ORNITHOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS. 175 



The systematic name by which this species is most commonly known 

 is Oidemia {or Melanetta) vclvctinaCassm, " 1850," Bonaparte's 0. deglan- 

 Mi was published the same year, and ornithologists deciding the prior- 

 ity by the number of the page must accept the latter name. But other 

 authors will also be compelled to accept it, as Cassin's name was not 

 published before 1851, for his paper was first read before the Academy 

 of Sciences at Philadelphia on December the 24th, and on the last day 

 of that year the committee reported in favor of its publication in the 

 Proceedings {cf. Phil. Ac. Sc. Proc, V, 1850-'51, pp. 123 and 12G), con- 

 sequently, the publication can not have taken place in 1850, and may 

 not have been effected before 1852, since the title i)age of the fifth vol- 

 ume is dated from the latter year. 



The only bird obtained by me was a young male of the year, closely 

 agreeing in every respect with a specimen from -Shanghai in the U. 

 S. National Museum, and both have the only reliable character by which 

 young and females of this species, 0. deglandii, can be distinguished from 

 those of the true 0. fusca, viz, the shorter distance between the lateral 

 feathering of the lores and the nostrils, it being 5™°" or less in the for- 

 mer against G""" or more in the latter. Through the courtesy of Gov- 

 ernor Grebnitski, I received this year two old males in splendid plum- 

 age, obtained at Bering Island in March and April, 1884, showing the 

 distinctive characters of 0. deglandii in their greatest development. The 

 distance alluded to above is quite within the given limit; the lateral 

 swelling of the naked part of the maxilla beneath and behind the nos- 

 trils, so noticeable in fusca, is here absent, and the knob shows a devel- 

 opment which may be regarded as excessive even in 0. deglandii, so 

 much so that it is protracted anteriorly into a kind of a horn overhang- 

 ing the culmen. In fact, the National Museum, which possesses quite a 

 series of this species, has no specimen which, in that respect, can even be 

 said to approach the two Bering Island birds, which are entirely alike. 



The regular occurrence of 0. deglandii on the Pacific coasts of the Old 

 World may thus be regarded as established beyond the slightest doubt. 

 There seems, however, to be good reasons for also admitting the true 

 fusca as an inhabitant of the eastern shores of Asia, the probability then 

 being that the latter occurs more to the northward and along the west 

 ern shore of the Okotsk Sea to China, while 0. deglandii reaches from 

 Alaska across the Aleutian chain to Karatschatka, the Kuriles, and Ja- 

 l^an, where it winters and meets 0. fusca proper, sometimes even travel- 

 ing as far as China, while, on the other hand, a stray individual of 

 fusca occasionally finds its way to Alaska, 



