PROCELLARIID.t. 



733 



^-^X. 



^:p^ 



WILSON'S PETREL. 



OCEANITES OCEANICUS (Kuhl). 



This remarkably long-legged Petrel was noticed and figured as 

 Procellaria pelagica by Wilson (Am. Orn. vii. p. 90, pi. Ix. fig. 6), 

 under the impression that it was identical with the Storm-Petrel ; 

 but the earliest scientific description of it was given by Kuhl in 1820. 

 In 1824 Bonaparte published a memoir on this and three more 

 species, with the distinctive characters, measurements, and figures of 

 each ; and, in ignorance of Kuhl's name, proposed to call the bird 

 Procellaria wilstmi, in honour of the distinguished ornithologist, 

 whose name can, however, only be handed down to posterity in the 

 trivial appellation. In his memoir Bonaparte says, " I have never 

 learnt that it has been seen on the coasts of Europe. I killed one, 

 that had probably strayed, near the Azores "; and this appears to be 

 the first printed notice of the occurrence of Wilson's Petrel near the 

 European side of the Atlantic. As regards the British Islands, 

 Gould observed this species in abundance off the Land's End in 

 May 1838, and in November of the same y°ar the specimen now 

 figured was found dead near Polperro in Cornwall ; an example 

 has been picked up near Chippenham in Wiltshire ; two have been 

 obtained near Freshwater in the Isle of Wight (the last in the 

 autumn of 1888) ; the late Mr. F. Bond recorded one from Sussex; 

 one was shot near Halifax in Yorkshire in November 1S74 ; and three 



