162 MR. H. SAUNDERS ON THK SEA-BIRDS [Mar. 2, 



Sea-birds procured by Lord Lindsay's party during the voyage to 

 Mauritius to observe the Transit of Venus ; and as he also informed 

 me that an accurate register had been kept of the date and the lati- 

 tude and longitude of each capture, I gladly accepted the task of 

 identifying the species and preparing a list of them. The collection 

 proved to consist of eighteen species, most of them belonging to the 

 Procellariidse ; but of these several are uncommon and little-known 

 forms. Others are more familiar species ; but no specimens can 

 well be considered superfluous in assisting to determine the validity 

 of some of the reputed species in this difficult group, which has 

 lately been taken up by Mr. Osbert Salvin, to whom I am in several 

 cases indebted for valuable assistance. 



Unusual care appears to have been taken in forming this collection, 

 each specimen being numbered and entered under a corresponding 

 number in a register kept by Dr. J. Galley Blackley, with particu- 

 lars of date, latitude and longitude of the ship at noon, temperature 

 of the air and of the water, &c. Dr. Copeland's journal has also 

 supplied some other particulars, which I have quoted verbatim. 

 The above details are of considerable value, as they furnish a record 

 of the degrees of latitude where these oceanic species are first met 

 with ; and if similar registers were kept by other ships, and the 

 specimens obtained were brought back for identification, we should 

 in time arrive at some definite knowledge of the range of these 

 pelagic wanderers. Allusions to the occurrence of the first Albatros, 

 " Mollymawk," " Cape Hen," " Cape Pigeon," &c. are, indeed, not 

 wanting in voyages ; but there are few records similar to the present 

 in which registration has been followed by identification in the case, 

 of so large a number of species. 



The 'Venus' left Plymouth in October 1874, and the first 

 species on the list was obtained off Trinidad (not to be confounded 

 with our large West-Indian possession), a small island about six 

 miles in circumference, situated in the South Atlantic Ocean in 

 lat. 20° 23' S., and long. 29° 43' W. This rugged rock, with pre- 

 cipitous cliffs, scanty and irregular water supply, and deficient in 

 timber beyond mere brushwood, was originally taken possession of 

 for Great Britain by Captain E. Halley, of the ' Paramore ' (after- 

 wards Dr. Halley, Astronomer Royal), in 1/00, and in 1781 was 

 occupied for about two months ; since which the most important 

 visits have been those of the French corvette ' La Coquille ' in 1822, 

 when the island was surveyed, and that of the Italian corvette 

 'Magenta' in 1868, when two species of Petrel were obtained and 

 described as new. Dr. E. H. Giglioli then recorded for the first 

 time the occurrence in that island of the beautiful snow-white and 

 highly specialized form of Tern Gygis Candida, of which there is one 

 specimen in the present collection. I gather from the scanty mate- 

 rial at my disposal that some of Lord Lindsay's party landed on 

 this island, which is difficult of access owing to its being surrounded 

 by coral reef, although the island itself belongs to the same forma- 

 tion as the coast about Rio Janeiro ; and the paucity of notes on the 

 species observed is therefore the more to be regretted. To make 



