THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Figura rostri ab omnibus facillime distinguenda, etjam a Procellaria Turture 
Mscr. cui alias simillima, ut taceam fasciam obliquam dorsalem 
Longitude ab apice ad fin. Cauda' 12 
inter apices alar, expans 24J 
Pondus 5 unc. 
This distinct form has had few names bestowed upon it. It was first 
described by Latham {Gen. Syn. Birds, Vol. III., p. 414, 1785) under the name 
of Broad-billed Petrel, thus ; — 
“ Size of a small Pigeon : length twelve inches. The bfil blue-grey, an 
inch and a quarter in length, and near an inch broad at the base ; both mandibles 
bent at the points ; the edges finely serrated : at each nostril a distinct very 
short tube ; the tongue is very large and fleshy, and fiUs up the whole of the 
bill, conforming to the shape of it : the colour of the plumage is blueish ash on 
the upper parts ; and some of the feathers are brown in the middle : the sides 
of the head, and under parts of the body, white ; beneath the eye a dusky black 
streak ; the quills, and the ends of six middle tail feathers, dusky, almost black, 
when the wings are expaned a dark band appears from the tip of one wing to the 
other, crossing the back : the legs are black. 
“ The female had the same plumage, but the bill, though greatly exceeding 
that of any other Petrel, is scarcely more than half the breadth of that of the 
male. 
“ These were seen all over the Southern hemisphere, from 28 degrees upwards. 
Met with in Dusky Bay, and other parts of New Zealand.^' 
Gmehn’s Procellaria vittata {Syst. Nat., p. 560, 1789) was primarily founded 
on Latham’s account ; — 
Pr. caiirulescente cinerea subtus alba, pedibus nigris. 
Habitat in omni hemisphaerio australi . . . columbae minoris magnitudine, 12 pollices 
longa. 
Rostrum ex caeruleo griseum, basi poUicem latum mandibulae utriusque apice adunco 
et margine serrato ; lingua latissima, carnosa ; tempora alba ; stria infraocularis nigra ; 
remiges et rectricum 6 intermediarum apices nigricantes. 
The following year Latham, in his Index Ornith. (Vol. II., p. 827), rejected 
Gmelin’s name, and named his Broad-biUed Petrel ^^Procellaria forsteri,'^ while 
the succeeding year Bonnaterre, working quite independently, in the Tahl. 
Encycl. Meth. Ornith. (Vol. I., p. 81), called Latham’s Broad-billed Petrel 
Procellaria latirostris, thus choosing the same name as Solander had selected. 
I have been unable to trace any connection between Bonnaterre and Solander, 
and consider that the coincidence is due to the fact that Bonnaterre simply 
latinized Latham’s English names. I note this, as when the Solander MS. 
was first recorded, it was written that Bonnaterre’ s name was taken “ ex Sol. 
MS.” Forster’s description of P. vittata was founded on a New Zealand 
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