776 SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — LONGIPENNES— TUBINABES. 



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'TBIA. (Gr. (fioi^rjTpta, phoibetria, a soothsayer, presager.) Black Albatross. 

 Bill comparatively slender, strongly compressed, witli sbai-p culmen ; side of under mandible 

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

 a long 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. fuligino'sa. (Lat. fuligmosa, sooty. Fig. 523.) Sooty Albateoss. Bill with shape 

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

 at hook 1.00; width at base 0.75 ; from feathers on side of upper mandible to tip 3.50, ditto 

 lower mandible 3.50. 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 white ; bill black, with 

 long yellow (perhaps in life pink or red) groove ; feet pale or flesh-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 ; oflf coast 

 of N. Am. • 



75. Subfamily PROCELLARIIN>E: Petrels. 



Nostrils united in one double-barrelled 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 (Estrelata 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 {Puffinus) have the 

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

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

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

 "stormy petrels" {" Thalassid/roma^^ of authors; Proeellaria 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 vring, 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 mUes, to pick up the refuse 

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

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

 feet 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 laminae, like a duck's ; the 

 colors are bluish and white. 



AncUysie of Genera. 



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

 hooked at end. Length 16.00 or more. 



Tall 16-feathered. Length about 3 feet . . Ossifraga 320 



Tail 14-feathered. Length 16-20 inches. 



Bill very stout, much shorter than tarsus . fulmarus 321 



Bill slenderer, little shorter than tarsus Friocella 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 Daptiwm 323 



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



