348 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



"British Museum (Natural History), 



'■ Cromwell Road, London^ S. W., 



"8. XI. 15. 

 "Dear Sir: Your request for skeletons has been passed on to me. 

 as I have charge of the Osteological collections from birds, up to and 

 including Man. 



" I have no skeletons that I could send out on loan, even if there 

 were no risks attendant on their passage out and home. 

 " Neither is it possible to send drawings. 



" Most of my staff are absent in the trenches, and thus it is hard 

 to cope with the ordinary curatorial work of the Department. 



" Yours truly, . 



[Signed] W. P. Pycraft." 



At this stage of my inquiry I devoted myself to examining some 

 of the previous literature upon the " Cahow," though it did not seem 

 necessary to enter very exhaustively upon this. It was known to me 

 that Doctor Richmond had gone extensively into this part of the sub- 

 ject; and after having done so, as shown in one of his letters on a 

 previous page of this article, he came to a definite opinion in the 

 premises, that the "Cahow'" was an Aistrclata. Had I read all the 

 literature gone over by Doctor Richmond. I should, no doubt, have 

 come to precisely the same opinion ; others have already done so 

 before me, so there is nothing in particular to be gained by reopening 

 the literary side of the subject. 



The early writers did little or nothing with the osteology of the 

 Petrels and Shearwaters of Bermuda; the question of the color (rus- 

 set) has been thoroughly gone over; the skins of these birds in exist- 

 ence are very few, indeed, in any museum {rEsirclata caribbcca and 

 ^. hasitata), and the early ornithologists have left us no exact meas- 

 urements of them, nor data upon their distribution. However. I have 

 gone over some of the " Cahow " literature with great care ; but, 

 though this is interesting and to some degree helpful, the conclusions 

 reached in the present contribution will be based almost entirely upon 

 the actual material at hand." 



c I have read the following accounts on the '' Cahow " : 



Verrill, Addison E., " The Bermuda Islands," Vol. I, Supplement to the 

 Second Edition. Publ. by the author, New Haven, Conn., 1907, p. 572. The 

 American iXaturalist, Vol. 38, Xo. 451, p'. 555, 1904. 



