THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER 



II. PEEVIOUS LITERATURE ON THE ANATOMY AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE 



TUBINARES. 



I propose under this head to briefly notice the more important papers or memoirs 

 that have appeared dealing with the structure and classification of these birds. Titles 

 of several less important ones not mentioned here may be found duly recorded in the third 

 instalment of Dr. Coues' Ornithological Biography, 1 Procellariidse, pp. 1021-1033. 



1826. One of the very earliest contributions to the anatomy of the Petrels we owe 

 to the voyage of circumnavigation made by the " Coquille." Garnot, in the account of 

 that expedition, 2 gives some brief anatomical notices chiefly relating to the digestive 

 organs of several Tubinares. The species dissected are, unfortunately, not referred to by 

 scientific names, but they appear to be Phcebetria fuliginosa, Thalassceca glacialoides, a 

 Prion, Fregetta melanogastra, and Pelecanoides urinatrix, as well as another species I 

 cannot determine ("Petrel de la Mer Pacificme "). 



In 1827 L'herminier 3 described the general character of the sternum of the Tubin- 

 ares, which formed his twenty-eighth family of birds, and proposed to divide the group 

 up, on sternal characters, into three sections — (l) the smaller Petrels (Procellaria, Cymo- 

 chorea, &c.) with the posterior margin of the sternum more or less entire ; (2) the 

 Albatrosses, with the sternum with two large and shallow excavations posteriorly; and 

 (3) the Petrels proper, with four posterior sternal excavations. As regards the general 

 position of the group, he remarks : — " Ces oiseaux . . . par la forme de l'appareil sternal, 

 sont intermediates aux mouettes et aux pelicans." On plate iv. of the plates illustrating 

 his memoir, two figures of the sternum of a Puffinus are given. 



1838-39. W. Macgillivray, in Audubon's Ornithological Biography, 4 describes and 

 figures the alimentary canal and trachea of two species of Petrels, namely, Oceanites 

 oceanicus (vol. v. pp. 645-646) and of Procellaria pelagica (vol. iv. pp. 313-315). 



In the second part of the same author's Manual of British Ornithology 5 are given a few 

 notes on the visceral anatomy of the British species of the group. 



In the same year J. F. Brandt, in his Beitrage zur Naturgeschichte der Vogel," 

 called attention to the existence of a peculiar ossicle, connected with the lachrymal and 

 palatine bones, and hence called " ossiculum lacrymo-palatinum," which he had discovered 

 in many of the Tubinares and also in Fregata aquila. 



1840. It is to Nitzsch, perhaps the most acute and original ornithologist that ever lived, 



1 Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., vol. v., No. 4, Washington, 1880. 



2 Voyage autour de la Monde, Zool., torn. i. ; Recherches anatomiques relatives a divers oiseaux marins, 

 pp. 603-612. 



3 Recherches sur l'appareil sternal des Oiseaux, pp. 79-81, vol. iv., Paris, 1827. 



4 Edinburgh, 1839. 



5 London, 1842, pp. 258-264. 



6 Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Naturgeschichte der Vdgel, St. Petersburg, 1839, pp. 4-9. 



