Petrels from the North-East Pacific Ocean. 573 



as we had so recently thoroughly dealt with all the species 

 inhabiting Australia and New Zealand, and little trouble 

 was anticipated. Oar experience has convinced us that the 

 usual method of reporting upon large collections is com- 

 paratively valueless, and the paper by Claude Grant in the 

 January ' Ibis' is a good instance of the new method neces- 

 sary. That worker finds that a monograph of each species 

 must be prepared ; had he only tackled the genera as well as 

 the species it would have been a perfect example of up-to-date 

 work. This latter detail has up to the present been ignored, 

 yet, in our opinion, it is as necessary as the determination 

 of subspecies. As a matter of fact we consider it the more 

 important, and we anticipate in the future it Avill occupy a 

 more prominent place than it does at present. 



It would seem most profitable to systematically deal with 

 the specimens under notice and then review the additional 

 knowledge and indicate our conclusions. 



Since the ' Birds of Australia ' was published a very useful 

 summary of the distribution of the Tubinares in the North 

 Atlantic Ocean by D. A. Bannerman has appeared in the 

 'Ibis' for July 1914, pp. 438-494. Bannerman has con- 

 firmed the suggestion that these birds were local in their 

 distribution and has observed (p. 442) : "In all the com- 

 prehensive works dealing with ' Petrels' which have appeared, 

 I can find no attempt at an explanation of the present geo- 

 graphical distribution which many species enjoy." In this 

 paper we will show that our knowledge is much too imper- 

 fect to admit of conjecture in this direction, and it is well 

 that such has been up to the present withheld. 



In the ' Birds of Australia ' the four families recognised 

 by Salvin in the twenty-fifth volume of the ' Catalogue of 

 Birds in the British Museum,' and upheld by Godman in 

 the ' Monograph of Petrels,' were maintained, though the 

 constitution of some of the subfamilies was questioned. We 

 herewith discuss these in view of the fuller knowledge of the 

 group we now possess. 



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