Q^strelata mollis and Allies. 299 



S. N. i. p. 562, no, 16 (ex Latham's Black-toed Petrel) ; but 

 this ideutification is far from being satisfactorily established. 



Mr. Gould, in 1848, included in his ' Birds of Australia ' 

 also P. mollis, writii)g as follows ; — " Although I have not 

 seen it within sight of the shores of Australia, it doubtless 

 occasionally visits them, for I observed it to be plentiful off 

 the eastern end of the Islands of St. Paul and Amsterdam/' 

 These islands being quite in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 

 Gould's surmise appears rather hazardous ; still, from subse- 

 quent evidence, it seems that he was right. 



In 1855, E. Vernon-Harcourt, in his paper, " Notes on the 

 Ornithology of Madeira," included P. mullis, and all subse- 

 quent writers down to Salvin (Cat. B. Brit. Mus. vol. xxv.) 

 and Dresser (Suppl. to the ' Birds of Europe'), treating of 

 P. mollis, have admitted the specific identity of the specimens 

 from Madeira Avith those from the Southern Seas. 



Having had quite recently the opportunity of studying a 

 collection of birds from the Cape A'erde Islands, sent by 

 the well-known traveller Signer Leonardo Fea, I found two 

 specimens, exactly alike, of the genus (Estrelata, belonging 

 to a species unknown to me, as, though resembling (E. mollis, 

 they appeared to me to be specifically different. Signor Fea 

 had written on the label of one of the specimens tliat they 

 belong to an uncommon species, but resident in the islands, 

 known to the natives as " Gon-gon." 



It occurred to me that the Cape Verde Islands bird 

 might probably be of the same species as that of Madeira ; 

 and wishing to ascertain this point I wrote to Prof. 

 A. Newton, asking him to send me for inspection two 

 specimens collected in Madeira in 1853 by Dr. Frere, 

 belonging to the Museum of Cambridge. On receiving these 

 two birds their specific identity with those from the Cape 

 Verde Islands was quite obvious. These four North-Atlantic 

 specimens 1 was able to compare with four southern ones of 

 (E. mollis, three collected during the voyage of the ' Magenta ' 

 (Gigl. et Salvad., Atti Soc. Ital. Sc. Nat. xi. (1868), p. 457; 

 iid. Ibis, 1869, p. 66), and a fourth from the seas off the 

 Cape of Good Hope, received from Verreaux by the late 



