ON THALASSIDKOMA NEKEIS. 231 



arranged scutella *, the very minute hallux, and the lamellar, concave 

 form of the claws. It belongs, in fact, to the group of Oceanites, Fregetta, 

 and Pelagodroma, but is not exactly congeneric with any of them. I 

 propose therefore to make it the type of a new genus, to be called 

 Garrodia, in memory of my lamented friend A. H. G-arrod, not only as a 

 token of my personal esteem for, and indebtedness to him, but also as 

 some slight recognition of the thanks ornithologists generally owe him for 

 the additions he made to our knowledge of the anatomy of birds. 

 The genus Garrodia may be shortly defined as follows : 



GABBODIA. Genus ex ordine Tubinarium OCEANIT^ maxime affine, tarsis 

 pro diyitis longioribus et antice scutellatis, necnon margine sterni pos- 

 teriore integro distinguendum. 



Type Procellaria nereis, Grould. 



Garrodia is perhaps most closely allied to Oceanites, as already stated, 

 but differs from that genus in having the tarso-metatarsi covered anteriorly 

 with a series of transverse scutella instead of being " entire," in their 

 slightly greater proportional length as compared with the third toe t, in 

 the even more minute hallux, and in the more flattened and lamellar 

 form of the claws. The sternum too is posteriorly entire, whereas in 

 Oceanites oceanicus it is slightly notched. The coloration of the two 

 genera is also quite different. From Fregetta, Garrodia may be easily 

 distinguished by the very different proportions and forms of the nails 

 and feet in that genus, and from Pelagodroma by its much shorter feet 

 and entire tail. 



These four genera Oceanites, Garrodia, Pelagodroma, and Fregetta ^' Z ' 

 form a very well-marked family of the Tubinares, which may be called 

 Oceanitidae, as distinguished from the remainder of the group, or 

 Fulmaridae of Prof. Garrod. Anatomically, these four genera agree 

 together, and differ from the Fulmaridse (on nearly all the genera of 

 which, including Diomedea and Puffinuria, I have notes), in the two 

 important characters already mentioned the absence of caeca and the 

 presence of the accessory semitendinosus muscle. Externally they may 

 be at once recognized by their peculiar elongated tarsi, lamellar nails, 

 and by nev naving more than -10 secondaries, Procellaria and Puffinuria 

 having 13, and the remaining Fulmaridae more (in Diomedea, according 

 to Nitzsch, as many as 40). My family Oceanitidae, in fact, corresponds 

 to Bonaparte's section " ** Unguibus depressis " of his Procellaridae J, and 

 toCoues's " second group'* of the similarly-named section in his ' Review ', 



* In Procellaria pelagica the tarsi are pretty uniformly covered with somewhat 

 irregular hexagonal scutes. 



t In a specimen of Oceanites oceanicus (in spirit) the middle toe measures 29 millim. 

 in one of Garrodia the length is 26 millim. The length of the inetatarse in both is 34 

 millim. J Consp. Av. ii. p. 197 (1857). 



Op. cit. p. 74, where characters for it are given. 



