SUBORDER PROCELLARIIFORMES. 15 
is present and the wing is aquincubital. The pterylosis is discontinuous, as is 
usual, and not specialised, the downy nestlings having very close down. 
On account of their great powers of flight not many fossil remains of Petrels 
have yet been recorded. Such a record as Diomedea anglica Lydekker from the 
London Clay can only be regarded with suspicion, as that author did not discriminate 
between the various forms of Diomedeoidea, and the fragment is rather indefinite. 
SusporDER PROCELLARIIFORMES. 
The suborder is coequal with the order, being divided into two superfamilies, 
the Procellarioidea and the Diomedeoidea, externally so different that no confusion 
is possible, while internally there is almost as much distinction. Alexander has 
recently given some notes on the Australian species advocating the admission of sight 
records by good observers and the limits of Australian Seas as reaching half-way to 
the next land. He has also lumped some generic forms in his essay. We have since 
had the opportunity of discussing some of the points with him personally, and he 
admitted that the matter was not so easy as he had previously concluded, and that 
sight records of all but the most easily recognisable forms might still be doubted. As 
to the lumping of genera, Garrodia proves to be more closely related to Fregetta than 
to Oceanites, while Fregettornis is the most distinct of the series. Again Halobena was 
included in Prion because he was not familiar with that form, and consequently he 
might correct that item. 
SUPERFAMILY PROCELLARIOIDEA. 
We divide this superfamily into three families: the first, of small birds with 
nostrils opening into a single tube, and legs with tarsal covering either reticulated, 
scutellate or booted ; the second, from medium to very large birds with the nostrils 
separated by a septum, and tarsal covering always reticulate; the third, small birds 
with nostrils separated by a septum but the openings horizontal, and legs with 
reticulate covering and no hind-toe ; in the two previous a hind-toe is present and 
the nasal openings are never horizontal. The technical name of the first family 
is in dispute, but their vernacular equivalent of Storm-Petrels is beyond all con- 
troversy. It is remarkable that such a compact little group superficially should 
have been disintegrated by the researches of anatomists, though had any ornitho- 
logist dared to suggest such a division there would have been more reason. At the 
present time some ornithologists, who have never studied the group carefully, dis- 
allow any separation in the order, which is mere nonsense. If the anatomists were 
correct in the valuation of the characters they deal with even more subdivision than 
we allow would be made by them. As a matter of fact there seems to be reason in 
still further subdividing the group. The Storm-Petrels are found more or less in 
all seas from the Arctic to Antarctic but are more rare in the tropics. Recently an 
Antarctic breeding form has been credited with a northward migration almost to the 
Arctic, though otherwise the species are not given to much wandering. In connection 
with the second subfamily, the Procellariidee, which includes the Fulmars and Shear- 
waters, erratic movements, which can scarcely be termed migrations as that term 
is commonly used, are common but certainly not at all known. The third family, 
the Pelecanoidide, lives only round the Sub-antarctic Circle and the south-west coast 
of South America, and may not be phylogenetically related at all closely to the 
preceding families, as both superficially and internally it is very different. 
Famity THALASSIDROMIDA, 
Storm-Petrels are the smallest forms of Procellariw, and all have the tubes 
opening on the top of the bill with superficially a single orifice, the tails square or 
