2l6 LEONHARD STEJNEGER : 



certainly matches the Kamtschatkan bird before me. It is also true, 

 that Pallas refers Latham's Marbled Guillemot as a synonym to his 

 C. perdix, but it must be remarked, that he also criticizes Latham's 

 plate as «much too black» (nimium nigra). 



1 am strongly inclined to think, that B. perdix takes the place 

 of B. marmoratus in Asiatic waters, and that the latter is only found 

 on the American side (unless possibly the B. marmoratus which 

 Nelson, Notes Cruise Corwin, p. i 16, says was found numerous at 

 Plover Bay and northwards along the coast to Bering's Strait reallv 

 belong to that speciesi. The question arises, however, to which 

 species belongs the Japanese birds, which Swinhoe originally deter- 

 mined as B. kittlit;ii, and which Seebohm has called B. marmoratus 

 and B. wrangeli, but finally considered «probably B. kiltlit-ii» (Ibis, 

 1804, p. 174). Unfortunately, I posses no speeimens from Japan 

 but something may perhaps be found in the literature, which will 

 elueidate the question. 



The simple fact that both Swinhoe and Seebohm describe the 

 Japanese bird as having a longer bill than B. marmoratus (Ibis, 1874. 

 p. 166; 1884, p. 31) at once precludes the possibility of it being 

 B. brevirostris fkittlit;iij, and points directly towards B. perdix. The 

 color desenptions of the known Japanese speeimens are very imper- 

 fect. Swinhoe, in 1 87 ; Ibis, p. 458), writes of a speeimen collected 

 May 10. 1873, at Hakodadi, and reeeived from Capt. Blakiston, 

 as follows: « Brachyrhamphus kittlit~i. Brandt. — The speeimen 

 now sent is a female, and like the one which I reeeived before .... 

 From the .Birds' bv S. F. Baird, in the , American Railway Survey 

 Report' (p. 917), I make out the Hakodadi birds to belong to this 

 species». In the work quoted by Swinhoe only a reprint and trans- 

 lation of Brandt's original description is found, in which B. kittlit~u 

 is characterized as «Supra cinerea nigricante et pallide e fusco-fla- 

 vescente undulata et submaculata» («Above cinereous, undulated, 

 and somawhat spotted with blackish and pale yellowish brown» 1. 

 If Swinhoe's birds agree with that description and have a long bill 

 then they almost certainly belong to B. perdix. Mr. Seebohm has 



