CHECK LIST OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 125 



810. Diomedea brachyura Teinm. B 631. c 578. R 701. 



Short-tailed Albatross. 



811. Diomedea nigripes Aud. B . c 579. R 700. 



Black-footed Albatross. 



812. Phcebetria fuliginosa (Gm.) Coues. B 633. c 580. R 703. 



Sooty Albatross. 



813. Ossifraga gigantea (Gm.) Reich. B 634. c 581. R 704. (!) 



Giant Fulmar. 



814. Fulmarus glacialis (L.) Steph. B 635. c 582. R 705. 



Fulmar. 



815. Fulmarus glacialis pacificus (And.) Coues. B 636. c 5S2. R 705a. (?) 



Pacific Fulmar. 



816. Fulmarus glacialis rodgersi (Cass.) Coues. B .05826. R 7056. (?) 



Rodgers's Fulmar. 



817. Priocella tenuirostris (Aud.) Ridg. B 637. c 583. R 706. (!) 



Slender-billed Fulmar. 



810. Dl-S-me-de'-a brach-y-u'-rS. Lat. Diomedeus, adjective relating to Diomedes or Atoju^5>js, 



Jove-counselled, a Grecian hero famous at the siege of Troy : application probably 

 fanciful. Pliny's Diomedeaz aces were birds living on the Island Diomedea in the 

 Adriatic. Gr. Ppaxvs, short, and ovpa, tail. 



811. D. nlg'-rl-pes. Lat. niger, black, andpes, foot. 



812. Phoe-be'-tri-a fu-li-gin-6'-sa. Gr. <poi/3^rpia, a prophetess, soothsayer, like 0oij8a<rrpia, 



Pkoebastria, another genus of this family invented by Reichenbach ; 4>oi/3aw is to 

 prophesy; literally, to "play Apollo" with oracular utterances; *o?/3os, Phoebus, a 

 Bynonym of Apollo. These words are with great propriety and correct sentiment 

 applied to albatrosses, the import of whose weird presaging will be felt by one who reads 

 Coleridge's " Antient Mariner," or himself goes down the deep in ships. 



813. Os-si'-fra-ga gi-gan'-tg-a. Lat. ossffragus, bone-breaking, from os, genitive ossis, a bone, 



and frango, I break; in the perfect, fregi, participle fractus: three forms of the word 

 repeated in English in. frangible, fragile, fracture: the Latin digammated from Gr. pyyvvm ; 

 the stem here seen giving an immense crop of words. Lat. giganteus, gigantic, giant ; 

 the original " giants," gigantes, riyavres, were a race of Titans, who attempted to scale 

 high heaven; they were the sons of Tartarus and Earth; but, being probably illegiti- 

 mate, took the name of their mother ; " gigantic " meaning literally " earth-born," 

 yyyevfis ; yrt, and ylyvop.ai. 



Only North American as astray on the high sea. 



814. Ful'-ma-rus gla-d-aMis. Fulmarus is arbitrary Latinization of fulmar, which is said to be 



akin to full 'mart, foulmart, or foumart, a polecat ; probably from foul (dirty), and the root 

 of the word murder ( Wharton's MS.). Glacialis, see Harelda, No. 728. 



815. F. g. pa-cl'-fl-cus. See Anorthura, No. 77. 



816. F. g. rSd'-ggr-si. To Commodore John Rodgers, U. S. Navy. 



817. Pri-6-cel'-la t6n-u-T-ros'-tris. Priocella we do not recognize, unless, perhaps, it is a 



frightful concatenation of Prion and Procellaria, two well-known genera of this family. 

 French ornithologists were frequentlj' guilty of such atrocities ; see Embernagra, No. 311, 

 for example. Agassiz gives it as Prion and Procella. Prion is the Gr. irpiuv, a saw, from 

 the prominent teeth of the bill; for Procellaria, see below. Lat. tenuirostris, slender- 



