Letters, Extracts, Notices^ S^c. 469 



'Check-list of N. Am. Bds./ 1886, by Cabanis's Ceophloaus? 

 The answer is uot far to seek_, and those who have used 

 Baird's title for nearly thirty years without having discovered 

 that it was preoccupied, cannot consistently view my case as 

 a specially lamentable one. It seems to me that the saddle 

 fits equally well the other horse, and I think it rather hard 

 that a vessel hailing from a foreign port should be liable 

 to a penalty, and that one^s own ship, which itself cannot 

 show a clean " bill of health/' should be exempt. 



I am, yours &c., 



Edward Hargitt. 



Natural History Museum, S.W. 



Sir, — I wish to correct t\TO mistakes which, siuce the pub- 

 lication of my " Notes on some Birds obtained at Madeira, 

 Deserta Grande, and Porto Santo " (Ibis, 1890, pp. 438-445), 

 have come to my notice. 



In the first place, by an unfortunate accident, the name 

 Crithagra butyracea is given in both the lists of Madeira and 

 Deserta Grande birds to the Common Canary. This is, of 

 course, quite a mistake, as this name refers to the Cape 

 Canary, and I should have written Crithagra canaria, or, as 

 Dr. Sharpe calls it, Serinus canaria. The error arose through 

 my following the nomenclature given in Mr. Harcourt's 

 ' List,' which was all that I had to go by during my stay on 

 the island. 



Secondly, my attention has recently been called by Mr, 

 Salvin to the probability that the small Shearwaters I got at 

 Deserta Grande and the Lime Island, Porto Santo, and 

 called Puffinus obscurus, are really of two species. On exa- 

 mining my specimens more carefully a second time, I find 

 this is a fact, and an exceedingly interesting one ; the Porto 

 Santo birds only are P. ohscurus, while those from Deserta 

 Grande are P. assimilis, Gould, originally described (P. Z. S. 

 1837, p. 156) from New South Wales. 



In the Gould Collection there is an old specimen of P. 

 assimilis said to have come from Madeira, but no one seems 

 to have trusted the locality. No doubt this discovery accounts 



