The Zoologist — August, 1870. 2245 



Extracts from a Memoir intituled 'A Monograph of the Alcidae.' 

 By Elliott Coues, A.M., M.D. 



(Continued from S. S. 2-214). 



Simorhynchus pusillus (Pallas), Coues. — Habitat: Asiatic and 

 American coasts of the North Pacific. Kamtschatka (Pallas). Semi- 

 avine Straits (Mus. Smiths. Inst.) N. W. coast of America (Mas. 

 Smiths. Inst.) Sitka, Russian Amer. (Mus. Pays-Bas, teste Schlegel). 

 lu size the least of its genus, and the smallest known natatorial 

 bird. Length (approximately correct) 5*50 inches ; extent of wings 



, wing from carpus to end of first primary 350; tail MO; tarsus 



•75; middle toe and claw MO; outer toe and claw I'OO; inner toe 

 and claw '85; bill along culmen -40; along rictus '65; along gonys 

 •30 ; height at base "20 ; width at same point the same or slightly less. 

 (Compare these measurements, particularly of the bill, with those of 

 S. microceros). 



With the usual form of the genus, except as to the bill, the shape 

 of which is specific. Bill without tubercles, or other irregularities of 

 contour; straight, comparatively slender, compressed; height at base 

 much less than length along culmen ; width at base the same, or rather 

 less than, height at same point; the apex more acute than that of 

 microceros; the outline of culmen at first straight, then slightly 

 convexo-declinate ; commissure almost straight, a little ascending 

 anteriorly, still not sinuous in any part of its length ; gonys lengthened, 

 at first convex in outline, then rapidly ascending in a straight line. 

 Nasal fossa large, extending along the basal moiety of the bill, 

 reaching from the culmen nearly to the tomia; not deeply excavated; 

 nostrils small, narrow, linear, one-eighth of an inch long, basal, lying 

 just above the commissural edge of the upper mandible. Frontal 

 feathers running forward some distance in a rather narrow angle on 

 the culmen, retreating very rapidly obliquely backwards and down- 

 wards on the sides of the upper mandible ; extending on sides of the 

 lower mandible a little further than on upper. (It is to be gathered 

 from this description, more particulariy, that the bill of pusillus, 

 compared with that of microceros, is fully as long, but slenderer, more 

 acute at the tip, less convex along culmen and gonys, more compressed 

 in its whole extent, and non-tuberculate ) 



Adult. — Entire under parts pure white; entire upper parts pure 

 black, only relieved as follows :— The humeral and scapular feathers 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. V. 2 Q 



