CRITICAL NOTES ON PROCELLARIID^. 



By OSBERT SALVIN, IM.A., F.R.S. 



Having Mr. Dawson Rowley's kind permission to contribute to the 

 ' Ornithological Miscellany ' some articles on Procellariidse, I may state that 

 I propose that at first these notes should relate to obscure points in our 

 knowledge of this difficult family of birds, and that I hope finally to gather 

 my scattered fragments into something like a revision of the whole group. 

 But as Mr. Rowley, in issuing his first Number, declared his freedom from 

 all ties as regards his publication, so my proposition and hope must not be 

 construed into promises, but each article taken as it stands — an instalment 

 towards the end in view. 



Part I. Banks's unpublished Drawings. 



In dealing wdth the subject now before me, I must state at the outset 

 that " Banks's Drawings " have little direct bearing upon the nomenclature 

 of this family of birds. Still, when their history is considered, and their 

 association with the first voyage of the illustrious circumnavigator Cook, the 

 interest they arouse cannot fail to be considerable. Fortunately perhaps for 

 future workers, the names associated with these drawings are unaccompanied 

 by any published descriptions, and therefore carry no authority. But as 

 these names, extracted from the MS. of Dr. Solander, have been introduced 

 into our literature by Kuhl, Bonaparte, and Gray, an attempt to apply 

 them to the species to which they properly belong may not be unprofitable 

 as a step towards clearing up the uncertainty which hangs round some of the 

 descriptions of Procellariidse in the works of certain authors of the last 

 century. 



