PROCELLARIIFORMES. 
to species which roughly correspond somewhat to the descriptions given by 
Solander. Delay, owing to sickness, brought it about that the Consp. Gen. Av. 
(dated in MS. 1855) did not appear until 1857 (details substantiating 
this statement will be given later), and in that work Bonaparte included all 
the corrections brought about by fuller knowledge in the short space of eighteen 
months. 
After his identification and long synonymy, a very brief diagnosis is given, 
and I have found it almost impossible to determine Bonaparte’s meaning. 
In many cases the synonymy is fairly accurate, but the description is not 
applicable to any of the synonyms given. I have therefore omitted most of 
Bonaparte’s references from my S 3 monymy, though they have usually been 
included under the species name he had used, but will note the discrepancies 
I detect when dealing with the individual species. 
In 1856 Tschudi named some Petrels from observations of fiying birds, 
and the majority of these still remain indeterminable. 
In the Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. for 1864-1866 appeared a series of 
articles entitled “ A Critical Review of the Family Procellariidoe, by Dr. Elliott 
Coues.” As a standard of excellence as regards ornithological work it will never 
be surpassed, and it has really been the basis upon which the succeeding pages 
have been founded. Had Dr. Coues only been able to include in his essays 
a personal criticism of the Banksian drawings and documents, little would have 
remained for later workers. His introduction contains the following sentences, 
which express my own desires more clearly than my own words might do : “I 
have attempted to elucidate the specific characters of the components of the 
groups as well as their most natural generic disposition, and to discuss fairly 
such questions of synonymy as may arise . . . Concerning the genera adopted, 
each one must judge of their agreement with nature, or the reverse, according 
to his own opinion upon the question of what constitutes a generic group.” 
To the above I would add “ sub ” — where Coues wrote “ specific ” in the 
first sentence. 
Concerning Coues’s monograph, little can be said, save that I can see no 
faults whatever in his treatment of this group. The corrections to be made upon 
his work after almost fifty years are only those due to lack of specimens and 
propagation of errors through inability to check other workers’ deterqiinations. 
At the conclusion of the series Coues gave a Bibliographical Appendix, wherein 
he noted the preceding monographs of this group, all the species named, and 
their modern equivalents. Regarding his determinations of the species of 
Gmelin, practically all are as now correctly accepted, and the few he was not 
certain of I hope to prove applicable to species he was autoptically unacquainted 
with. I think I can satisfactorily demonstrate the validity and necessity for 
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