THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
tail rounded at the end ; legs black-brown ; the fore parts of the toes half 
way black ; the outside of the exterior toe the same for the whole length ; 
webs black ; spur behind blunt. 
“ Inhabits Turtle and Christmas Islands. In the collection of Sir Joseph 
Banks.” 
Upon this description Gmelin {Syst. Nat., p. 565, 1789) based his Procellaria 
alba, thus : — 
Pr. ex fusco nigra, gulae area, pectore, abdomine et crisso albis, tectricibus caudae 
inferioribus ex cinereo et albo mistis. 
White-breasted Petrel, Lath. Syn. III., 2, p. 400, n. 6. 
Habitat in insulis Turturum et nativitatis Christi, 16 pollices longa. 
Rostrum nigrum ; cauda rotundata ; pedes ex atro fusci ; digiti anteriore dimidia sui 
parte cum membrana connectente nigri. 
Bonaparte appears to have been the first to introduce Solander’s 
P. sandaliata into literature, and he regarded it as a possible synonym of 
P. mollis Gould. Coues, not having access to the Banksian drawings or MS., 
accepted Bonaparte’s conclusion, but noted that Gmelin’ s P. alba was 
“ Evidently a species of jEstrelata, and probably some one of the plumages 
of Lessoni.^^ 
This latter remark of Coues was made through his belief that species of 
uEstrelata ( = Pterodro7na) varied in plumage from young to adult, thus : “ In 
general the younger the bird the more uniform, or more tending to fuliginous 
are its colours ; while in adult life light and dark colours occupy distinct areas, 
and are quite trenchantly defined.” We now know that this is not the case, 
and that the young assume the adult garb in the nest. 
In the Handl. Gen. Spec. Birds, pt. iii., p. 106, 1871, Gray accepted 
F. albus Gmelin for specimens from Raoul Island, including as habitat Turtle 
and Christmas Islands ; also noting F. neglectus Schegel as unknown to him 
from Sunday Island, Kermadec Islands. But Sunday Island is another name 
for Raoul Island, which is the main island of the Kermadec (=Kermdee [sicl 
Gray) group. 
Gray noted (p. 107) F. ? sandaliatus Sol. as a distinct species, but wrongly 
gave as its range Pacific Ocean. 
Salvin, in Rowley’s Ornith. Miscell., Vol. I., p. 232, 1875, working through 
the Parkinson drawings, indicated the source of Solander’s P. sandaliata as being 
drawing No. 20, and from the diagnosis given in Solander’s copy of Linnaeus’s 
Syst. Nat., concluded that it referred to 0. ar^ninjoniana Giglioli and Salvadori, 
and also that it might have been the basis of P. alba Gmelin ; in which case the 
original habitat given must be ’wrong, as 0. arminjoniana was a South Atlantic 
bird from the whereabouts of Solander’s P. sandaliata. Inasmuch as there 
150 
