856 Transactions.— Zoology. 
erepidatus; and he expressly states that the shafts of the primaries are 
white, the characteristic which particularly serves to distinguish it from 
Buffon’s Skua, with which he has identified it, At the time that I 
examined the specimen in question, I was not aware of this distinctive 
feature; the skin, also, had been badly preserved; and, to make matters 
worse, the plumage was so worn and abraded that it is a marvel that the 
bird was able to fly at all.” 
Mr. Saunders has evidently, in this case, trusted more to his memory 
than to the notes which, we may assume, he would make on examining a 
novel specimen—one which, in fact, he took to be a ** a new and hitherto 
undescribed species.” It will be seen, at a glance, that the specimen now 
before the meeting (which passed through Mr. Saunders’ hands in the 
same condition) instead of being a “ badly prepared skin ” is a first-class 
cabinet specimen, and that, instead of having “the plumage so worn and 
abraded as to make it a marvel that the bird could fly at all,” the wings are 
in perfect plumage, the only abraded feathers being about the head and 
neck, which could not well affect the flying capabilities of the bird. 
It would almost seem that Mr. Saunders has not the courage of his 
opinion, although, as it turns out, his first expressed conviction on seeing 
my specimen is not unlikely to prove the true one after all. 
Of Stercorarius crepidatus Mr. Saunders says:—' Dr. Coues follows 
those authors who have chosen to divert Linneus’s name of L. parasiticus 
to this species—-a supposition utterly negatived by the description in the 
Syst. Nat., p. 226, which is based upon that in his ‘ Fauna Suecica,’ p. 55, 
No. 150. Nothing could well be clearer than this statement :—‘Rectricibus . 
duabus intermediis longissimis, which can only apply to Buffon’s or the 
Long-tailed Skua; but, as if to make assurance doubly sure, Linnæus adds 
*remiges nigre, rachi 1. 2. nivea’? The natural inference, from drawing 
especial attention to the fact that the shafts of the first and second primaries 
are white, is clearly that those of the other primaries are not white. Now 
the particular characteristic by which Richardson’s Skua may be dis- 
tinguished, at any age beyond that of the nestling, is that the shafts of the 
other primaries are conspicuously lighter than in those of Buffon’s Skua, in 
which only those of the first and second primaries are white, those of the 
third and successive primaries being dark. I am indebted to Mr. R. 
Collett, of Christiania, for pointing ont to me, some years since, this 
excellent distinction. The Lestris parasiticus of Linneus is therefore not S. 
erepidatus, but the Buffon’s Skua; and so is, according to my view, 
Catharacta parasiticus of Brünnich, but it is needless to discuss the latter 
name as it is out of date.” 
If Mr, Saunders is right in making this character of the shafts a specific 
