364 ON THE PETRELS COLLECTED DURING 



The group of PETRELS is one that has till the present been hardly at all 

 examined anatomically, as but few species inhabit the European seas, and 

 even these, on account of their peculiar habits, are rarely to be obtained in 

 the flesh, either in a living or dead state. The majority of the group, 

 inhabiting the little- visited oceans and islands of the Southern Hemi- 

 sphere, have been known simply from skins or skeletons, the great size of 

 many of them rendering bringing their bodies home in spirit impracticable 

 to any ordinary collector. Nor have we as yet succeeded in obtaining or 

 keeping any in a living state, except on one or two rare occasions. 



When therefore H.M.S. * Challenger ' was starting on her voyage of 

 Zool Chall. circumnavigation it seemed that an excellent opportunity would be 

 Exp. vol. iv. afforded for obtaining material to fill up the blank that thus existed in 

 pt. p. . our k now j e( jg e o f the Petrels. At the suggestion of my lamented prede- 

 cessor Prof. A. H. Garrod, at that time Prosector to the Zoological 

 Society, the naturalist staff was requested to pay special attention to 

 forming a collection of these oceanic birds in spirit, so as to be available for 

 anatomical examination. The result was a very considerable collection 

 indeed of the birds in question, all excellently preserved, and including 

 nearly all the most important and interesting of the known genera. 

 These were handed over, when the collections were being broken up for 

 working out, to Professor Garrod for examination. Unfortunately he 

 had hardly commenced to work seriously on them before he was struck 

 down by the lingering illness which eventually proved fatal to him. 

 During that time, whenever well enough to do so, he continued to work 

 away at his favourite subject, and many of his drawings made then, 

 chiefly relating to the conformation of the syrinx in these birds, are now 

 before me. An unfinished MS. paper of his written about that time, 

 treating on the anatomy of the Diving Petrel (Pelecano'ides) a form the 

 Procellarian affinities of which were then doubtful was sufficiently com- 

 plete and important to justify, in the writer's opinion, its publication in 

 the reprint of Professor Garrod's papers which has since been edited by 

 him. 



Succeeding to Professor Garrod's position at the Zoological Gardens 

 early in 1880, I applied immediately to the late Professor Sir Wyville 

 Thomson to be allowed to retain so much of the material collected by the 

 * Challenger ' as was likely to prove of service to me in my researches 

 on the anatomy of birds, and I especially asked to be allowed to retain 

 the collection of Petrels, with the object of drawing up a report thereon 

 for the present series of papers. I must take this opportunity to record 

 my best thanks to Sir Wyville Thomson for the very ready way in which 

 he acceded to both my requests. Having commenced work on the speci- 

 mens of Petrels collected by the ' Challenger ' it seemed desirable to make 

 my report on the structure of that group as perfect and complete as 

 possible, and during the past two years I have therefore taken every 



