Printed on the plate
“Sombre Egret”
Herodias pannosus
This identification is still open; the reasoning below says what would settle it. If you can, open an issue with the evidence.
Modern identification
Egretta gularis
- Open, leaning
- A variant
- Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns · Ardeidae
Why
Gould's single Sombre Egret is drawn as a dark Western Reef-Heron, not a Pacific Reef-Heron (long black tarsi with yellow toes, a slender yellow bill, long plumes), and in his Handbook (1865) he synonymises pannosus with Sykes's Ardea asha and gives its tarsus as about 4 1/2 inches, against under 3 1/2 in the reef heron. But the skin came 'from the neighbourhood of Port Stephens' with no note, far outside the Western Reef-Heron's range, and only the specimen, if it survives, would decide.
Sources
List of Plates (vol. VI); Gould's text; the plate, against VI.60; Gould, Handb. B. Austr. ii: 305 (1865); Sharpe, Cat. Birds BM xxvi: 140; HANZAB 1
Who made the plate
No credit line could be read. Credit lines cut off: the sheet ends at the foot of the picture, above the caption.