NOTES ON A THIRD COLLECTION OF BIRDS MADE IN KAUAI, 

 HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, BY VALDEMAR KNUDSEN. 



BY 



Leonhard Stejneger, 

 Curator of the Department of Reptiles and Batrachians. 



A new collection of birds just received from Mr. Valdemar Knudsen 

 in Kauai, Hawaiian Islands, is in many respects as interesting as any 

 of those previously sent, and deserves more than a passing notice. 



Puffinus cuneatus Salvin. 

 Kmulsen's Shearwater. Nau Kane. 



1888.— Puffinus cuneatus Salvin, Ibis, 1888 (July 1), p. 353. 



1888.— Puffinus knudseni Stejnkger, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus.. XI, 1888 (Nov. 8.), p. 93. 



The additional four specimens received from Mr. Knudsen do away 

 with those differences which I imagined to exist between the Hawaiian 

 Islands bird and the description of Salvin's P. cuneatus published only a 

 few months before my own, and as the name given by him consequently 

 has the priority, P. knudseni becomes a synonym of the former. 



Three of these specimens (Nos. 116764-1167G0) agree closely with the 

 type, except that the sides of throat and neck are distinctly mottled 

 with grayish. 



The fourth specimen (No. 116767), although agreeing with the others 

 in dimensions and coloration above, differs considerably in having the 

 whole under surface, including under wing-coverts, of a uniform brown- 

 ish slate gray (very much like Eidgway's " mouse gray," Nom. Col., pi. 

 ii, fig. 11), only slightly paler on middle of chin and throat, and some- 

 what darker on flanks and under tail-coverts. 



Coming, as it does, from the same locality, and agreeing with the 

 others minutely in every other respect, I feel but little hesitation in pro- 

 nouncing this uniformly colored specimen the dark " phase" of the typ- 

 ical bird with the white under side. In fact the two birds seem to bear 

 the same relations to each other as the dark and the light specimens of 

 P. sphenurus figured by Gould. He takes the latter to be the young 

 bird, but there seems to be no good reason for believing that the differ- 

 ence is one attributable to age. 



Proceedings National Museum, Vol. XII— No. 778. 



377 



