176 RARE VISITANTS. 
believing it to be a valid species. But there can be 
little doubt that the name capistratus has been be- 
stowed upon a small specimen of L. ridibundus in a 
transitional or accidental state of plumage ; ef. Thomp- 
son, Nat. Hist. Irel. (Birds), vol. iii. pp. 334-340. 
Fam. PROCELLARID &. 
DUSKY SHEARWATER. Puffinus obscurus (Gmelin). 
Hab. West coast of Africa to Cape of Good Hope; rare in 
the Mediterranean. 
One, Valentia Harbour, co. Kerry, 11th May 1853: Yarrell, 
Hist. Brit. Birds, vol. ii. p. 659. In the collection of 
Mrs. Blackburn. 
One, Earsham, near Bungay, Suffolk, 10th April 1858: 
Stevenson, Zoologist, 1858, p. 6096. 
One taken alive, mouth of the Ouse, near Lynn, 26th July, 
1851: Southwell, Naturalist, 1851, p. 189. In the Lynn 
Museum. This is the young of P.major. J. H. Gurney, MS. 
A pair taken alive, Plymouth Sound, 11th Dec. 1852: Banker, 
Naturalist, 1853, p. 204. 
One, near Berry Head, South Devon, Feb. 1869: De Hugel, 
Zoologist, 1869, p. 1720. 
Obs. Under the head of Cinereous or Dusky Shear- 
water, certain birds of this genus have been recorded 
as above; but it is extremely doubtful whether they 
are all of one species, P. obscurus, Gmelin. On the 
contrary, I suspect that only the first on the list is 
of that species, and that the others are either the young 
of P. major (cf. antea, p. 79), perhaps in the plumage 
of the specimen described as fwliginosus by Strickland 
