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Show 1878.] MR. H. SAUNDERS ON THE LARINEE. 161 same as the author's Gavice! Its only claim to remembrance is its adoption by Mr. W . L. Buller as a genus for a New-Zealand species. Procellarus et Epitelarus, Bonap. Naumannia, 1854, pp.211, 213. Genus defined. Type and sole representative, P. neglectus, which is an immature L. scoresbii. This species the author had already located in the genus Leucophceus. Clupeilarus, Bonap. Consp. Av. ii. p. 220 (1857). For L. fuscus, cachinnans, and verreauxii. This genus has not even the merit of consistency ; for it contains such different species as above, whilst it omits L. dominicanus (of which L. verreauxi is only the African form) and L. marinus. Of the rejected genera one of the best is Gabianus, Bp., of which the sole representative, L. pacificus, has a remarkably deep, strong bill. But it differs in no other structural point from other typical species of Larus, whilst even in the form of the bill it is at times closely approached by old males of L. dominicanus ; so that I think its adoption would be inexpedient. Leucophceus, Bp., has been confused between the author and Bruch until it includes species which Bonaparte himself has almost simultaneously located in two other genera ; and I can see no structural difference sufficiently marked to make it desirable to employ either it or Blasipus, which, according to Bonaparte's latest view, includes two species differing considerably in the form of the bill. Adelarus, Bp., appears to be the result of an attempt to Latinize the compound word "Edelmowen," and should rank with his Bruchigavia and kindred genera. The arrangement of the species of Larus is matter of considerable difficulty. The plan adopted by Schlegel of dividing the Gulls into Lari marini, for unhooded species, and Lari cucullati, for those which at one time or another bear a hood, will not stand the test of later experience,-almost all of those which have a hood in their immature stage being emphatically (Sea-gulls, as are also a few of those which have a hood in the breeding-season; whilst at least two of the unhooded species are partial to inland waters, and present, in consequence, the slight modifications of form shown by many of the hooded marsh-breeding Gulls. Under these circumstances any ascending or descending arrangement must necessarily be artificial; but I have endeavoured to group the species in the most natural manner which seemed to m e to be practicable. It may be as well to observe that by an "adult" bird I mean one which has lost the mottlings, barred tail, and other signs of immaturity ; but an "old" bird is often subject to important alterations in the coloration or "pattern" of the webs of the primaries, although the general plumage may undergo no material change. The distinction between the age (in years) of the individual and the age (in months) of the primary and other feathers should also be held in PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1878, No. XI. 11 |