Note on Malurus leucopterus, Quoy and Gaimard

Abstract

On referring to the original description and figure of Malurus leucopterus, in the Zoology and Atlas of the "Voyage de l'Uranie," I find that Gould had very good grounds for doubting if the bird figured and described by him under this name, in his "Birds of Australia," was not distinct from the species to which it had been originally applied by Quoy and Gaimard. Gould appears to have always entertained this doubt, for in his"Supplement to the Birds of Australia," published many years after, in his remarks on M. Leuconotus, he there writes: "and M. Cyanotus, if the bird discovered by Quoy and Gaimard in the "Voyage de l'Uranie," on Dirk Hartog's Island, should prove to be different from the species found in New South Wales, which I think probable."