70 Dwight A Species of Shearwater. 



coverts. It corresponds, too, with Gould's colored plate (Birds 

 of Australia, vol. vn, 1848, pi. 59). Salvin considers P. auduboni 

 a synonym of P. obsctirus, and P. subalaris also has dusky under 

 tail coverts. Another small species has been described, P. ele- 

 ganSj but the feathers of the back of this bird are edged with 

 white. These are the only species to which my specimen is very 

 closely related. It shows evidences of moult, for many of the 

 body feathers are just sprouting, and several of the rectrices are 

 barely out of their sheaths. It may be described as follows : 



Puffiiius assimilis. 



Entire upper parts, including head, nape, back, wings, tail coverts, and 

 tail, bluish slate black, the greater wing coverts obscurely tipped with 

 white ; entire lower parts, including under wing coverts, auxiliaries, and 

 under tail coverts, pure white. The black and white blend along a fairly 

 definite line, passing through the lores and eye and down the sides of the 

 neck, losing itself beneath the folded wing. The coverts of the outer 

 edge of the wing beneath and the outermost of the under tail coverts are 

 faintly dusky. The primaries beneath are dingy white along the inner 

 webs nearly to the apices. Bill, in dried specimen, slate black. Tarsi 

 and feet brownish black, webs between the toes yellowish. 



Length in inches, about 11 ; wing, 6.80; middle rectrix, 2.90; tarsus, 

 1.36; middle toe, 1.38; middle toe with claw, 1.64; bill, culmen, 0.97; 

 gape, 1.35; from nostril, 0.70; depth at nostril, 0.17; width at nostril, 

 0.17; unguis, 0.47. 



The capture of the Allied Shearwater at Sable Island simply 

 extends the range of a pelagic species, one of a large family of 

 ocean wanderers. It has strayed several times to the Madeira 

 Islands, but its natural habitat is the South Pacific Ocean, in 

 the vicinity of New Zealand and Australia. Its occurrence at 

 Sable Island is of course purely accidental and constitutes the 

 first and onlv record for North America. 



