480 Recently published Ornithological Works. 
well as notes on Ellises drawings, made during Capt. Cookes 
third voyage*. Cook's visit to Kerguelen Island is related 
by himself in the first volume of the f Third Voyage ' (chaps, 
iv. & v.). At the end of chapter v. a good account of the natural 
history is given by Mr. Anderson, the surgeon of the f Reso¬ 
lution/ which includes descriptions of the birds of the island. 
This passage seems to have escaped Mr. Sharpe's notice. 
The Procellariidse, so numerously represented in this island, 
come in for a large share of attention; and Mr. Sharpe has 
given important notes on several members of this family. He 
has carefully examined a large series of specimens of the genus 
Prion, with a view to testing the validity of some of the species 
for which recognition has been claimed; the result is that he 
admits only two, P. vittatus and P. desolatus . Again, Tha- 
lassidroma melanogaster, Gould, is united (somewhat prema¬ 
turely, we think) with T. tropica of the same author, and the 
latter name adopted, apparently because the description of it 
precedes that of the former by a page in the paper where both 
are described f. 
(Estrelata mollis is introduced into the list on the authority 
of Hrs. Cabanis and Reichenow; but the specimen brought 
home by the f Gazelle' was really one of (E. brevirostris , and 
CE. mollis must, for the present, be erased from the list of Ker¬ 
guelen birds. For this error Mr. Sharpe is not responsible J. 
Mr. Sharpe has also discussed fully the complicated syn- 
* Mr. Sharpe (p. 1) speaks of Ellis as having accompanied Sir J. Banks 
and Capt. Cook; hut this is incorrect. Sir J. Banks only accompanied 
Cook during his first voyage, when Parkinson and Buchan were the 
artists engaged. Kerguelen Island was not then visited—nor yet during 
the second voyage, when the two Forsters were on hoard. 
t Mr. Sharpe has on several previous occasions introduced changes of 
nomenclature on similar grounds. In our opinion, however, the practice is 
a perversion of the law of priority, which means, if it means any thing, 
priority of publication. When two names are published simultaneously, 
the question of priority does not arise, and therefore the claims of the one 
in most frequent use are, we think, too obvious to need asserting. 
% [During a recent visit to the Berlin Museum, Dr. Reichenow kindly 
showed me this specimen, when I at once saw that it belonged to (E. 
brevirostris. —0. S.] 
