NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 12l> 



The following is Gmelin's diagnosis, in copying which the italics are my 

 own : S. N. i. pars ii. p. 563, sp. 17. "Pr. cinerea, suhtus alba, cauda nigra, 

 rostro flavicante, pedibus ccerulescentibus. " Cinereous Fulmar," Latham, 

 Syn. iii. p 405, No. 10. Habitat intra circulum antarcticum ; glacialis magni- 

 tudine : 20i pollices longa." It will be noticed that Gmelin's bird is one from 

 the Antarctic seas, as large as the common Fulmar, and with exactly the 

 characters of the bird afterwards designated as Adaviastor typus by Bonaparte. 

 Gmelin's further description will be found to confirm this opinion by each of 

 its sentences. I do not see, therefore, how it is possible to consider it as re- 

 ferring to a North Atlantic species, with characters so very different as are 

 those presented by P. Kuhlii, Boie. 



The Proc. cinerea, Lath., Ind. Ornith., ii. 1790, p. 824, and the Proc. cine- 

 rea, Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. D'H. N. 1817, xxv, p. 418, are both exactly the 

 same as Gmelin's cinerea, and so is the Puffinus cinereus of Lawrence, Bds. 

 N. A., 1858, p. 835, from the Pacific Ocean, under which head the synonyms 

 of Adamastor typus are accurately enumerated. 



The above is all that is necessary to be said, I think, to substantiate Bona- 

 parte's position, that P. cinereus, dm., is not the Atlantic bird afterwards 

 named Kuhlii by Boie. The subject will be resumed and the generic and 

 specific characters of Adamastor typus, as distinguished from those of Puffinus 

 Kuhlii, will be enlarged upori in another place. It now only remains to dis- 

 cuss the various synonyms of Kuhlii. 



The first instance of the misapplication of Gmelin's name, cinereus, which I 

 have been able to find, is that by Cuvier, when he calls P. Kuhlii "P. cine- 

 reus." This same malidentification has also been committed by Bonaparte, 

 (Comp. List, Bds. N. A. and Eur., 1838, p. (14.) Degland, (Ornith. Europ., 

 1849, ii. p. 362;) Temminck, (Man. Orn., iv. 1840, p. 506; Schinz,) (Europ. 

 Faun., 1840. i. p. 393;) Schlegel, (Rev. Crit. Ois. Eur., 1844, p. 132;) Key- 

 serling and Blasius, (Wirb. Europ., 1840, p. 94.) 



The Puffinus cinereus of Bonaparte (Synop. Bds. N. A., 1S28 : p. 370,) of 

 Nuttall, (Man. Ornith., ii. p. 334,) and of Audubon's works, (Orn. Biogr. vol. 

 iii. p. 555 ; Bds. N. Amer., vii. 1844, p. 212, pi. 456,) is, however, not the/'. 

 Kuhlii but the P. major, Faber. 



"The Procellaria puffinus, L.," of Temminck, (Man. Orn. 1820, ii. p, 805;) 

 and of Vieillot, (Fauna Frant;, 1828, p. 404) are synonyms of P. Kuhlii. 



Yet another improper reference of Gmelin's cin. n us is found in Degland's Or- 

 nithologie Europeene, where it is placed as a synonym (with a query, how- 

 ever,) of P. major, Faber. This is just the mistake which has been generally 

 committed by American Authors. 



I am enabled to state positively, from autoptical examination of the speci- 

 mens themselves, that the bird referred to by Cassin, in the Proceedings of 

 the Philadelphia Academy for Jane, 1862, page 327, as Puffinus Kuhlii, is 

 really the Adamastor cinereus, Mihi. The specimens, three in number, col- 

 lected by the North Pacific Exploring Expedition, are lying before me, and 

 agree in the minutest particulars with the type specimen of Lawrence's P. 

 hassitata, (Ann. N. Y., Lye. N. II., 1853) which is also Lawrence's P. cinereus 

 (Birds Amer., 1858, p. 835,) which is Adamas ; or typus, Bp. 



Description. In general form not unlike P. major, but rather more grace- 

 ful, with slightly slenderer and weaker bill, comparatively longer wings and 

 tail, etc. Bill scarcely if at all shorter than the head, just equal to the tar- 

 sus, moderately stout, compressed, higher than broad at the base ; unguis 

 only moderately strong and hooked ; commissure and outline of inferior man- 

 dibular rami a little curved, the former most so ; nasal tubes unusually ab- 

 breviated, measuring not over a fifth of the culmen, but elevated, inflated, 

 medianly suboarinate, apically obliquely truncated, the nostrils subcircular 

 in outline ; wings moderately long, a little exceeding the tail ; tail quite long, 

 so much rounded as to be almost cuneiform, the central rectrices mucheloug- 



1864.] 9 



