X INTRODUCTION. 



and the second formed the basis of the late \V. A. Forbes's memoir 

 on the anatomy of the Tubinares, both published in the ' Challenger' 

 Report. Lasth', Dr. Coppinger secured when in H.M.S. ' Alert ' 

 skins of several interesting species of this Order. 



Of other considerable collections added to the Museum I may 

 mention that of the late Dr. R. McCormick, who accompanied 

 Sir James Ross, and whose collection, bequeathed to the Trustees, 

 forms a valuable addition to the Antarctic series of Petrel skins. 

 The late Harry Berkeley James also left to the Museum a good 

 series of specimens of Chilian species. Mr. H. Seebohm, with his 

 usual liberality, presented the whole of his series of these birds, 

 which consists chiefly of representatives of the species of the North 

 Pacific Ocean, from the neighbourhood of Japan and the Benin 

 Islands to certain islands in mid-ocean. Another important series 

 was secured by the Earl of Crawford, mostly in the South Atlantic 

 and South Pacific Oceans. The Museum has also been enriched by 

 many other donations of greater or less extent, amongst which I 

 may mention the series of Petrels obtained by Mr. W. R. Ogilvie- 

 Grant on the islands near Madeira, and by the same gentleman in 

 company with the Hon. C. Baring during a second visit to the same 

 islands, when they established the fact of the presence of Oceano- 

 droma cryptoleucura on Porto Santo Island and Great Salvage Island, 

 its previous known domicile being the Hawaiian and Galapagos 

 Archipelagos in the far distant Pacific Ocean. They also discovered 

 Pelagodroma marina, previously supposed to be a straggler from the 

 South Seas, breeding in numbers on Great Salvage Island. Besides 

 the Museum specimens immediately before me, I have, as oppor- 

 tunity offered, examined those in the Leyden, Berlin, Vienna, and 

 Paris Museums, and I have also had the advantage of the loan of 

 the types of Peale and Dr. Coues, and some of those of Mr. Ridg- 

 way, through the kindness of the authorities of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, Washington. I have also had before me the very 

 interesting types described by Signer Giglioli and Count Salvadori, 

 which were obtained by the first-named gentleman when on board 

 the Italian frigate ' Magenta " during her voyage round the World. 



The Hon. Walter Rothschild lent me the whole of his large 

 collection of Petrels, including the types of the species recently 



