SOFT-PLUMAGED PETPEL. 
Magnitudine variant ut et colore 
Longitudo ab apice rostri ad extrem cauda' 151 
inter apices alarum expans 39 f 
Pondus 15 uncias 
atrata Procellaria nigricans subtus pallidior, cauda rotundata, pedibus albis longioribus : 
palma nigra basi alba 
Habitat in Oceano australi (vulgo mare pacifico) Lat. austr. XXV : 21 Long. occ. 
CXXIX (Martii 21, 1769) 
Tota avis nigricans, subtus tamen paulo pallidior seu sordide fusca, pena' enim apice 
tantummodo nigricantes sunt 
Cauda cuneato -rotunda, pedibus paulo longior 
Bostrum nigrum. 
Mandihula superior adunca, sulco duplicato a tubo narium ad sinum exarata 
Tubus narium convexus vix extra quartam partem rostri extensus, bilocularis 
Dissepimentum orificium non adtingens 
Apertura' ovales 
Mandihula inferior recta, vix adunca, utrinque a basi ad gibberem notata 
Vitta cutacea, angusta, antice dilatata, truncata 
Oculi nigri 
Pedes albi 
Palma atra, pone articulum primum (h.e. basi proximum) alba 
Ungues mgvi Posticus sessilis 
Longitudo ab apice rostri ad extremit. cauda 13F) 
inter apices alarum expansarum 37 > unc. 
Pondus 9 3 
From the same locality, and obtained at the same time as P. gularis Peale, 
another species was named by Peale (p. 294) as P. hrevipes^ cf. 2nd ed., p. 414: — 
Procellaria brevipes. Head and wings sooty black ; back and tail gray ; throat 
breast, and belly, white, tinged with salmon-color when living, but changing to white after 
death ; an interrupted plumbeous band crosses the breast ; two outer tail-feathers light 
gray, white beneath, shafts white ; aU the others brown ; under wingcoverts white ; the 
lesser ones nearly black ; bill black ; feet pale fleshcolor ; the toes black at their ends ; 
irides brown. Total length ten and seventenths inches ; extent of wings twenty four 
and onefourth inches ; bill, to the angle of the mouth, one and fourtenths inches ; over 
the culmen nineteentwentieths of an inch ; middle toe, including the nail, one and three- 
tenths inches. 
Latitude 68° S., longitude 95° W. 
Where would these birds breed ? P. gularis Peale has been recognised 
in the bird breeding in New Zealand which Buller named P. affinis, while the 
bird named by Macgillivray P. torquata, and found by him breeding on the 
New Hebrides, has been accepted as identical with P. brevipes Peale. Our 
woeful ignorance of this genus is manifest when any attempt is made to reduce 
the nomenclature to order. As subspecies of P. ‘‘ gularis ” Peale, have to be con- 
sidered (Estrelata fisheri Ridgway and scalaris Brewster. There is nothing 
in the diagnoses save subspecific (or seasonal) features to separate these ; the 
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