Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, by John White, mdccxc. Appendix, p. 238, with coloured plate of "the White Fulica ;" in the corner, "S. Stone Delin." In the preface Mr. White says, " The pubhc may rely, with the most perfect confidence, on the care and accuracy with which the drawings have been copied from nature, by Miss Stone, &c. The engravings with equal correctness. The birds &c. from which the drawings were taken are deposited in the Leverian Museum."
"The White Fulica.
Fulica alba.
"Fulica alba, rostro fronteque rubris, humeris spinosis, pedibus flavis ?
"Corpus magnitudine fere gallinse domesticse. Humeri spina parva incurvata. In specimine exsiccato pedes flavi ; sed fortasse in viva ave rostro concolores.
"White Fulica, with the bill and front red, shoulders spined, legs and feet yellow?
"The body is about the size of a domestic fowl. The shoulders are furnished with a small crooked spine. In the dried specimen the legs and feet are yellow, but perhaps in the living bird might have been of the same colour with the beak. This bird is the only species of its genus yet known of a white colour. The birds of this genus rank in the order called by Linnseus Grallse ; and most of the species frequent watery places. To this genus belongs the well-known bird called the Moor-hen, or Fulica chloropus ; as also a very beautiful exotic species called the Purple Water-hen, which is the F. porphyria of Linnaeus, and which in shape most resembles the White Fulica now described."
The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, Lond. 1789:—
P. 181—82. "There is no danger in approaching Lord Howe Island. No vegetables were to be seen. On the shore there are plenty of Ganets, and a land-fowl of a dusky brown colour, with a bill four inches long, and feet like those of a chicken ; these proved remarkably fat, and were very good food ; but we have no further account of them. There are also many very large Pigeons, and the white bird resembling the Guinea-fowl, which were
