484 Mr. D. A. Banuerman on the Distribution of 



Iherminieri and by allied forms in various localities in the 

 Pacific and perhaps also in the Indian Ocean. 



The Shearwater inhabiting the Cape Verde Islands has 

 generally been united with the form inhabiting the other 

 islands of the North-East Atlantic, which is now known as 

 Pvjffinus assimilis baroli Bonap. Boyd Alexander, who ob- 

 tained a fine series in the Cape Verde Group, considered them 

 intermediate between Pvffinus assimilis assimilis Gould and 

 Puffinus obscurus obscurus (Gm.), but although he pointed 

 out the existing differences, he finally united his birds with 

 Pu-ffinus a. assimilis, which was the name then used for the 

 form inhabiting the Madeira and Great Salvage Groups. 

 The following year the same problem was tackled by Salva- 

 dori, who rightly came to the conclusion that the species 

 could not possibly be referred to Puffinus assimilis assimilis. 

 He considei'ed, however_, that the Cape Verde Dusky Shear- 

 water should be assigned either to Puffinus auduboni Finsch 

 ( = P. /. Iherminieri Lesson), or to Piffinus tenebrosus Pelz., 

 and inclined to the belief that the description of the latter 

 species exactly fitted the bird from the Cape Verdes. In 

 thinking that this Cape Verde race might be P. auduboni he 

 came very near the mark. Recently, Messrs. Mathews and 

 Iredale have gone into the question again, and the former 

 has expressed his opinions in the 'Birds of Australia' and 

 has named the Cape Verde bird Puffinus Iherminieri boydi, 

 considering it to be a subspecies of Puffinus Ihei'minieri 

 Iherminieri Lesson. In this I absolutely concur. The 

 P. lherminie7^i-^YO\\]i is characterised mainly by having the 

 upper parts of a distinct brown shade (as opposed to the slaty- 

 blue back of the P. assimilis-gYou^\ by the comparatively 

 longer bill and much longer wing, by the under tail-coverts 

 being mostly dark, and by the dark inner webs to the 

 primary quills. A comparison of P. Iherminieri boydi with 

 P. assimilis baroli will fully bear out these remarks ; there is 

 little to choose in the length of the bill in these two parti- 

 cular subspecies with Avhich we are dealing, although this 

 character is said to hold good throughout the other members 

 of the group. 



