210 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Scales very strong! j^ cteDoid, present everywhere except on top of 

 head, snout, breast, and a very narrow streak in front of dorsal. Lat- 

 eral line with a rather weak arch anteriorly, the i)ores continuing on 20 

 or 21 scales, discontinued about under base of last dorsal spine. 



Two specimens (probably ujales) were picked out of the mud in the 

 "bag of tlie seine. 



Indiana University, 2Iay 10, 1884. 



REMARKS ON THE SPECIES OF THE GENUS CEPPHUS. 

 By i>e:oiviiaki> ^tejiveofr. 



The following papers were originally prepared for publication sejia- 

 rately. When the last one was finished they were found to consti- 

 tute a kind of monograph of the genus Cepiihus, and it was therefore 

 thought more useful to have them published together under one head- 

 ing. The occasional repetitions are thus accounted for. 



For the sake of completeness, the synonymy of the generic name is 



Jhere added. 



Cepphus Pallas. 



< 1758.— JZca Lin., Syst. Nat., 10 ed., I, p. 130. 



< 1760.— r?;a Beiss., Orn. VI, p. 70. 



< Hm.—Cohjvihus Lix., Syst. Nat., 12 ed., I, p. 220. 



< 1769. — C'qjjjints Pall., Spic. Zool., V, p. 33 (type C. lacteolus). 



=■ 1819. — GrijUe Leach, in Ross's Voy. Discov. N. W. Pass., App., p. LI (type G. scapu- 

 hiris Leach). 



I. — Cepphus motzfeldi (Benicken). 



I wish to call the attention of ornithologists, and especially those in 

 North America, to the fact that, in all probability, a bLick-winged 

 Guillemot occurs in the North Atlantic, having mostly been overlooked 

 ■or regarded as a melanotic phase of the Common Guillemot since its 

 jBrst discovery sixty years ago. It would be exceedingly interesting to 

 ■ascertain the status of the alleged species, a question of special concern 

 to American ornithologists since the type was received from Greenland. 



The information at hand is very scanty and the sources of rather dif- 

 ficult access to many ornitliologist.s ; even Prof. A. Newton failed in 

 finding one of the original descriptions. I therefore intend to give in 

 the following a complete extract of all that has been written about the 

 matter, as far as it is knov\-n and lucrssible to me, believing that such 

 a bringing together of all the matcju;! may facilitate the work of future 

 investigators, and hoping that it nay stimulate to further research 

 when it is seen how little is known about a bird inhabiting the seas be- 

 tween North America and Europe. 



In a paper entitled "Beytriige zur nordischen Ornithologie" (=Con- 

 >tributious to Northern Ornithology) and published in the August num- 



