MONOGRAPH OF THE PETRELS. 



each web of the toes was marked with a yellow spot." This footnote in Latham's 

 work does not help us to identify the Sooty Petrel, for the description states that the 

 " leg is slender, an inch long, and black." It may, therefore, be taken for granted that 

 the original specimen had no yellow spot on the interdigital webs. It follows that 

 Latham must have made a mistake in referring the sketches in the Banksian collection 

 to his Sooty Petrel. On consulting the " Drawings " in the British Museum, I find 

 that the birds referred to by Latham must be Nos. 12 and 13 of Sydney Parkinson's 

 sketches (cf. Sharpe, Hist. Coll. Brit. Mus., II., pp. 174, 175). These plates represent 

 two distinct species of Petrel, No. 12 being Oceanitis oceanica, which Kuhl, the first 

 describer of the species, refers to as Procellaria oceanica of Banks' MSS. No. 13 is an 

 unfinished coloured drawing of Pelagodroma marina (Lath.). These identifications 

 were made by Salvin, and confirmed by Dr. Bowdler Sharpe (I.e.). In each case a 

 MSS. note by Parkinson alludes to the yellow on the interdigital web, and we do not 

 find any other picture in Forster's or Ellis's drawings in the Banksian Library in which 

 this character is portrayed. Latham evidently confused three species together, and 

 his " Sooty Petrel " is not yet satisfactorily determined, as the description and 

 measurements do not entirely suit the Japanese birds examined by me. 



Under these circumstances I think it best to drop the name of 0. fuliginosa and 

 take that of 0. tristrami for the Black Fork-tailed Petrel of Japan. 



Until recently, 0. tristrami had only been found off the coasts of Japan in summer, 

 but Mr. Walter K. Fisher records it as nesting in some numbers on Laysan Island 

 during our winter months (Auk, 1903, p. 386). It may, therefore, breed on these 

 islands and migrate north at other seasons of the year. 



The Hon. Walter Rothschild, in his " Avifauna of Laysan," like myself, doubts 

 whether the name of Oceanodroma fuliginosa can rightly be adopted for the bird which 

 is now known to occur in the seas of Japan, and to extend to the island of Laysan. I 

 reproduce Mr. Rothschild's remarks (Avif. Laysan, III., p. 308) : — 



" Professor Schauinsland did not meet with this Petrel alive when on Laysan, but 

 from the examination of some fragments of skeletons which he has picked up, he con- 

 cluded that another, hitherto unrecorded, species of Petrel, with one nostril-opening, 

 must occur there. This is, in fact, the case, for months after he had left, a new species 

 arrived in small numbers, and bred, like the others, in holes. One skin was sent to 

 the Bremen Museum, and determined by Professor Reichenow as Oceanodroma 

 fuliginosa. I am obliged to Professor Schauinsland for having lent me this example for 

 description. There seems to be no doubt that this bird is the same as that called 0. 

 fuliginosa by Dr. Stejneger, and also in the 'Catalogue of Birds ' (Vol. XXV.). Another 

 question is, whether there is sufficient reason to refer it to Latham's ' Sooty Petrel,' 

 and consequently to adopt Gmelin's name. The original description would suit many 

 dark brown species of approximately the same size, and is evidently equally well 

 applicable to Buhveria anjinho, or more still to B. macgillivrayi from Fiji, and Cymo- 



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