Order TUBINARES. 



THE TUBE-NOSED SWIMMERS. 



V 



Char. Swimming birds with tubular nostrils, the horny covering of the 1)111 

 consisting of several distinct pieces, separated by more or less marked grooves. 

 Terminal portion of maxilla produced into a strongly hooked unguis. Feet fully 

 webbed, anteriorly. Hallux rudimentary, consisting of an elevated sessile, often 

 minute, claw, someiimes wholly absent. Wings usually very long. Basipterygoids 

 usually absent ? Egg single, white. 



The number of families into which the Order Tubinares is properly divisible i.s an 

 unsettled cpiestion. In a "Report on the Anatomy of the ]*etrels (I'libiiKtrex)," 

 which forms the leading article of Vol. IV. of the Zoological Reports of H.JI.S. 

 " Cliallenger," the late Professor W. A. Forbes divides the Tubinares into two fiiiiii- 

 lies as follows : (1) ProceUariuld; including as sub-families rrocclhiribw and Dlomc- 

 deinw ; and (2) Oeeanit'ulw, composed of the genera Fregetta, I'clugodvomd, (kennltiK, 

 and Garroilia. According to this arrangement, the Albatrosses are held to be niucli 

 more nearly related to the genera Procellaria, Ci/mochorea, and Ilnlori/ptena than aii; 

 Ocennites and the other Oceanituliv^ — a proposition which, notwithstanding tliu 

 reasons advanced," we are not p'-c pared to accept. 



The arrangement we have to propose is not supposed to be a perfectly natural one, 

 but there can be no question as to the naturalness of the groups defined below : — 



1. DiomedeidaB. Wiii^;s very l.^iig and narrow, on nccount of the extreme doveloiiment nf 



tlie humerus and uhia. Remiijes 39-50 (llie hirgest number in any known bird). Nasil 

 tubes lateral, widely and completely sepamted by the intervening " culminieorii." No 

 hind toe. Size very large. 



2. ProcellariidaB. Wings lengthenetl, but of different structure from the preceding (rcnii},'i'3 



20-39, usually about 30). Nasal tubes near together, Laid side by side Ujion the nil- 

 nien, the nostrils opening anteriorly. Hind toe present, though eoiuetimes minute. !^i/u 

 extremely variable. 



• ". . . In spite of the gcneml smxjrficinl rcseniblance of the OtTrtiu'/Wfc to the smaller forms of /'/V"'/- 

 lariidcc, with which nil ornithologists previous toCiurrod had confounded tlicm, the difTorcnccs bptwicii iln' 

 two fniiiilics are, it will lie seen, inimcrous and important. The special jioints of rcscinlilancc whiili iIm' 

 Oecanilidm have with such ProccUarian genera as Pntccl/nrld and Viiiimchirca — such as the general mii ill 

 size, stj'lo of coloration, form of skull, comparative simplicity of the tensor pftlmjii airaugcmcut, siini'lc 

 sternum and syrinx (tlio lust three peculiarities being also common to Pclccanoidcn) — may Iw^t I'O 

 explained by supiwsing that these small ProccUarian forms arc on tlio whole less specialized tliiiii il»' 

 largi'roncs (Fulmars, Albatrosses, .Shearwaters, etc.), and so retain more of the characters j)Ossc>n'iI ly 

 the primitive ami now extinct connnon form from which both the Pruailariidw and Occanilidtr must 

 have l)een derived" (Fouiiics, t. c p. 50). 



* " Accoi-ding to modem ideas, the object of a classification is not so much to represent moritholofjiral 

 fiw.t» 08 to indicate the phylogeuctio relations of tlio diifurcnt forms concerned" (FouBEs, t. c. p. 68). 



