THE BIEDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
amongst the flax, or on the open ground, where it is sufficiently soft and free 
from stone. The young which are greyish-black when in down, begin to leave 
during the last week of December, and by the 7th January all but a few 
stragglers have departed. In December, 1886, 1 saw an albino. It was a young 
bird of a uniform dirty white colour.” 
The bird figured and described is a male, and was collected near New 
Zealand. 
The first note of this species in literature is when Forster {Cook's Voyage, 
p. 51, 1777) noted “ a new Petrel ofi Cape of Good Hope.” The first name ever 
given to it was Procellaria fuliginosa by Forster in the Tagehuch Entdek. reise 
Sudsee, p. 35, footnote, 1781, where however no description was given, so 
that Forster’s name has to be ignored as nude. This reference does not seem 
to have been hitherto published, but was pointed out to Mr. C. Davies Sherborn 
by Dr. C. W. Richmond in a letter, as having been omitted from the Index 
Ani7nalmm. Mr. Sherborn’s indication of such a name induced me to procure 
the book, of which no copy exists in the British Museum (Natural History) 
Library. A figure was drawn by George Forster, probably from this same 
specimen, but J. R. Forster’s detailed description was not published until 
1844. In the meanwhile, Kuhl in 1820 used P. fuliginosa ex the Banksian 
drawings for this species, but it was at that time preoccupied by Gmelin’s use 
of the same name for a different species. 
Previous to Forster’s acquaintance with the Atlantic form, it seems certain 
that Solander had examined specimens from New Zealand waters, but that 
they were confused with similar-looking dark Petrels from some of the Pacific 
islands. I note this when treating of Solander’ s P. 7nelano'pus, 
The first name to be correctly given for this species is Procellaria 
7nacro'ptera, by Smith in the Ulus. Zool. South Africa, Aves, pi. lii., 1840, 
who diagnoses it thus : — 
P. obscur^ rubro-bruimea ; rostro nigro ; pedibus brunneis. 
Longitude ab apice rostri ad basin caudae 11 unc. 6 lin ; caudae 6 unc. 
Cape seas : rare. 
He then gave a very detailed description, but his wing-measurement I 
cannot reconcile with the facts. 
In the Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Vol. XIII., 1844, Gould proposed a new 
species, Procellaria atlantica (p. 362), thus : “ Male ; the whole of the plumage 
deep chocolate-black ; bill and feet jet-black. Inhabiting the Atlantic. 
Total length 15 J inches; bill, If; wing, 11|; tail, cuneiform, 5; tarsi, 2f ; 
middle toe and nail, 2|. It is the P. fuliginosa of Forster’s drawings 
No. 93B., and the P. fuliginosa of Lichtenstein’s edition of Forster’s 
MSS., p. 23,” 
136 
