>^C^ £<^^/C^ 



[From the Proceedings op the Zoological Society of London, 

 March 21, 1876.] 



On the Stercorariirus or Skua Gulls. 

 By Howard Saunders, F.L.S. &c. 



(Plate XXIV.) 



In the following remarks upon the well-marked subfamily of the 

 Laridce, known as the Lestridince, or, more correctly as regards prio- 

 rity of nomenclature, as the Stercorariince, I shall pass over as briefly 

 as possible the points whicb are already known to most ornithologists, 

 and direct my observations to the synonymy and range of the mem- 

 bers of the group, with incidental remarks upon their progressive 

 stages of plumage. My principal predecessor in this work is Dr. 

 Elliott Coues, who published in the 'Proceedings of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,' 1863, an elaborate "Review of the 

 Lestridinse," with the primary object of showing that the true "Lestris 

 richardsonii" of Swainson, described in the 'Fauna Boreali-Americana,' 

 p. 433, was a distinct species from the light-breasted form with which 

 most naturalists had united it ; but in his recently published ' Birds 

 of the North-West' (Washington, 1874) he retracts this opinion, in 

 accordance with the views derived from more extended experience. 

 He still, however, adheres to his original plan of dividing the family 

 into two subgenera, Bupliagus of Moehring for S. catarrhactes 

 and S. antarcticus, and Stercorarius for the remaining species ; 

 and he continues to employ both the generic and the specific names 

 given by writers previous to the date of the J 2th edition of Linnaeus's 

 ' Systema Naturse ' (1766), preferring to make the 10th edition the 

 starting-point of his system of nomenclature. Argument on this 

 subject would be futile ; there is nothing to prevent any American 

 naturalist from making his own rules ; but British ornithologists 

 have a recognized code of laws in the Rules of the British Association 

 for 1842, drawn up and signed by the principal naturalists of that 

 day, and generally adopted up to the present time both here and on 

 the continent. In these it is agreed that the principle of priority 

 ought not to be carried back beyond the 12th edition of Linnaeus, 

 a solitary exception being made in favour of those genera of Brisson 

 which are additional to those of Linnaeus' s 12th edition. My excuse 



[1] 



