304 REMARKS ON THE GENUS SULA. 



The crops of both of the birds I dissected contained flying 

 fish, which seem to be the favorite food of Phaeton indicus also, 

 in whose company they are often met with. 



It still remains for me to draw attention to a bird that puz- 

 zles me altogether. It is a sea bird, aud occurs along the Mek- 

 ran Coast, but what it can be I have not a notion. Captaiu 

 Bishop knows it well, and says that the sailors call it the Whale 

 bird, as it usually arrives about the time that the large shoals 

 of whales appear. 



It is about the size, or perhaps rather larger, than Sterna 

 minuta, and Captain Bishop says : "Skims over the water some- 

 thing like Puffinus persicas." What can it be *? We did not 

 see the bird during our trip. — E. A. B. 



femavhs on tjje genus Jmta. 



My friend, Captain Butler, in his charming " Summer Cruise 

 in the Gulf of Oman" (p. 303), finds fault with Dr. Jerdon's de- 

 scription of Suia piscatriv, and suggests that I should furnish 

 accurate descriptions of the white Boobies ( ! ) 



I am afraid that in his condemnation of Dr. Jerdon's de- 

 scription, Captain Butler is scarcely just. It is quite true that 

 in one stage of plumage (that of the old adult as is supposed), 

 piscatrix has only the quills and larger coverts black (or rather 

 blackish brown powdered grey), but this is a stage presumably 

 rarely seen, and ignored by several of the authors who describe 

 the species,! and (always supposing two species have not been 

 confounded) at a somewhat earlier stage (and this seems to be the 

 stage in which the majority of adults of this species have been 

 procured), the tail as well as the quills are blackish brown, so that 

 we can hardly cavil at Dr. Jerdon's description in regard 

 to this matter. 



As to the colours of the soft parts a very slight study of the 

 literature of this genus would convince any one that, if there 

 be any one point in ornithology, in regard to which no two 

 authorities agree, it is in regard to the colouring of these parts 

 in many of the Boobies. 



* The Whale biid of sailors is a Prion ; there are several species of the turtur type, to 

 all of which this trivial name is applied. I saw several of these birds between Preparis 

 and the Cocos, S. F. II, 317. To what species the Mekran Coast birds may belong it is 

 impossible to say without examining specimens, and even ivith specimens, so 

 involved is the synonymy, it might prove no easy task to decide what name the 

 species ought to bear. — A. O. H. 



f Peale named the old adult (unless indeed two species are here confounded) rubri- 

 p'eda, saying (Zool. U. S. Expl. Exp. Birds, 274, 1st Ed. 1848)—'' tail cuneiform, white 

 (which distinguishes it from S. piscatrix at first siglit, its tail being black.) " 



