1038 SYS TEMA TIC S YNOPSIS. — TUBINA R ES. 



(dry) brownish-black, horn-colored at tip. Feet (dry) light yellowish flesh-color, tinged 

 with brown on outside of tarsus, outer toe, and tips of claws. In life bill horn color, toes and 

 tarsi bluish. Smaller: wing 11.00; tail 4.25, graduated 0.90; tarsus 2.00; middle toe and 

 claw 2.40; outer ditto 2.30; chord of culmen 1.70. Nectris amaurosoma Coues, Pr. Phila. 

 Acad. 1864, p. 124, p. 143 (Cape St. Lucas, L. Gala.), since found N. on the California coast. 

 Queen Charlotte Islands, and at Sitka, and probably wide-ranging in Pacific waters; in which 

 case its proper name is P. griseus, as A. 0. U. No. 95. Supposedly breeds in Southern Hem- 

 isphere only. All the large Sooty Shearwaters are combined under the name Griseus by Salvin, 

 and such is very probably their true status. 



P. tenuiros'tris. (Lat. tenuis, slight, thin; rostrum, beak.) Slender-billed Shear- 

 water. KuRiLE Shearwater. Distinct: a small, weak- billed, short-tailed, very dark- 

 colored species, sooty-black above, quite black on quills and tail-feathers, beneath smoky-gray, 

 palest on throat, the under tail-coverts nearly as blackish as upper parts. Groove of under 

 side of primary-shafts yellow. Bill (dry) dusky greenish-yellow, brighter along edges and at 

 tip ; feet (dry) yellowish, the hinder edge of tarsus and under surface of webs blackish. Length 

 about 14.00; wing 10.00; tail 3.50, graduated 0.75; chord of culmen 1.20; depth of bill at 

 base 0.30; width 0.40; tarsus 1.90; middle or outer toe and claw 2.25. N. Pacific, Alaska 

 to Japan ; N. in summer to Kotzebue Sound ; breeding in Southern Hemisphere and ranging 

 at large southward ; Australia; New Zealand. 



CESTRE'LATA. (Gr. olarprfKaTos, oistrelatos, goaded on by a gad-fly.) Gadfly Petrels. 

 Diabolic Petrels. Bill about as long as tarsus, stout, compressed throughout, with nearly 

 straight converging lateral outlines, the hook particularly large, high-arclied, long-decurved, 

 rising almost immediately from end of nasal tube, leaving but a sliort concave culmen proper ; 

 latericorn very large, turgid, rising high at root of nasal case, convex along under outline ; 

 commissure strongly sinuate throughout ; outline of mandibular rami nearly straight, of gonys 

 concave ; tip of under mandible decurved to fit the arch of the hook. Grooves of both mandi- 

 bles distinct. Nasal tube of moderate length, high, not carinate, about straight, truncate at 

 end, M'ith thin partition between nostrils. Interrainal space narrow, fully feathered. Wings 

 pointed, very long, folding beyond end of tail. Tail long, graduated or much rounded; its 

 length less than ^ that of the wing, and its graduation less than ^ its own length. Feet of 

 moderate size ; tarsus reticulate, about as long as, or little shorter than, middle toe without 

 claw; outer toe alone rather longer than middle; witli its claw, about as long as middle toe 

 and claw ; tip of inner claw reaching base of middle. Hallux a sliort sessile claw. The lar- 

 gest genus of ProcellariidcB, containing about 30 medium-sized and rather small species, chiefly 

 inhabiting Southern seas; most of them bicolor, a few uniformly fuliginous. Our 3 are mere 

 stragglers to North America, unless CE. fisheri should prove native. (I cannot bring myself 

 to misspell this word ^' ^strelata," as a majority of my respected colleagues on the A. 0. U. 

 Committee insist upon doing, for no better reason than that Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte 

 did not know how (Estrelata ought to be spelled. Such deference to authority as this is in 

 my judgment a blot on our " Canons of Nomenclature," which justly exposes us to rebuke from 

 " mouths of wisest censure.") 



Analysis of Species. 



Large : wing 11.00 or more. No large white space on inner web of any primary. 



A black cap. Under parts white hcesiia/a 



Small : wing under 11.00. Large wliite spaces on inner webs of primaries. 



No cap. Back cinereous, the featliers tipped with whitish scalaris 



Cap white, spotted with gray. Feathers of back not tipped with whitish fisheri 



Obs. — A fourth species, OS. jamaicensis, is likely to prove North American. Tliis is nearly as large as hcpsitaia 

 (wing 11.00; tail 5.00), but much darker colored, without distinct black cap; general plumage sooty, paler below than 

 above, the upper tail-coverts whitish ; bill and feet black. It is the Blue Mountain Duck of GossE, B. Jam. 1S47, p. 437. 

 Proc. jamaicensis, Bancroft, Zool. Journ. v, 182G, p. SI. Pterndronia caribbcea Carte, P. Z. S. 1866, p. 93, pi. 10. 

 CE. jamaicensis A. and E Newton, Handb. Jam. 1881, p. 117 ; Salvin, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxv, 1896, p. 403. 



