472 
Macgillivray includes Piiffimis obscurus in his ‘ Manual of 
British Ornithology’ (part 2, p. 263), with a reference to the fifth 
volume of his well-known work on ‘British Birds,’ but, as Yarrell 
points out, though the ‘Manual’ was published in 1842, the above- 
mentioned fifth volume, published ten years later (1852), “does 
not contain any notice of this bird.” I have verified this statement, 
and find that many similar references in the ‘Manual’ are made 
to vol. V. of his large work, but no pages are given; and as the 
final volume was so long delayed by the state of the author’s 
health, these references must have been made in 1842 to his then 
unpublished manuscript, from which, when printed, he would 
seem, from some cause or other, to have excluded all mention 
of the Irish specimen of P. obscurus. 
The oceanic range of this species is remarkable ; and, if Gould’s 
P. assimilis of Australia is, as he presumed it to be, identical 
with P. obscurus of Europe, includes the Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans, the Mediterranean, and even the North Sea as a straggler. 
Temminck, in his ‘ Birds of Europe,’ speaks of it as “ rare in the 
Mediterranean, but common on the coast of Africa to the "Cape of 
Good Hope ; ” whilst Gould, in his ‘ Birds of Europe,’ says it is 
“ rarely found further north than the Mediterranean, on the 
European shores of which sea most of the European examples 
have been procured.” It is met with in the Canary Islands, and 
breeds with other allied species on the Dezertas, a group of 
small islands about eighteen miles east of Madeira. Audubon 
their very spirit of unrest, are “ animated by condemned souls thus doomed 
for ever to frequent the scenes of their former existence.” To this belief, 
and the difficulty of procuring specimens on the Bosphorus (as mentioned 
by Walsh), owing to the aversion of the Turks to any destruction of animal 
life, he attributes the ignorance of Naturalists, for so long a period, as to the 
true character of these birds, formerly taken for Kingfishers, and termed the 
Halcyon voyageur. Scarce however as such specimens may be in collec- 
tions, thanks to our own Diocesan Bishop Stanley, the Norwich Museum 
possesses one of two, which, as he states, were killed by a singular accident : 
two flocks meeting, in rapid flight, immediately above a ship’s boat, came 
into collision, and two were tlius picked up by Lieut. Coppinger, 11. M., of 
II.M.S. Malabar. This example, though in many respects answering to the 
Fuffimis anglorum (Temm.), represents doubtless the light-coloured variety 
known as P. yelkoxian of Acerbi, and P. yelcouaims of Cones, tiie 
American Naturalist. 
