562 PROF. NEWTON ON BTJLWERIA COLXJMBINA. [NoV. 15, 



posed by the B. A. Committee would result in the exclusion of St. 

 Kilda. 



We recognize the value of the criticism that it is often difficult or 

 inconvenient for a dredger to know whether he is more or less than 

 three miles from shore, and we see clearly that to the north and west 

 of our shores the 1 00-fathom limit has advantages over the three-miles 

 limit ; if it be taken cum grano salts, that is so as to include St. 

 Kilda, it will doubtless be found preferable to the political boundary 

 in the Irish and Scotch Seas. If it be retorted on us that in taking 

 a different limit for different parts of the area we reflect on the 

 principles which we ourselves propose to use, we answer, not that we 

 are affected by the present rage for inconsistency, but that, recog- 

 nizing and insisting on the artificial nature of the area, howsoever 

 defined, we would try so to bound it as to give the greatest satis- 

 faction to the largest number of collectors. 



Prof. Newton, V.P. (on behalf of Mr. William Eagle Clarke), 

 exhibited a stuffed specimen of Bulwer's Petrel (Bulweria colum- 

 bina), remarking : — 



" Some doubt having, it seems, been expressed as to the occurrence 

 of Bulwer's Petrel in this country, which was announced by Gould in 

 the concluding part of liis ' Birds of Europe,' published on the 1st of 

 August, 1837, Mr. William Eagle Clarke, Curator of the Museum 

 of the Philosophical and Literary Society at Leeds, determined to 

 investigate the facts ; and as his search for the specimen in question 

 has been successful, I have great pleasure in exhibiting it to you, on 

 his behalf, to-night. I have the greater pleasure in doing this as, 

 but for his perseverance and that of a local naturalist, Mr. James 

 Carter, of Burton House, Masham, the specimen would probably have 

 been for ever lost sight of, whereas we may now hope that it will find 

 a permanently safe abode. Gould's statement was that the specimen 

 having been found dead on the banks of the Ure, near Tanfield in 

 Yorkshire, on the 8th of May, 1837, was brought to Captain 

 Dalton, of Slenningford near Ripon, a gentleman, as I learn, who had 

 succeeded to a collection of stuffed birds begun by his father. The 

 father was Colonel Dalton, who, curiously enough, had sent Bewick 

 the specimen of the Common Stormy Petrel (also found dead in that 

 neighbourhood) from which the figure aud description in his well- 

 known work was taken (British Birds, ed. 1, ii. pp. 249-251). At 

 the end of last May, Mr. W. E. Clarke appHed to Mr. Carter, and 

 the first result of the latter's inquiry was to find that the Dalton 

 collection had been dispersed by sale just a week before. Fortunately 

 all the cases of stuffed birds had been bought by persons living in 

 Ripon ; and, having obtained their names from the auctioneer, Mr. 

 Carter, after many failures and some loss of time, discovered in the 

 possession of Mr. Jacobs, the Head-master of the Choir-School in 

 that city, the case and the specimen before you, labelled ' Procellaria 

 bulwei-ii,' which he had bought with others at the Dalton sale. 

 Beyond this fact, however, there was no note or anything to identify 

 the specimen with the object of the search, Mr. Carter thereupon 



