224 Alexander, Tubinares in Gould Collection. [ ''-'T'" •, 



^ Li-it April 



The Tubinares (Petrels and Albatrosses) in the Gould 

 Collection at Philadelphia. 



By W. B. Alexander, M.A., R.A.O.U. 

 During a brief visit to Philadelphia in September, 1920, I was 

 enabled, through the kindness of Dr. Witmer Stone, to see the 

 famous Gould collection of Australian birds which, as is well 

 known to Austrahan ornithologists, is the property of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 



Dr. Stone and Mr. Mathews have pulilished a list of the type 

 specimens in the collection,* but no complete list of all the 

 specimens has ever been pubUshed, though a copy of the original 

 list made by Verreaux, the French taxidermist who mounted the 

 birds, is preserved in the Academy. The Hst gives in five columns 

 a reference number, generic name, specific name, sex, and locahty. 

 Precisely similar details are written on the under surface of the 

 wooden stands of each of the specimens, where, however, in every 

 case the word " type " also appears. Those which Messrs. Stone 

 and Mathews have determined as actual types have been dis- 

 mounted and relaxed. The remainder are mostly still on ex- 

 hibition in the Museum of the Academy. 



I was a good deal surprised to find in what an excellent state 

 of preservation the majority of the specimens are. Dr. Witmer 

 Stone informed me that he would like Austrahan ornithologists 

 in general to know that he would be willing at any time to compare 

 any skins they might send him with Gould's types, though, of 

 course, he could not risk sending such valuable specimens away 

 for examination in Austraha. 



I was particularly interested in the specimens of Tubinares, 

 especially as, in a good many cases, there is some doubt as to 

 whether a species is entitled to a place on the Austrahan list. The 

 following is a list of the birds of this order contained in the 

 collection, copied with the permission of Dr. Stone from Verreaux's 

 hst. Notes on the specimens marked with an asterisk (*) will be 

 found at the end of the list ; those marked with a dagger (t) are 

 types. I regret that I had not time to examine all the birds in 

 detail. 



* Austral Avian Record, vol i., p. 129, 1913. 



