THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Habitat in Oceano Atlantico, intra tropicos Lat. Sept gr IX 43 (Oct. 1768) et non procul 
ab America australi. Lat austr. gr XXXVII (Dec. 23 1768) in oceano austr. 
Lat austr. XXXIX : 17 Long Occident CCIV : 6 (Apr. 11 1770). 
Nigra sunt omnia exceptis pennis uropygii totis albis, & disco memhrana' pedum qui 
luteus est. Pena crissi basi albida', extra medium tamen nigra' 
Rostrum breve 
Mandihula superior apice valde adunca, acuta, sulco profundo, recto, abbreviate, 
utrinque ante tubum narium qui medium rostri non adtingit, cylindricus, bdocu- 
laris, apice a rostro parum elevatus, 
Mandihula inferior vix deflexa 
Digitus posticus minutissimus, ut vix nisi attenti appareat 
Cauda suba'qualis vel latere paulo longior 
Longitude ab apice rostri ad finem caudae 6| | 
ab apicibus alarum expansarum 15 j 
rostri 6 lineas 
Pondus IJ unc. 
The “ Fig. Piet.” refers to the drawing made by Sidney Parkinson, and 
is the “ Banks tabula 12 ” of Kuhl : it was made from the specimen killed on 
December 23rd, 1768. 
It is noteworthy that Solander met with the bird on April 11th, 1770, 
as he was approaching Bass Strait coming from New Zealand, and of course 
this is the first record of the bird I figure as 0. o. exasperatus. 
I have so named it, as examination of series of South Atlantic Ocean 
specimens in comparison with South Pacific Ocean ones, shows that the latter 
are larger in aU their measurements. 
Bonaparte named the North Atlantic form Procellaria wilsoni, and recent 
students have accepted this as a synonym of 0. oceanicus, typical, concluding 
that the bird breeding in the Antarctic circle ranges north and becomes com- 
mon in the North Atlantic in the Antarctic winter, i.e. the northern summer. 
From my researches I conclude that this is an unsatisfactory explanation, and 
confidently anticipate the discovery of breeding colonies of a subspecies of 0. 
oceanicus on some of the West Indian or North African islands which would 
bear the name of 0, o. wilsoni (Bonaparte). 
When Forbes worked upon the Anatomy of the Petrels {Rep. Voy. “ ChaU 
lengerf^ Vol. IV., 1882), he formed a family Oceanitidee to include the long-legged 
small Petrels, Oceanites, Garrodia, Pelagodromay and Fregetta, as opposed to the 
family Procellariidce, which he composed of short-legged small species. I am unable 
to accept this divorce, as I find that the species of each run very close. On p. 55 
one of the chief features of the Oceanitidee reads, “ The claws are very flat, 
depressed, and lamellar,” as contrasted with the Procellariidce, the claws of which 
are sharp, curved, and depressed. But this is scarcely true, as the claws of 
Oceanites approach quite closely to those of Hydrohates. As noted under the 
next species, very careful authors have classed Garrodia with the short-legged 
species, while Forbes would make it a member of his long-legged family. 
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