3696 Birds. 



i( Le sujet du Musee des Pays-Bas vient des Mers de l'lnde."* 

 To Mr. Yarrell's surprise, on inspecting Forster's original drawings 

 in the British Museum, he * found that neither of the numbers referred 

 to was the petrel in question. Forster's No. 97 was the Procellaria 

 mollis of Gould, but called hcesitata ; and No. 98 was the P. Lessonii 

 of Garnot, and called leucocephala" How M. Temminck could have 

 made this mistake, Mr. Yarrell says he cannot conjecture, but that he 

 has done so does not appear to admit of a doubt. The whole matter 

 of the nomenclature of the species to which Mr. Newcome's bird be- 

 longs, is involved in the greatest confusion ; chiefly arising from the 

 fact that the name " hasitata" (or, in its correct form, hcesitata) which 

 M. Temminck applies to it, has by one author or another been ascribed 

 to no less than four different species of Procellaria. Thanks to Mr. 

 G. R. Gray, I am enabled to give a synopsis of some of the synonyms 

 of these four species, which, although not perhaps dispelling all the 

 clouds of confusion which surround the subject, yet cannot fail to ren- 

 der them more penetrable. Mr. Gray's list is nearly as follows : — 

 " 1. Procellaria hasitata, Kuhl, Beitr. zur Zool. (1820), p. 142. 

 Temm. PL Col. 416. 

 " ' M. Temminck purchased his specimen from the collection of 

 Bulluck,' Kuhir f 

 " 2. Procellaria haesitata, Forst. Icon. ined. 97. 

 „ hasitata (part), Kuhl, Temm. 



„ inexpectata, Forst. Descr. Anim. by Licht. (1844), 



p. 204. 

 „ mollis, Gould, B. of Austr. pi." % 



* To the Rev. Alfred Charles Smith I am indebted for the information that a nearly 

 literal translation of the above passage is given in the ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitana' 

 (xxiii. 592). The bird is there called " P. hasitata, Tern. : White-headed Petrel, 

 Forst.:" and is the twenty-third and last species enumerated. The latter name be- 

 stowed upon it is that generally applied to another species with which it was doubtless 

 confounded by the writer. The passage, with a copy of which Mr. Smith has favoured 

 me, contains nothing else that is not given in the French version, while one or two 

 important points are omitted, and as the work from which it is extracted is easily ac- 

 cessible to all, 1 do not think it worth while to transcribe it here ; but on that account 

 I am not the less obliged to Mr. Smith, to whom 1 offer my very best thanks for his 

 ready kindness in sending it to me. 



f This is the species to which belongs the subject of this paper. 



X Soft-plumaged Petrel, Gould. Black-toed Petrel, List of B.in Brit. Mus. Coll. 

 (1844), pt. iii. p. 164. This species differs from the former in being a smaller and 

 much less powerfully made bird ; in it the dark colour extends down the nape and part- 

 ly over the sides of the neck, forming a faint band across the chest. 



