WILSON'S PETREL. 49 



delphia,' vol. iii., and he there (p. 231), in ignorance of 

 Kuhl's name, proposed to call this bird Procdlaria wilsoni,^ 

 in honour of the distinguished ornithologist, whose name 

 can, however, only be handed down to posterity in the 

 trivial appellation. In this memoir Bonaparte says, " I 

 have never learnt that it has been seen on the coasts of 

 Europe. I killed one, that had probably strayed, near the 

 Azores "; and this appears to be the first printed notice of 

 the occurrence of Wilson's Petrel on the European side of 

 the Atlantic. 



Some years ago the Author saw two skins of this species 

 which had been taken by the captain of a ship, while sailing 

 up the British Channel. The muscles about the wings of 

 these specimens, when closely examined, proved to be still 

 soft and moist, and he was told that these two birds had 

 been caught by the captain himself, from the stern of the 

 ship, with a baited hook at the end of a long slender line of 

 thread. These are the specimens referred to by the Eev. 

 L. Jenyns, in his British Vertebrata. Subsequently the late 

 Mr. Gould stated (P. Z. S. 1839, p. 139), that on his voyage 

 to Australia in May, 1838, he saw Wilson's Petrel in abun- 

 dance immediately off the Land's End, and it continued to 

 accompany the ship throughout the Bay of Biscay, the little 

 Storm Petrel being also seen, but in far less numbers. In 

 November of the same year, 1838, a specimen of Wilson's 

 Petrel was found dead in a field near Polperro, in Cornwall, 

 and a record of the occurrence was published in the second 

 volume of the Annals of Natural History, by Mr. Couch, 

 who very kindly sent the bird, when preserved, to the 

 Author, that a drawing might be taken from it as a British 

 specimen. In the spring of 1839, Mr. Charles Buxton, of 

 Norfolk, sent notice of one said to have been obtained in 

 that county, and Mr. J. H. Gurney has another, purchased 

 some years ago; but Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., writes that he 

 is doubtful as to either of them being really British-killed. 

 The Author was informed of the occurrence of another by 

 the late Mr. T. C. Heysham, of Carlisle; and Mr. F. Bond 

 records one killed in Sussex (Zool. 1843, p. 148). The 



VOL. IV. H 



