1888.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 253 



OBSERVATIONS UPON THE OSTEOLOGY OF THE ORDER TUBI- 

 NARES AND STEGANOPODES. 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT, V. S. ARMY. 



The order Tubinares has been made to include the Albatrosses, Ful- 

 mars, Shearwaters, and Petrels; the Albatrosses being carried in the 

 family Diomedeidce, and the remaining forms in the family Procella- 

 riidce, with such divisions in each into subfamilies and genera as our 

 present knowledge of their structure seems to warrant. 



A splendid contribution to the anatomy and classification of the Tu- 

 binares was left us by my talented friend Mr. W. A. Forbes,* who so 

 ably examined the material for this subject collected by the Challenger 

 expedition. 



As an introduction to his work, Mr. Forbes gives us a very excellent 

 account of the "Previous Literature on the Anatomy and Classification 

 of the Tubinares," which goes to show that the study of the structure 

 of these birds has by no means been neglected. 



My material at the present time is quite limited, although I have at 

 my disposal everything the Smithsonian Institution collections contain. 

 Under these circumstances I can hardly hope to add anything to the 

 exhaustive researches of Forbes, who had at his command alcoholic 

 specimens aud skeletons of nearly all the genera known to us. His 

 illustrations, however, are not many, so far as the skeletons of some of 

 the types are concerned, and I am in hopes that this part of my labor 

 will be acceptable to those who may take up the subject in future, and 

 not have at hand, perhaps, some of the skeletons which I have figured 

 to illustrate this memoir. 



My remarks will be confined principally to the skull of the adult Al- 

 batross, the skeleton of the adult Fulmar, and the skeleton of the adult 

 Gray Fork-tailed Petrel. 



Representing the Shearwaters, I have nothing except one steruum of 

 Puffiiws major, collected by Mr. 1ST. P. Scudder, and an imperfect skull 

 of a Shearwater collected by Dall, which, from its measurements and 

 the locality in which it was picked up (a beach specimen), I take to be 

 Puffinus tenu irostris. 



I am indebted to Dr. T. H. Beau, of the Smithsonian Institution, for 

 the four fine alcoholic heads of Diomedea albatrus, collected by him in 



* Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H. M. S. Challenger during the 

 years 1873-'76, under the command of Capt. George S. Nares, R. N., F. R. S., aud Capt. 

 Tourlc Thomson, R.N. Prepared under the superintendence of the late Sir C. Wy- 

 ville Thomson, Knt., F.R.S., etc., regius professor of natural history in the Uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh, director of the civilian staff en board, and now of John Mur- 

 ray, F.R. S. E., one of the naturalists of the expedition. Zoology, Vol. iv, pt. xi, 

 pp. 1-64; Pis. i-vii (1882). 



