No. 1.] THE AUSTRAL AVIAN RECORD 21 



of the bird on the invoice. The invoice was kindly 

 shown me by Dr. Sassi, where the bird was numbered 10 

 and called Puffinus brevicaudus by Brandt. 



The second label has the name printed at the top and 

 the place printed at the bottom, and the words " Puffinus 

 brevicaudus New HoU." written in by Brandt himself. 

 This long explanation seems necessary, as this is the 

 first authentic specimen of Brandt's P. brevicaudus I 

 have seen, and it is of great historical interest as the 

 specimen is not referable to the species Gould called 

 brevicaudus. It is, of course, stuffed, and the measure- 

 ments I give are only approximately correct, but they 

 show it to be much closer to P. pacificus. It has a long 

 bill, long wings, and long wedge-shaped tail ; the 

 exposed culmen measures approximately 45 mm., wing 

 320 mm., and tail 135 mm. These agree very close 

 with those of typical P. p. pacificus, but the bill shows 

 horny, not lead-blue. This may be due to drying, as 

 I have noted the bills sometimes show much difference 

 in life and in dried skins. 



This tends to show that either Brandt did not know 

 his own species — as brevicaudus is inapplicable to this 

 specimen — or else Brandt's brevicaudus was quite dif- 

 ferent to Gould's brevicaudus. The latter view might 

 be correct, as Brandt also sold a specimen of Gould's 

 brevicaudus to the Vienna Museum under the name 

 " Puffinus tenuirostris, ex Austr." 



Procellaria ^quinoctialis Linne, and 

 Procellaria conspicillata Gould. 



In the Birds of Australia, Vol. II., 1912, pp. 108-115, 

 Mathews made the first scientific attempt to deal with 

 the forms lumped by previous workers under the name 

 P. cequinoctialis. 



In view of the fact that P. conspicillata had l)een 

 absolutely lumped by most writers, he only admitted 

 it as subspecifically distinct, though recording no inter- 

 gradation. He observed that though often " seen in 



