The Zoologist — August, 1870, 2249 



assigned to the species so constituted. So long as they are regarded 

 as distinct, the name pygmaeus must not be applied to either of them. 

 As far as we can judge by the description, particularly the expression 

 "jugulo et pectore glaucis," pygmaea may not impossibly have been 

 based upon Ptychoramphus aleuticus. But Mr. Cassin's supposition 

 is perhaps as near the truth as any that could be advanced : " It is 

 possible that the pigmy auk of Pennant, which is Alca pygmaea, 

 Gmelin, may be the young of this species (microceros), but it is more 

 probable, judging from the descriptions of Gmelin and Latham, that 

 several small species have been confounded under this name." The 

 same gentleman also calls attention to the fact, that some of the 

 expressions in the diagnoses of the old authors have no basis in the 

 characters of any Alcidine bird. Under the circumstances, it 

 behoves us to ignore the name pygmaea altogether, since it cannot be 

 identified; and to accept pusillus of Pallas, to which no possibility of 

 doubt attaches, as the proper name of the present species. 



Genus Ptychorhamphus, Brandt. 

 Size moderate; general form stout; not crested, nor with any 

 elongated feathers about the head. Bill about two-thirds as long as 

 the head, three-fourths as long as the tarsus, very stout, straight, some- 

 what conical in shape, slightly if at all compressed, without nodes or 

 irregularities, the tip acute ; culraen very moderately declinato-convex 

 in outline, the ridge broad, more or less corrugated transversely at the 

 base; the sides of upper mandible bulging, the tomial edges inflected ; 

 sides of lower mandible nearly upright, flat, longitudinally grooved for 

 the greater part of their length, their tomial edges somewhat inflected ; 

 rictus straight ; gonys straight, or nearly so, very long. Nasal fossse 

 long and wide, shallow, filled in with soft skin ; that of the two fossae 

 meeting over the base of the culmen, and there corrugated as just 

 described; nostrils rather long, narrowly oval, subbasal, opening at 

 the lower border of the fossa;, the edge of the membrane that over- 

 hangs them elevated, flaring. Frontal feathers in a nearly transverse 

 line across the base of the culmen, thence descending a little obliquely 

 backwards, just behind the nostrils, to the commissure ; those on lower 

 mandible extending, in the interramal space (which they completely 

 fill), to a point rather beyond a perpendicular from those on culmen; 

 then, encroaching very little on the sides of the lower mandible, they 

 retreat in a straight line rapidly backwards and obliquely upwards. 

 Wings moderately long, narrow, pointed, the primaries somewhat 



