•5 I A General Notes. I July 



two eggs each, and four with three eggs each were observed. The above 

 is the earliest date of arrival of the birds of which I have any knowledge. 

 This island has now been posted, and the Terns are likely to have better 

 protection than ever before. — George H. Mackay, Nantucket, Mass. 



Onychoprion, not Haliplana. — As I have remarked before (Pr. Philada. 

 Acad., 1862, p. 555), " Wagler's Onychoprion is based upon the S\terna'\, 

 serrata of Forster ; while his Haliplana has as type S. fiiligittosa, Gm. 

 The former of these species ... is in all probability identical with 

 fuliginosa, and is at all events strictly congeneric with it. This being 

 the case, perhaps Onychoprion ought to be emploj^ed for the genus; as 

 it is instituted several pages in advance of Haliplana " in Isis, 1832. I 

 now find the case to be exactly as I surmised 35 years ago. The synonymy 

 of the Sooty Tern section of Sterna, so far as Wagler is concerned, is : 

 Onychoprion, Isis, 1832, p. 277, ty^&serrata Forst., ^fuliginosa ; Planetis, 

 Isis, 1832, p. 1222, type guttata Y orst., ^fuliginosa ; Haliplana, Isis, 

 1832, p. i22jf, ty^e fuliginosa. All three names are thus based on one 

 species, and all bear the same ostensible date; but of actual priority of 

 Onychoprion there is no question, as reference to the dates of parts 

 of Isis for 1832 shows. 



The specific name of another bird of the subgenus Onychoprion must 

 be changed from the misspelling '^ aticethctus'' of our Check-List, for we 

 have absurdly adopted a mere misprint, besides failing to observe gram- 

 matical gender. Our rules allow us the privilege of correcting a typo- 

 graphical error, as dropping of the 5 in this case certainly is ; and though 

 Sterna was once of common gender, it is feminine now, both by analogy 

 of form and by common consent. The full form of the word would be 

 ancesthetica, as in my ' Key,' etc. ; but lest I be accused of wanton ' purism,' 

 I will compound that felony by accepting ancestheta, (Gr. dvaisOriTOS, 

 stolid, unfeeling, apathetic). 



Our mistake regarding Onychoprion is counterbalanced by a reverse 

 error. Having ignored actual priority in this case, we turn around and 

 bestow a fictitious priority upon Sterna tschegrava Lepechin, to avoid 

 using the established name 6". caspia. These two names are ostensibly 

 of same date, 1770, in same part of same volume of the publication in 

 which they both appear; and there is no evidence that the 82 pages 

 concerned (p. 500 to p. 582) make a difference of a day or an hour in 

 actual date of publication. Why then drop caspia for tschegrava, except 

 to show how great we can be in little things.^ I shall continue to use 

 caspia ; and so will all other ornithologists, when the flurry and hun-y 

 and worry of our Check-List is over. — Elliott Coues, Washington, D. C. 



Remarks on certain Procellariidae. — On reviewing these objects of my 

 early solicitude (1S64-66), chiefly in the light of Salvia's recent admirable 

 Monograph, I observe that a number of classificator}' and nomenclatural 

 changes are required in the A. O. U. List, besides those which the Com- 

 mittee adopted in ' The Auk ' of last January, or then deferred. 



