CHECK LIST OF NOETH AMERICAN BIRDS. 127 



824. Cymochorea melsena (Bp.) Coues. B 643. c 589. R 724. 



Black Petrel. 



825. Cymochorea homochroa Coues. B . c 500. R 725. 



Ashy Petrel. 



826. Oceanodroma furcata (Gm.) Bp. B 640. c 501. R 726. 



Fork-tailed Petrel. 



827. Oceanodroma hornbyi (Gr.) Bp. B 641. c 592. R 727. 



Hornby's Petrel. 



828. Oceanites oceanicus (Kuhl) Coues. B 644. c 593. R 722. 



Wilson's Petrel. 



829. Fregetta grallaria (V.) Bp. B 646. c 594. R 728. (!) 



Lawrence's Petrel. 



830. Priofinus melarmrus (Bonn.) Ridg. B 651. c 595. R 707. (!) 



Black-tailed Shearwater. 



word ought to have been cymatochoreutes. We would refer him to his dictionary again 

 for certain words beginning with sync- and euph-. The stem of the first part of the word 

 is seen in accumulate, to roll up ; of the second in chord, choir, choral, choresis, or chorea 

 (St. Vitus's dance), &c. Gr. \evic6s, white, and oppos, the rump. 



824. C. mSl-ae'-na. Gr. /ueAas, feminine /ue'Aaiw, black. The orthography introduced by 



Bonaparte, melania, requires to be emended as above. 



825. C. ho-mo'-chro-a. Gr. 6/j.6s, equal, like, and xP' a > color; in allusion to the unicolor 



plumage. 



826. O-cg-an-o'-dro-ma fur-ca'-ta. Gr. 'fl/ceat/o'y, Oceanus, the divinity of, and the ocean 



itself; supposed to be WKVS, swift, and vtca, I flow. See Ammodramus, No. 238, and 

 Hydranassa, No. 660. Lat. furcatus, forked; furca, a fork. 



827. O. horn'-by-I. To Admiral Hornby, R. N. 



828. O-ce-an-i'-tes o-c-an'-i-cus. Gr. w/ceoj/iTrj?, a son of the sea; sprung from Oceanus. 



See Oceanodroma, No. 826. Gr. wKeavin6s, oceanic. 



829. Fre-get'-ta gral-la'-ri-a. Fregetta, fregeta, fregala, as variously spelled, is from the Ital. 



freyata, Span, frarjnta, Fr. fre'gate, Eng. frigate ; according to Diez, the Lat. fahrlcata ; 

 originally applied in French ornithology to the bird called man-of-war, Tachypetes 

 aquilus ; applied by English ornithologists about 1790 to some species of the present 

 family, and very lately taken by Bonaparte for a generic term. Gra/lce, among the 

 Romans, was a pair of stilts, the word being contracted from gradula, this from gradi/s, 

 a step; and the Gral/atores were people who acted on the stage on stilts. The word was 

 early taken in ornithology for wading birds, called gralke or grallatores, from their length 

 of leg; from these words we have derived the English adjectives grallarial and grallato- 

 rial ; and grallaria is an obvious easy Latin derivative, though probably never used by 

 the Romans. 



Only North American as astray on the high sea. 



830. Prl-o'-fln-us mel-an-u'-rus. Priofinus, unless we are mistaken, is a dreadful concoction 



of prion and puffinus, by the same victims of misapplied ingenuity who gave us Priocclla; 

 see this, No. 817, and Puffinus, next below. Gr. fj.(\as, genitive pehavot, black, and 

 oi/pa, tail. 



Only North American as astray on the high sea. 



