality
for the specimen on which Latham founded his _Gallinula alba_, and which is
now in the Vienna Museum. That the Vienna specimen is really White's bird
is proved because it was bought at the sale of the Leverian Museum, and
White expressly states that all his birds were deposited in the Leverian
Museum.
It is quite impossible to say with _certainty_ which of the two forms,
_Notornis alba_ or _N. stanleyi_, came from Norfolk Island, as we have no
indication of the origin of the Liverpool specimen. But seeing that in the
anonymous work, "The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay," the first
mentioned habitat is Lord Howe Island, and the figure shows a bird with the
shorter wing-coverts of _N. stanleyi_, I think I am justified in taking the
bird with longer wing-coverts--viz., _Notornis alba_, to be the bird from
Norfolk Island.
White's description is as follows:--"White Fulica, with bill and front red,
shoulders spined, legs and feet yellow." White's figure clearly shows the
long wing coverts characteristic of the genus _Notornis_. Von Pelzeln says
in his account of this bird that there is a label on it bearing the number
102, and giving as place of origin Norfolk Island, but White makes no
mention of this. There are traces of a bluish shade, and two or three dark
spots on the plumage, which has led many ornithologists to consider _N.
alba_ an albino. Gray, in "A List of Birds from New Zealand, &c.,"[3]
remarked that some Norfolk Island specimens had blue between the shoulders,
and the back spotted with the same colour. He also states that the young
are said to be black, then become bluish grey, and afterwards pure white.
From these and other authors' similar remarks I believe we have not here a
case of albinism, but a bird which was in a stage of evolution towards
becoming a fixed white species. Wing 9 inches (measured by myself in the
Vienna Museum).
Habitat: Norfolk Island.
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