Ornith. Also talagalla, talegallus. [mod.L. talegalla (F. talégalle), arbitrarily formed by Lesson from Malagasy talèva the porphyrio, and L. gallus cock, as a name for the species Talegalla cuvieri, the brush-turkey of Western New Guinea, discovered by him.
1828. R. P. Lesson, Manuel d’Ornithol., II. 186. Un oiseau … qui retrace quelques-unes des formes des talèves ou porphyrions. C’est pour rappeler ces analogies que nous avons forgé le mot hybride talégalle. Ibid., 295. Talève ou poule-sultane. (Talève, nom malgache usité à Madagascar.)]
A genus of megapod birds inhabiting Australia, New Guinen, etc. As English, chiefly applied to T. lathami, the Brush-turkey of Australia.
a. 1842. J. Gould, Birds Australia (1848), V. pl. 77. Talegalla Lathami, Wattled Talegalla; Brush-Turkey of the Colonists. Ibid. The term Alecturo having been previously employed for a group of Flycatchers, and the present bird possessing all the characters of M. Lesson’s genus Talegalla which was published prior to Mr. Swainson’s Catheturus, I feel that I ought to accept that appellation…. It is known to inhabit various parts of New South Wales from Cape Howe on the south to Moreton Bay in the north.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXII. 4. Mr. Gould describes Talegalla Lathami, or the Wattled Talegalla as a gregarious bird.
1862. All Y. Round, VIII. 15 Nov., 226. The brush turkey of Australia, or, as the colonists term this extraordinary bird, the talegalla, has been naturalised in our Zoological Gardens, and is an object of extreme curiosity, from the singular manner in which the reproduction of its family is effected by mound-raising.
1890. Lumholtz, Cannibals, 97. The mounds of the jungle-hen are larger than those of the talegalla.
