PliOCELLARIID.E — THE PETRELS — PRIOFINUS. 



375 



Friofinus cinereus. 



THE BLACK-TAILED SHEASWATEB. 



Procellaria cinerea, Gmel. S. N. I. 1788, 563. 



Pnofinus cinereus, HoMB. & Jacq. Compt. Rend. XVIII. 1844, 355. 



Puffinus cinereus, Lawii. in Birds N. Am. 1858, 835. — Baird, Cat, N. Am. B. 1859, no. 651. 



Adamastor cinereus, CouES, Pr. Philad. Acad. 1864, 119. — Streets, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. uo. 7, 



1877, 29. 

 ? Procellaria melanura, Bonn. "Enc. Mcth. 1790, 79." 

 Adamastor melanurus, CouES, Check List, 1873, no. 595. 

 Priofinus melanurtcs, Ridgw. Pr. U. S. Nat. Mus. "Vol. 2, 1880, 209 ; Nom. N. Am. B. 1881, no. 



707. — CouES, 2d Check List, 1882, no. 830. 

 Procellaria hcesitata. Light, ed. Forst. Descr. An. 1844, 208. — Gould, B. Austr. VII. 1848, pi. 67 



(not of KuHL, Beitr. Zool. 1820, 142 ; Tern. PI. Col. 1820, ilQ, = (Estrelata hcesitata/). 

 Adamastor t7/pus, Bonap. Consp. II. 1856, 187. 

 Procellaria adarnastor, Schleg. Mus. P.-B. Procell. 1863, 25. 

 Puffinus Kuhlii, Cass. Pr. Philad. Acad. 1862, 327 (not of Boie). 



on 



Hab. South Pacific Ocean ; accidental off coast of California (Monterey ; Lawrence). 



Sp. Char. Adult : Head, neck, and back silky cinereous, fading insensibly into whitish 

 the chin, throat, and foreneck ; wings, rump, 

 and upper tail-coverts darker and more brown- 

 ish than the back ; primaries and tail dusky. 

 Lower parts white, the crissum and whole under 

 surface of the wing brownish gray, the flanks, 

 and sometimes the sides, tinged with the same. 

 Bill dull light horn-yellow, the nasal tubes, cul- 

 men as far as the unguis, and the maxillary 

 sulcus blackish ; legs and feet light brownish, 

 in the dried skin.^ 



Wing, 12.25-13.50 inches ; culmen, 1.75- 

 1.85 ; depth of bill through base, .70-.75 ; tar- 

 sus, 2.25-2.30 ; middle toe, 2.50-2.60. 



The history of the manners and our 

 knowledge of the distribution of this spe- 

 cies is wanting. All that is known in 

 regard to it is that it was first referred to 

 as one of our Western coast-birds by Mr. 

 Lawrence, under the name of Procellaria 

 hcesitata, based upon an example said to 



have been killed off the coast near Monterey, and found in the collection of N. Pike, 

 Esq. Afterward, in the " Pacific Railroad Reports," Vol. IX., it was given as 

 Puffinus cinereus. 



In the "Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy," 1862, Mr. Cassin describes 

 as P. Kuhlii certain examples that had been taken, Sept. 11, 1853, by Professor 

 F. H. Storer, of the Rogers Exploring Expedition, about fifty miles off the Cape 

 of Good Hope. These are regarded as identical with the Monterey example ; and 

 these two instances of the occurrence of this species in widely separated localities 

 constitute the sum of our scanty knowledge of its distribution. 



1 " Irides dark brown ; culmen and nostrils black ; tip of upper mandible blackish horn-color ; tomia 

 whitish liorn-color ; lower part of under mandible blackish horn-color ; feet white, tinged with blue, the 

 outer toe brownish black " (Gould). 



