352 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



Passing to the skeleton marked " Puffinns obsciinis" (No. 17724 of 

 the collection of the U. S. National Museum), here shown on Plate 

 XXII. fig. 28, and Plate XXIII, fig. 35, it is at once evident that it be- 

 longed to a very different bird from Mr. Maynard's Puffinns obscttnis. 

 It is the only skeleton of the kind in the collection of the U. S. 

 National Museum ; and, as the species is not represented among the 

 subfossil bones from Bermuda, it may therefore be set aside to be 

 used further on in the present connection. Before doing so, however, 

 I will say that the skull of this specimen, although evidently not of 

 the same species, agrees in many particulars and characters with the 

 skull of the " JEstrelata Icssoni" from the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology of Harvard University. (See PI. XVI, fig. 6; PI. XVIII, fig. 

 16; and PI. XXXI, fig. 126.) Coues, in the Fifth Edition of his " Key," 

 gives the length of the "tarsus" as 1.60 in Puffinns aitdiiboni {=^P- 

 Ihcnninieri) ; and I find that the metatarsus of this "P. ohscnrus" 

 skeleton (No. 17724, Coll. U. S. Nat. Mus.) measures in length but 

 1.50 (inches). Still, it is a very much smaller bird, with entirely 

 different sternum from the Puffinns ohscnrus in the Maynard collec- 

 tion ; fortunately neither agree with any of the Bermuda specimens. 



Among these Petrels and Shearwaters we find sterna of tzvo kinds, 

 namely, one in which the body is nearly square in outline, when 

 viewed directly from above or from below. Such sterna may be 

 either large or small. (Compare figures on Plates XIX-XXIII.) 



There is a skeleton of '' Puffinns gavia " in the collection of the 

 U. S. National Museum (No. 18286) which is from a bird of about 

 the same size as No. 17724 ("P. ohscnrus") and with many of its 

 characters in agreement; but it is not the same species, as is at once 

 evident upon a casual comparison. 



A typical Shearwater is seen — in so far as its skeleton is con- 

 cerned — in the mounted one of Puffinns borcalis of the U. S. National 

 Museum collection (No. 17772).' 



Taking into consideration what we have up to this point, it is per- 

 fectly safe to say, after comparing the specimens with all the sub- 

 fossil bones in the three lots of the Bermuda material, that Audubon's 

 Shearwater {Puffinns Ihcnninieri) is not to be found among them. 



The cranium marked " JEstrclata Icssoni," No. 14494, U. S. Nat. 



' Shufeldt. R. W., " On the Osteology of the Tubinares," Am. Nat., Vol. 

 XLV, No. 482, Feb., 1907, fig. i, p. 116. 



