370 Messrs. A. and E. Newton's Observations 



fortunately this exciting scene took place much too far from the 

 ship to be well enjoyed by me." — A. N. 



57. [?] (?) Cormorant. Phalacrocorax (?) 



" Shag." 



Some species of this sort of bird must sometimes occur in St. 

 Croix, according to the accounts we have received. 



I 58. [?] (?) Tropic Bird. Phaeton (?). "Boat- 



swain." 



We do not venture, in the absence of specimens procured on 

 the island, to suggest which of the two Atlantic species of this 

 genus it is that is sometimes observed in St. Croix. Perhaps 

 both the Common [Ph. athereus, -L.)* and the Yellow-billed 

 ( Ph. flavirostris, Brandt) may occur there, since the former is 

 said to breed on Tobago, and the latter on the Bermudas 

 (Jardine, Contr. Orn., 1852, p. 351 et seq.), besides being met 

 with on the south side of Cuba (Lawrence, Baird's Pac. R. R. 

 Rep., Birds, p. 885) ; but the geographical range of the different 

 members of this genus seems at present to be little understood. 



"On my voyage out in 1857, T saw the first Tropic Bird, 

 February 12th, in longitude 44°. It took two or three rapid 

 turns round the ship, but a good way off and high up, and then 

 it left us. Meanwhile I had had a good look at it with my 

 glass, and could see its red bill very plainly. It was therefore 

 cleai-ly Ph. cethereus. The same day we had passed some floating 

 animals not very much unlike Portuguese Men-of-war [Phijsalia] 

 in shape, but a good deal smaller, for which I tried in vain to 

 fish. Whether to connect the birds' appearance with theirs or 



* Examples which are said to have been of this — though perhaps merely 

 because it seems to be the best known — species have occasionally been 

 met with in Europe, and tlicre is good reason to believe that it has once 

 occurred in England. British ornithologists, however, have fortunately not 

 hitherto provided it with Letters of Naturalization. There can be, we 

 think, little doubt that the "Tropical Bird" mentioned at page 164 of the 

 ' Natural History of Lancashire, Cheshire, and the Peak ' by C. Leigh 

 (London : 1700), was a specimen of Ph. cethereus, L., and the bird recorded 

 by the late Professor J. Fr. Naumann in the preface (p. iv.) to the twelfth 

 and last volume of his ' Naturgeschichte der Voegel Deutschlands,' as 

 having been taken at Heligoland, was probably of this species. 



