340 TUBINAKES. 



Order XIV. TUBINARES. 



■ (By OSBERT SALA^IN.) 



The late ^Yilliam Alexander Forbes's memoir, entitled "Report OQ' 

 the Anatomj' of the Petrels {Tubinares) collected during the Voyage 

 of H.M.S. ' Challenger,' " * gives by far the most complete account 

 of the anatomy of this Order, discusses the relationship of a large 

 number of species representative of many genera, gives a good 

 resume of the literature of the subject, and the author's views as to 

 the relationship of the Order to other Orders of the Class Aves. 



As the whole of the spirit-specimens possessed bj' me at the time 

 were placed at Forbes's disposal and were used in compiling his 

 Memoir, I have little to say on this branch of the subject beyond 

 pointing out that I have ventured to depart to some extent from 

 Forbes's classification in the present Catalogue. In doing so, I 

 have to a great extent returned to the older plan of keeping the 

 Albatroses distinct from the rest of the Petrels, and in restoring 

 Forbes's Oceanitida' to the neighbourhood of the genus FroceUaria. 

 That such an arrangement is more convenient can hardly be doubted, 

 and I think it can be justified. 



Regarding the position of the Tubinares in the Systema Avium 

 much difference of opinion has existed, and the final disposition 

 of the Order is hardly yet established. Most authors placed it in 

 juxtaposition to the Laridce, but this allocation was objected to by 

 Garrod and Forbes, who asserted that the Steganopodes and 

 Herodiones, as understood by them, are its nearest allies, thus 

 confirming the suggestions to that effect advanced by I'Herminier, 

 Milne-Edwards, and Huxley. 



Forbes (o^>. cit. p. 60) briefly defines the Tubinares as : — 



"Holorhinal schizngnathous birds with a large, broad, depressed, pointed 

 vomer, and truncated mandible ; with the anterior toes fully webbed, 

 and the hallux either very small and reduced to one phalanx, or absent ; 

 with a tufted oil-gland and large supra-orbital glands furrowing the 

 skull ; with the external nostrils produced into tubes, usually more or less 

 united together dorsally; with an enormous glandular proveutriculus 

 and small gizzard of luuisual shape and position, and with the com- 

 mencing duodenum ascending ; with a completely double great pectoral 

 muscle, and a well-developed 2>ecto7'alis tertius ; with i\\& femoro-cmidal 

 and semi-tendinosus muscles always present, and the ambiens and 

 accessory feinoro-caudal only exceptionally absent." 



* Keport of the Scientific Kesulta ot the Voyage of H.M.S. ' Challenger,- 

 Zoology, Vol. iv. Part xi. (1882). 



