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Show 1876.] MR. H. SAUNDERS ON THE SlERCORARlIN^. 317 Plate III. at the end of the article requires amendment, and should stand thus :-Fig. 1. A. hastata, young $ , from a specimen obtained from the nest at Saharunpore, and killed 28th August, 1873, being the youngest of the three birds obtained on the same occasion. Fig. 2. A. hastata $ , from a specimen after its first moult; killed October 21st, 1874. The figures have been reduced to one fourth of the natural size. Note.-These birds were made into specimens when in captivity ; they were not shot. 3. O n the Stercorariince or Skua Gulls. By HOWARD SAUNDERS, F.L.S. &c [Received March 3, 1876.] (Plate XXIV.) In the following remarks upon the well-marked subfamily of the Larida, known as the Lestridina, or, more correctly as regards priority of nomenclature, as the Stercorariina, I shall pass over as briefly as possible the points which are already known to most ornithologists, and direct m y observations to the synonymy and range of the members of the group, with incidental remarks upon their progressive stages of plumage. My principal predecessor in this work is Dr. Elliott Coues, who published in the 'Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,' 1863, an elaborate "Review of the Lestridina?," with the primary object of showing that the true "Lestris richardsonii" of Swainson, described in the 'Fauna Boreali-Americana ' p. 433, was a distinct species from the light-breasted form with which most naturalists had united it; but in his recently published ' Birds of the North-West' (Washington, 1874) he retracts this opinion, in accordance with the views derived from more extended experience. He still, however, adheres to his original plan of dividing the family into two subgenera, Buphagus of Moehring for S. catarrhactes and S. antarcticus, and Stercorarius for the remaining species and he continues to employ both the generic and the specific names given by writers previous to the date of the J 2th edition of Linnaeus's * Systema Naturae ' (1766), preferring to make the 10th edition the starting-point of his system of nomenclature. Argument on this subject would be futile ; there is nothing to prevent any American naturalist from making his own rules; but British ornithologists have a recognized code of laws in the Rules of the British Association for 1842, drawn up and signed by the principal naturalists of that day, and generally adopted up to the present time both here and on the continent. In these it is agreed that the principle of prioritv ought not to be carried back beyond the 12th edition of Linnaeus a solitary exception being made in favour of those genera of Brisson which are additional to those of Linnseus's 12th edition. M v excuse |