MONOGRAPH OF THE PETRELS. 



Captain Hutton in his paper on the " Birds inhabiting the Southern Ocean " (Ibis, 

 1865, p. 284) notices a pale form, but he, too, was then inclined to believe that they were 

 young birds, though he did not feel confident about it. In 1867, he again, writing 

 in the Ibis, states that while off Tristan da Cunha several examples of P. fuliginosa 

 came round the ship, and more or less continued with it till Lat. 44° 27' S., Long. 

 150° 12' E., was reached. On this occasion, too, he noticed amongst them a very 

 distinct variety, in which the neck, back and body were grey, with a broad black band 

 round the beak, and the horizontal line on the under mandible was less conspicuous ; 

 the bird, however, was of the same size as P. fuliginosa, and he named it var. 

 cornicoides. 



Captain Hutton's statements are of considerable value, as he was not only an 

 excellent observer, and made no less than seven voyages to the Cape of Good Hope, 

 but he had the good fortune to obtain valuable information from Mr. Harris, 

 engineer on board H.M.S. " Adventure," whose ship being wrecked on Kerguelen Island, 

 necessitated a stay there for nearly a year, during which time he made careful notes 

 on the birds of this little visited island. 



In a letter to Mr. Eagle Clarke, Captain Hutton says that the pale form (P. 

 cornicoides) breeds on the Auckland and Antipodes Islands, and is the common phase 

 in the New Zealand seas, but he does not recollect having seen the sooty-coloured 

 bird there ; he adds that P. fuliginosa alone, so far as his information went, nests 

 on Gough Island and Tristan da Cunha, though Mr. Eagle Clarke adds both forms 

 were observed off Gough Island by the Scottish Expedition, but none were obtained 

 (Ibis, 1905, pp. 267, 268). 



Mr. Comer describes the species which breeds on Gough Island, as having the 

 beak dark, with a yellow stripe on each side ; he states that it is common, not 

 breeding in societies, but placing its nest separately on cliffs, or projecting rocks, 

 which are difficult of access. 



If the above statements are correct we have a distinct breeding place for each form, 

 and they must therefore be considered separate species. 



Mr. W. Eagle Clarke, writing in the Ibis on the " Birds of the Weddell and 

 adjacent Seas " (1907, pp. 342, 343), says, that it is a matter of surprise that two 

 such genuinely distinct forms as P. fuliginosa and P. cornicoides should for so long- 

 have passed as the same species; he, however, points out the almost impossible task 

 of at present determining accurately their respective distribution, since they have 

 been so confused by observers. The collections made by the " Scotia " enabled him 

 to say that all the birds obtained and seen in the far south belonged to Hutton's 

 species, and it was only when the South Atlantic was approached that Gmelin's 

 P. fuliginosa appeared. Specimens of both birds were obtained during the voyage, but 

 P. cornicoides alone was procured in the Antarctic Ocean, where it was observed so 

 far south as Lat. 69° 46'. No specimen of P. fuliginosa was either obtained or observed 



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