49 



Habitat between Northern Asia and America. Latham, Ind. Orn. ii, 1790, 

 p. 790, No. ii. Same as Gmelin's species. Bonnaterre, Ency. Method. Orn. 

 1790, p. 33. Same as Gmelin's species. Donndorff, Beytr. Zool. ii, pt. i, p. 

 825. Quotes Pennant and Latham. 



? Phaleris pygmxa, Stephens, Shaws Gen. Zool. xiii, 1825, p. 48. Same as 

 Alca pygmcEa, Gm. Lath. 



Phaleris pi/gmaia, Brandt, Bull. Acad. St. Petersb. ii, 1837, p. 347. Quotes 

 holh Alca pi/gmmi Gm. and Uria pusilla Pall., which he considers as synony- 

 mous. Gray, Genera Birds iii, 1849, p. 638. Quotes Uria pusilla, Pall. 



Tylorhamphus pygmxas, Bonaparte Consp. Gav. Comptes Rendus, 1856, xlii. p. 

 774. Same as />MS?V/(7, Pall. 



Uria pusilla, Pallas, Zoog. R.-A. ii, 1811, p. 373, pi. 70, baud dubife. " Fronte 

 brachiisque albo-notatis." 



Phaleris pusilla, Cassin, Pr. A. N. S. Phila. 1862, p. 324. Elliot, B. N. Am. 

 1867, part vi. 



P.ialeris [Oicerotiia) pusilla, Cassin, Baird's B. N. A. 1868, p. 909. 



Asiatic and American coasts of the North Pacific. Kamtschatka, (Pallas.) 



Semiavine Straits (Mus. Smiths. Inst.) N. W. coast of America (Mus. Smiths. 



Inst.) Sitka, Russian Amer. (Mus. Pays-Bas, teste Schlegel.) 



In size the least of its genus, 

 and the smallest known nata- 

 torial bird. Length, (approxi- 

 mately correct) 5-50 inches ; ex- 

 tent of wings , wing from 



carpus to end of first primary 

 3-50; tail 1-10; tarsus -75, mid- 

 dle toe and claw 1-10 ; outer toe 

 and claw 1-00 ; inner toe and 

 claw -85 ; bill along culmen 

 •40 ; along rictus, -65 ; along 

 gonys "30; height at base -20; 

 width at same point the same 

 or slightly less. (Compare these 

 measurements, particularly of 

 Fig. \2.— Simwhi/nchus pusillus, (PaWab.) the bill, with those of S. micro- 



Nat. .size. ceros.) 



With the usual /orm of the genus, except as to the bill, the shape of which 

 is specific. Bill without tubercles, or other irregularities of contour ; straight, 

 comparatively slender, compressed ; height at base much less than length 

 along culmen; width at base the same, or rather less than, height at same 

 point; the apex more acute than that of microceros ; the outline of culmen 

 at first straight, then slightly convexo-declinate ; commissure almost straight, 

 a little ascending anteriorly, still not sinuous in any pan of its length ; gonys 

 lengthened, at first convex in outline, then rapidly ascending in a straight 

 line. Nasal fossa large, extending along the basal moiety ot the bill, reach- 

 ing from the culmen nearly to the tomia ; not deeply excavated; nostrils 

 small, narrow, linear, one eighth of an inch long, basal, lyingjust above the 

 commissural edge of the upper mandible. Frontal feathers running forward 

 some distance in a rather narrow angle on the culmen, retreating very rapidly 

 obliquely backwards and downwards on the sides of the upper mandible ; ex- 

 tending on sides of the lower mandible a little further than on upper. (It is 

 to be gathered from this description, more particularly, that the bill of pusil- 

 lus, compared with that of microceros, is fully as long; but slenderer, more 

 acute at the tip, less convex along culmen and gonys, more compressed in its 

 whole extent, and non-tuberculate.) 



Adult — Entire under parts pure white ; entire upper parts pure black, 

 only relieved as follows : The humeral and scapular feathers are, all of them 



4 



