The Zoologist — June, 1870. 2159 



often as might be expected. Tt seems to be decidedly boreal in 

 habitat, and is not recorded, on the American coast, so far south as 

 the United States, though occurring at Sitka, R. A., and probably off 

 the coast of British Colombia. 



Simorhynchus crislatellns (Pall.), Merrem. — Habitat: Asiatic and 

 American coasts and islands of the North Pacific, to Behring's 

 Straits; perhaps into the Arctic Ocean. Kamtschatka and Belning's 

 Straits (Mus. Acad. Philad.), Japan, and north-west coast of America 

 (Mus. Smiths. Tnst.). Not known to occur on the American coast so 

 far south as Washington Territory, U. S. 



Bill surpassing that of all other species of the genus in the extent 

 and diversity of the irregularities of its surface and contour; these 

 irregularities chiefly centred in the base and commissural edo-es, and 

 produced by the addition of a supernuermary corneous element to the 

 base of the upper mandible just at the angle of the rictus, as well as 

 the expansion and projection upwards and outwards of the sides of 

 the lower mandible towards and at its base. Bill, except in the length 

 of its unfeathered commissure, rather short and wide, the leno^th of 

 culmen scarcely surpassing the width of bill at its base. Upper 

 mandible with the culmen short and regularly very convex from base 

 to tip, which latter is rather acute, and slightly overhangs the lower 

 mandible ; its toraial edge extremely sinuate and irregular, lightly 

 notched just behind the tip, at the base widened and somewhat 

 everted, for the reception of the cutting edge of the lower mandible ; 

 lower mandible not nearly so deep as the upper, somewhat asceudino- 

 towards the tip, which latter is slender and acute ; the gonys short 

 perfectly straight, moderately ascending, the sides of the lower 

 mandible elongated, everted, their tomial edge elevated and dilated at 

 the base, posteriorly corresponding in contour to the antero-inferior 

 outline of the supernumerary piece. The latter is a subcircular or sub- 

 quadrate corneous plate, slightly concavo-convex, wedged in between 

 the bases of the tomial edges of the two mandibles, and forming the 

 angle of the rictus ; in colour and texture it resembles the rest of the 

 bill, of which it is a true component element. Nasal fossse small and 

 inconspicuous, not deeply furrowed, tilled in by corneous substance 

 like the rest of the upper mandible ; the nostrils small, short, linear- 

 oblong, placed close by the tomial edge of the mandible, overhung by 

 an arched and much dilated corneous scale. Feathers extendino- on 

 culmen to a point opposite the angle of the gonys, thence descending 

 perpendicularly along the sides of the bill, just past but not touching 



