NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 



43 



At present writing only one perfect specimpn of this species is known to 

 exist in any American Museum. The Boston Natural History Society possess 

 this one; No. 9209 of the Museum Regrister, No. 8135 of the Fresuaye collec- 

 tion, now ownf-d by the Society. The Smithsonian Institution has a mutilated 

 specimen, (ah ead only), from the north-west coast of America, presented by 

 Mr. John Gould. As far as can be judged, it belongs to a bird rather more 

 perfectly plumaged than the Boston Society's specimen. 



SiMORHYNCHUS TETRACULUS, [Pall.) CoueS. 



Alca tetracula, Pallas, Spic. Zool. v, 1769, p. 23, pi. 4, and pi. 5, figs. 10, 11, 

 12. Gmelin, S. N. i, pt. ii, 1788, p. 552, No. 8. Quotes Dusky Auk, Pen- 

 nant, Arct. Zool. ii, p. 515, No. 435. Latham, Ind. Orn. ii, 1790, p. 794, No. 

 7. Quotes Pallas, Spic. Zool. Donndorff, Beytr. Zool. ii, pt. i, 1794, p. 821. 

 Uria tetracula, Pallas, Zoog. R.-A. ii, 1811, p. 371, pi. 88. 



Phaleris tetracula, Stephens, Shaw's Gen. Zool. xiii, 1825, p. 46. Brandt, Bnll. 

 Acad. St. Petersb, ii, 1837, p. 347. Gray, Genera Birds, iii, 1849, p. 638. 

 Elliot, B. N. A. 1867, part iii. 

 Tylorhamphus tetraculm, Bonaparte, Tabl, Comp. Pelag. Comptes Rendus, 

 1856, xlii, p. 774. Erroneous assignment of Brandt's genus Tylorhamphus, 

 which is based upon crisfatellus. 

 Phaleris (Ti/lorhamphus) tetracula, Cassin, Baird's B. N. A. 1858, p. 907. 



Asiatic (and American?) coasts of the North Pacific. " In mari orientali, 

 prsesertim Unalaschka," (Pallas.) Kamtschatka, (Mus. Acad., Philada., and 

 Mus. Smiths. Inst.) Bay of Yedo, Japan, (Mus. Smiths. Inst.) 



Bill small, short, much com- 

 pressed, regularly conical from 

 a lateral view, simple, being 

 without decided sulci, ridges, 

 caruncles or other irregulari- 

 ties of surface of any sort; cul- 

 men narrow, regularly moder- 

 ately convex from base to tip ; 

 commissure and gonys perfect- 

 ly straight in their whole 

 fength ; the tip of the bill 

 turned neither up nor down, 

 but the points of both man- 

 dibles almost meeting on the 

 level of the commissure. Nasal 

 fossffi scarcely discernible as 

 such, the upper border of the 

 small, basal, linear nostrils 

 being flush with the rest of the 

 bill. Frontal feathers extend 

 Fig. O.—Simorhynchus tetmculus (Pa,\\.) Nat. size. forward with an obtusely 

 founded outline on the culmen, then rapidly recede backwards as they pass 

 downward in a straight line just past the posterior end of the nostrils to the 

 commissural edge of the upper mandible ; those on the side of the lower mandi- 

 ble extending not quite so far, but the interramal space fully feathered Wings 

 rather longer than usual in this group ; legs, feet, and tail as in other species 

 of the genus, the legs perhaps a little longer, comparatively, than in other 

 species. A crest of ten or more slender elongated feathers with loosened 

 fibrillge springs from the middle of the forehead, just before the eyes, and 

 curves forward in the greater part of a circle to near the tip of the bill. A 

 very few filamentous feathers on the sides of the head, the slender series be- 

 ginning at the posterior canthus, and thence extending downwards and back- 

 wards. A small white spot just below the eye. Everywhere dull blackish, 

 or dusky; deepest on the back, becoming more of a smoky or brownish-gray 



1868. 



