PENNULA SANDWICHENSIS (GM.)
(Plate [26], Fig. 2.)
Rallus Sandwichensis Gmelin, Syst. Nat I p. 717 (1788—ex Latham! "Habitat exilis in insulis Sandwich").
Pennula Wilsoni Finsch, Notes Leyden Mus. XX p. 77 (1898—Finsch explains that the specimen in the Leyden Museum is not the type of Latham—and therefore of Gmelin's name—and therefore renames it).
For full synonymy and explanations of name, etc., cf. Avifauna of Laysan, p. 239, 240 and 243, also plate LXXVI.
Latham's description—from which Gmelin's diagnosis was taken—distinctly says that the feathers were "darkest in the middle," and in the Index Ornith. "supra maculis obscuris." Moreover, the unpublished drawing of Ellis, well reproduced in Mr. Scott Wilson's book, shows beyond doubt the identity of the bird of the old authors with the specimen in the Leyden Museum.
The Leyden specimen is all we are acquainted with, and of the history of this bird we know nothing but Latham's statement that it came from the Sandwich Islands.
TRIBONYX ROBERTI ANDREWS.
Tribonyx roberti Andrews, Ibis 1897, p. 356, pl. IX, figs 4-7.
This bird is described from an imperfect pelvis, a perfect left tibio-tarsus and a femur. The pelvis differs from that of T. mortieri in not having the deep depression in the ilia in front of the acetabulum and above the pectineal process. It also differs in having a rather wider pelvic escutcheon and wider renal fossal, and the supra-acetabular ridges of the ilia are smaller than in the Australian bird. The beautifully-preserved left tibia differs from that of T. mortieri in having the intercondylar groove wider and shallower, the inner condyle less massive, thus making the difference between the inner and outer condyle more marked; T. roberti also has the shaft immediately above the extensor bridge wider, the bridge itself less oblique, and the fibular crest is longer.
The measurements are:—