480 Recently published Oniitholoyical Works. 



well as notes on EUis^s drawings^ made during Capt. Cook^s 

 third voyage"^. Cook^s visit to Kerguelen Island is related 

 by himself in the first volume of the ' Third Voyage ' (chaps, 

 iv. &v.) . At the end of chapter v. a good account of the natural 

 history is given by Mr. Anderson^ the siu'geon of the ' Reso- 

 lution,' which includes descriptions of the birds of the island. 

 This passage seems to have escaped Mr. Sharpens notice. 



The Procellariidse, so numerously represented in this island^ 

 come in for a large share of attention ; and Mr. Sharpe has 

 given important notes on several members of this family. He 

 has carefully examined a large series of specimens of the genus 

 Prion, with a view to testing the validity of some of the species 

 for which recognition has been claimed ; the result is that he 

 admits only two, P. vittatus and P. desolatus. Again, Tha- 

 lassidroma melanogaster, Gould, is united (somewhat prema- 

 turely, we think) with T. tropica of the same author, and the 

 latter name adopted, apparently because the description of it 

 precedes that of the former by a page in the paper where both 

 are described t- 



(Estrelata mollis is introduced into the list on the authority 

 of Drs. Cabanis and Reichenow ; but the specimen brought 

 home by the ' Gazelle ' was really one of CE. brevirostris , and 

 (E. mollis must, for the present, be erased from the list of Ker- 

 guelen birds. For this error Mr. Sharpe is not responsible J. 



Mr. Sharpe has also discussed fully the complicated syn- 



* Mr. Sharpe (p. 1) speaks of Ellis as having accompanied Sir J. Banks 

 and Capt. Cook ; but this is incorrect. Sir J. Banks only accompanied 

 Cook during his Jiist voyage, when Parkinson and Buchan were the 

 artists engaged. Kerguelen Island was not then visited — nor yet during 

 the second voyage, when the two Forsters were on board. 



t Mr. Sharpe has on several previous occasions introduced changes of 

 nomenclature on similar grounds. In our opinion, however, the practice is 

 a perversion of the law of priority, which means, if it means any thing, 

 priority of publication. When two names are published simultaneously, 

 the question of priority does not arise, and therefore the claims of the one 

 in most frequent use are, we think, too obvious to need asserting. 



J [During a recent visit to the Berlin Museum, Dr. Reichenow kindly 

 showed me this specimen, when I at once saw that it belonged to CE. 

 brevirostris. — 0. S.] 



