Petrels from the North-East Pacific Ocean. 575 



necessary by a study of tlie family^ and we hope the 

 following points will receive careful attention. 



In the classification given in the ' Monograph of Petrels/ 

 which is copied from the Cat. Birds Brit, Mus. vol. xxv., as 

 there acknowledged, p. xxxiv, the subfamily is divided as 

 follows : — 



" a. Tarsus longer than the middle toe and claw ; 

 tail not distinctly forked. 



a . Tail rounded or neai'ly even. . , , Procellaria. 



h' . Tail wedge-shaped Halocyptena. 



b. Tarsus not distinctly longer than the middle 



toe and claw ; tail perceptibly forked .... Oceanodroma.'''' 



As a synonym of " Oceanodroma Reichenbach (Syst. Av, 

 p. iv^ 1852. Type, 0. furcata)'' was included " Cymochorea 

 Cones, Pr. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 1864, p. 75. Type, 

 O. leucorrlioar 



The species included under the generic diagnoses given 

 do not agree with those as regards Procellaria and Oceano- 

 droma ; details will be given later. As long ago as 1899^ 

 dealing with the Birds of the Galapagos Islands in the 

 Nov. Zool. vol. vi. p. 199, Messrs. Rothschild and Hartert 



wrote : 



" Genus Procellaria L. 



(The genera Procellaria, Halocyptena, and Oceanodroma 

 are so closely allied that they hardly require generic separa- 

 tion, but the characters mentioned in Cat. B. Brit. Mus. 

 xxv. p. 343, can serve to distinguish them).^^ 



This was followed by the record of ''Procellaria tethys 

 Bp.^' On the preceding page they bad admitted " Oceano- 

 droma Reichb. ^' with a species " Oceanodroma cryptoleucura 

 (Ridgw.)." 



In the same journal, vol. ix. pp. 415/416, the same nomi- 

 nation was adiiered to and an additional species, Oceanodroma 

 kaedingi Anthony, catalogued. 



Before criticising this classification we would note that 

 in the ' Hand-list of British Birds,' by Hartert, Jourdain, 

 Ticehurst, and Witherby, 1912, pp. 149-150, Hydrohates 

 pelayicus (L.), Oceanodroma leucorhoa (Vieill.), and 



