776 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS —LONGIPENNES— TUBIN ABES. 



tarsus 3.70 ; middle or outer toe and claw 4.50 ; inner do. 4.00. Wing 19.00-20.00 ; tail about 

 6.50. Pacific coast of N. Am., abundant. 

 319. PHCEBE'TKIA. (Gr. (^ot/Sijrpm, phoibetria, a soothsayer, presager.) Black Albatkoss. 

 Bill comparatively slender, strongly compressed, witli sharp culmen ; side of under mandible 

 with a long colored groove. Frontal feathers forming a deep acute reentrance on culmen; 

 a lung acute salience on side of lower mandible. Nostrils low and strict. Tail cuneate, 

 contained twice in the length of wing. Plumage uniformly dark. One species. 

 812. P. tullgino'sa. (Lat. fuliginosa, sooty. Fig. 523.) Sooty Albatkoss. Bill with shape 

 and outline of feathers as above said ; chord of oulmen 4.00-4.50; height of bill at base 1.50, 

 at hoolc 1.00; width at base 0.75 ; from feathers on side of upper mandible to tip 8.50, ditto 

 lower mandible 2.50. Wing 20.00-22.00 ; tail 10.00-11.00, graduated 3.50-4.50 ; tarsus about 

 3.00; middle toe and claw 4.75, outer do. 4.50, inner do. 4.00. Plumage ordinarily uniform 

 sooty-brown ; quills and tail blackish with white shafts ; eyelids wliite ; bill black, with 

 long yellow (perhaps in life pink or red) groove ; feet pale or iiesh-color, drying yellow. 

 In some cases the plumage lightens to a clearer more ashy-gray coloration on various parts. 

 The head and neck frequently washed with rusty-yeUow. Pacific ocean at large ; off coast 

 of N. Am. 



75. Subfamily PROCELLARIIN/E : Petrels. 



Kostrils united in one double-ban'elled tube laid horizontally on the culmen at base. 

 Hallux present, though it may be minute. Five groups of petrels may be distinguished, 

 although they grade into each other ; four of them are abundantly represented on our coasts. 

 The fulmars are large guU-like species (one of them might be taken for a gull were it not 

 for the nostrils), usually white with a darker mantle, the tail large, well formed (of 14-16 

 feathers), the nasal case prominent, with a thin partition. They shade into the group of 

 which the genus QSstrelaia is typical, embracing a large number of medium -sized species, 

 chiefly of Southern seas, in which the bill is short, stout, very strongly hooked, with prominent 

 nasal case; the tail rather long, usually graduated. The shearwaters (Pvffiims) have the 

 bill longer than usual, comparatively slender, with short low nasal case, obliquely truncate 

 at the end, and the partition between the nostrils thiclc ; the tail short and rounded; the 

 wings extremely long; the feet large. The elegant little "Mother Carey's chiclvens '' or 

 "stormy petrels" (" TJialassidroma" of authors; Procellaria proper and its relatives) are 

 a fourth group, marked by their small size, slight build, and other characters ; their flight 

 is peculiarly airy and flickering, more like that of a butterfly than of ordinary birds ; they 

 are almost always seen on wing, appear to swim little if any, and some, if not all, breed 

 in holes in the ground, apparently like bank swallows. Like other petrels they gather in 

 troops about vessels at sea, often following their course for many miles, to pick up the refuse 

 of the cook's galley. Some of them, as the species of Occanifes, have remarkably long legs, 

 with fused scutella, flat obtuse claws, and the hallux exceedingly minute ; in the rest, the 

 fei t are of an ordinary character. The exotic genus Prion typifies a fifth group, of five or 

 six species ; here the bill is expanded, and furnished with strong lamina?, like a duck's ; the 

 colnrs are bluish and white. 



Anafijsis of Genera. 



Fulmars, with prominent nasal tube, vertically truncate and with thin partition ; under mandible not 

 hooked at end. Length 10.00 or more. 



Tail 16-feathered. Length about 3 feet Ossi/raga 320 



Tall 14-feathered. Length 15-20 inches. 



Bill very stout, much shorter than tarsus Fulmarus 321 



Bill slenderer, little shorter than tarsus Priocella 322 



Petrels, with nasal tubes as before, the bill very stout and strongly hooked. Length 10.00 to 16.00. 



Plumage spotted above, white below Daptium 323 



Plumage uniformly dark above, and white below ; or, entirely fuliginous CEstrelata 324 



