352 Transactions. — Zoology. 



PufRnus buUeri, Salvin. (Buller's Shearwater.) 



A specimen brought from the Mokohiiiou Islands by Cap- 

 tain Fairchikl in September last (in spirits), and presented by 

 him to the Colonial Museum, has enabled me to describe the 

 soft parts : Sides of the bill greenish, the ridge and hook 

 brownish-black ; feet yellow, the outer side of the tarsi and 

 outer toes and a line along the base of the middle toe on its 

 outer side blackish-brown. The bird proved to be a male, 

 and the greenish colour of the bill is probably a sexual charac- 

 ter, because there was no such appearance with my specimen 

 (a female), although it was picked up fresh on the Waikanae 

 sands. Mr. Sandager, in his description of Ptiffinus zealandi- 

 cus (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xxii., p. 291), which I have 

 identified with this species, says that " the lower part of both 

 mandibles is bluish, reniainder black." 



I may here correct a common error among local ornitholo- 

 gists — that of confounding Puffiuus with Puffin, the two birds 

 having no relation whatever to each other. The principal 

 offender in this respect is Mr. Eeischek, who has contributed 

 some interesting notes on the various species of Puffinus to the 

 pages of our Transactions, and persistently calls them " Puffins." 

 Professor Newton, in his admirable "Dictionary of Birds"* 

 — a book which should be on every ornithologist's shelves — 

 gives the following explanation of this popular mistake: " The 

 name ' Puffin ' has been given in books to one of the Shearwaters, 

 and its latinised form Pvffinus is still used in that sense in 

 scientific nomenclature. This fact seems to have arisen from 

 a mistake of Ray's, who, seeing in Tradescant's museum and 

 that of the Royal Society some young Shearwaters from the 

 Isle of Man, prepared in like manner to young Puffins, thought 

 they were the birds mentioned by Gesner (Hist. Avium), as 

 the remarks inserted in Willoughby's " Ornithologia " (p. 251) 

 prove ; for the specimens described by Ray were as clearly 

 Shearwaters as Gesner's were Puffins." 



Puffinus chlororhynchus, Lesson ( = Puffinus sylienurus, 



Gould). (Wedge-tailed Shearwater.) 



I do not think I have yet put on record the following 

 letter, received some time ago from Mr. W. M. Crowfoot, of 

 Beccles, Suffolk : — 



" My friend Mr. Dalgleish, of Edinburgh, draws my atten- 

 tion to the fact that, in the last edition of your ujost valuable 

 book on the birds of New Zealand, in the article on Puffinus 

 griseus, you state that my remarks on Puffinus sphentirus in 

 iNorfolk Island probably refer to Puffinus griseus. I think 

 this is a mistake, as a skin of the Norfolk Island species 



* Adam and Charles Black, London, 1894. 



