Macgillivray includes Puffinus obscurus in his 'Manual of British Ornithology' (part 2, p. 263), with a reference to the fifth volume of his well-known work on 'British Birds,' but, as Yarrell points out, though the 'Manual' was published in 1842, the abovementioned fifth volume, published ten years later (1852), "does not contain any notice of this bird." I have verified this statement, and find that many similar references in the 'Manual' are made to vol. v. of his large work, but no pages are given; and as the final volume was so long delayed by the state of the author's health, these references must have been made in 1842 to his then unpublished manuscript, from which, when printed, he would seem, from some cause or other, to have excluded all mention of the Irish specimen of P. obscurus.

The oceanic range of this species is remarkable; and, if Gould's P. assimilis of Australia is, as he presumed it to be, identical with P. obscurus of Europe, includes the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Mediterranean, and even the North Sea as a straggler. Temminck, in his 'Birds of Europe,' speaks of it as "rare in the Mediterranean, but common on the coast of Africa to the Cape of Good Hope;" whilst Gould, in his 'Birds of Europe,' says it is "rarely found further north than the Mediterranean, on the European shores of which sea most of the European examples have been procured." It is met with in the Canary Islands, and breeds with other allied species on the Dezertas, a group of small islands about eighteen miles east of Madeira. Audubon

their very spirit of unrest, are "animated by condemned souls thus doomed for ever to frequent the scenes of their former existence." To this belief, and the difficulty of procuring specimens on the Bosphorus (as mentioned by Walsh), owing to the aversion of the Turks to any destruction of animal life, he attributes the ignorance of Naturalists, for so long a period, as to the true character of these birds, formerly taken for Kingfishers, and termed the Halcyon voyageur. Scarce however as such specimens may be in collections, thanks to our own Diocesan Bishop Stanley, the Norwich Museum possesses one of two, which, as he states, were killed by a singular accident : two flocks meeting, in rapid flight, immediately above a ship's boat, came into collision, and two were thus picked up by Lieut. Coppinger, R. M., of H.M.S. Malabar. This example, though in many respects answering to the Puffinus anglorum (Temm.), represents doubtless the light-coloured variety known as P. yelkouan of Acerbi, and P. yelcouanus of Coues, the American Naturalist.

included it in his 'Birds of America,' as does Coues in his recent "Check List" of North American birds.

Mr. Osbert Salvin, to whom I submitted our Norfolk specimen, possesses skins from, I understand, Montserrat, West Indies, New Zealand, the Galapagos Islands on the west coast of South America; and Captain Cook is said to have met with it at Christmas Island, in the Samoan or Navigator Islands, New Hebrides. Yarrell, who compared the Valentia bird with others from Madeira and Australia, believed it to be identical with Gould's Australian P. assimilis, of which the latter author writes (in his great work on the Birds of Australia'): "It is evidently the representative of P. obscurus of Europe, which it so much resembles, and to which it is so nearly allied, that assimilis appeared to me to be the most appropriate specific appellation I could apply to it." Apropos also of our Norfolk specimen, and with an "eternal fitness of things," as a Yankee would say, Mr. Gould further remarks, that all the examples he had seen in Australia were procured on Norfolk Island, and "consequently the seas washing the eastern shores of Australia may be considered its native habitat."

VOL III.

K.K

III.

ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE SOOTY SHEARWATER

(PUFFINUS GRISEUS, GMEL.) AT LYNN IN 1851.

BY THOMAS SOUTHWELL, F.Z.S.

Read 28th Nov., 1882.

In addition to the Shearwater of which Mr. Stevenson has just been speaking (antea p. 467), there are three other species of the genus Puffinus known to have occurred in England, and one other (P. kuhli, Boie), which appears to be restricted to the Mediterranean, and has not at present been recognized as occurring elsewhere. Of the British species, the Manx Shearwater (P. anglorum) is sufficiently well known, but it seems probable that P. griseus has been occasionally mistaken for the immature stage of the larger, white-breasted P. major. I have the pleasure of exhibiting both the latter species, and, I think, with the birds before us, the specific distinctions will be sufficiently apparent. The larger bird, P. major, was taken at Plymouth by Mr. Gatcombe, and by him presented to our Museum; but the smaller bird, P. griseus, has the additional interest of having been obtained on our own coast of Norfolk as long ago as the 26th July, 1851. I purchased the bird on the table alive, of a boy who caught it at the mouth of the river Ouse as he was returning to Lynn in a fishing-boat; it was found sleeping on the water in the afternoon of the 25th July, and secured alive. At that time I had a number of living Gulls and Ducks in a netted-in garden, and the Shearwater was added to the collection. It only survived five days; probably having been injured at the time of its capture; but I had a good opportunity of observing its actions during the time it lived. It passed the day sleeping, showing no desire to hide; but as

evening advanced it became more lively, although not particularly active; and never showed any inclination to rise on the wing or escape. The crepuscular habits of the birds of this genus will account for the circumstances under which, not only this, but other individuals have been taken; viz., asleep on the water or in boats. After it died, the bird was set up by Foster of Wisbech, for the Lynn Museum; and he was very successful in giving it the attitude which it generally assumed, and which, I think, may be considered that natural to this genus when on land. At the time I quite believed my bird was an immature P. major; under which impression I remained till quite recently, when, at the suggestion of Mr. J. H. Gurney, Jun., I borrowed it from the Lynn Museum, and have now no doubt that it should be referred to the rarer species, P. griseus: in this view both Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Gurney coincide. The specimen on the table differs somewhat in colour from other individuals of the same species which I have seen; being rather clove-brown than sooty in colour. This, I would suggest, may be due to its juvenility; but, in the absence of a series of skins of either this or the nearly-allied P. major, in various stages of plumage, of course this is a mere suggestion. I am not aware that the plumage of the young of P. major, for which our bird was mistaken, has ever been described. In the re-naming of this bird, one species has to be erased from the Norfolk list; but another, and rarer one, added.

The range of P. griseus is very extensive: it is found, according to Dresser, in the Atlantic from Greenland to the extreme South, in the Pacific from California down at least to Chili, and off the coast of New Zealand.

IV.

ON THE BEAKED OR BOTTLE-NOSE WHALE

(HYPEROODON ROSTRATUS).

BY THOMAS SOUTHWELL, F.Z.S.

Read 19th Dec., 1882.

Of late years the remarkable group of Cetaceans known as the Ziphioid Whales has received the special attention of Cetologists, and the result has been a very great advance in the knowledge of their frequency and distribution, and, to some extent, of their habits also. A few years ago, with the exception of one species, Hyperoodon rostratus, literally nothing was known of them further than that, at irregular intervals, and in localities far distant from each other, some member of this ancient family from time to time threw itself upon the shore, and it was believed that, like the marsupials of the Australian continent, the existing Ziphioids (so abundantly represented in our seas during the formation of the Crag deposits) were the survivors of a race now rapidly passing away; this, however, has not proved to be the case to the extent formerly believed; but it is a curious coincidence that, as the continent of Australia forms in the present day the last home of the marsupials, so, both in species and individuals (with the one exception already named), the Australian seas form the head-quarters of these ancient cetaceans.

Three species of Ziphioids in as many different genera have been met with in the British seas, two of these being of great rarity; the third, the Common Beaked or Bottle-nose Whale (Hyperoodon rostratus), is of frequent occurrence; but of the life history of even this species, which was known and figured by Hunter as early as 1787, and which in summer congregates in considerable numbers in the North Atlantic, so little was known till quite recently, that the adult male was by some believed to belong to a different species or, even, genus, and it is to the observations made during the past