PROCELLARIIFORMES. 
Sherborn, when engaged on his monumental work of reference, the Index 
Animalium^ in 1902. 
The drawings and specimens in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks were 
made use of by Latham in his monograph, and the latter also attempted to 
identify these and the British and Leverian Museum birds, with those mentioned 
in the various books dealing with Cook’s voyages, but noted : “ As few of the 
voyagers have thought worth while to describe the birds to which they have 
given names, we cannot always be clear of the species meant ; are therefore 
not quite certain it was the one here described.”* 
This unmerited reproach was removed in the case of John Reinhold Forster 
by the publication in 1844 of the beautiful detailed descriptions prepared by that 
writer at the time of capture of the birds, some seventy odd years previously. 
I have now the greatest pleasure in showing that Dr. Solander was equally 
faithful in carefully describing most systematically all the Petrels met with on 
Cook’s first voyage. The reason for the non-publication of the descriptions 
of Forster is known, differences having arisen between the British Government 
of that day and J. R. Forster regarding the status of the latter, details of which 
are given in the account of Cook’s voyages, by George Forster. Why the descrip- 
tions made by Solander were not published I do not know, and it would also 
seem that these were not seen by Latham, though the drawings and specimens 
in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks were otherwise made available to that 
ornithologist. Since that time the descriptions of Petrels made by Solander 
have never been studied carefully by any ornithologist, and when Salvin, in 1875, 
made an examination of the Banksian drawings (Rowley’s Ornith. Miscell., 
Vol. I., p. 223, 1875) he was unable to trace them, though they had apparently 
been referred to as recently as 1871 by Gray. Since that date they have 
been regarded as lost, until a few weeks ago, when endeavouring to trace 
a name attributed to the Solander MSS. in the British Museum, I was enabled 
to recognise that a batch of manuscript marked as “ Copies,” constituted the 
re-written and press-prepared matter of the original manuscript notes, which 
in other cases are still preserved in the British Museum. Along with these 
copies were lists which proved to be the original ones drawn up regarding the 
birds brought back from Cook’s last voyage. 
These, in connection with the drawings and the Forster descriptions already 
known, have enabled me to trace almost all the birds described by Latham ; 
there were only two or three that had almost defied attempts to place them, 
and these, I think, can be accounted for. Now to review the work done. As 
before noted, Latham’s was practically the first monograph of this group. In 
the 10th edition of the Syst. Nat., 1758, Linne, there are only three species 
* Latham, Qen. Synopsis Birds, Vol. III., Pt. i., p. 308, footnote, 1785. 
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