Vanuato Petrel

[William Bourne]

It seems time that the history of the discovery of the Vanuatu Petrel Pterodroma occulta, discussed on 27 October, was explained. In 1962 I was working through the petrels in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, when Bob (later Sir Robert) Falla arrived and looked through the drawers ahead of me. After a while he called out "Look at this!" and there were the original Whitney South Sea Expedition specimens of the Vanuatu Petrel. We agreed that they were like the White-necked Petrel P. cervicalis but small- I am inclined to regard it as a race, but people are more generous in New Zealand. I asked if I could call it after him, but time passed, and I did not get round to it, until he reported them himself without a name in Notornis. I later tried to persuade Gerry Clark to come and look for it in his yacht Totorore, but he did not fancy the situation, and went off and got drowned at the Antipodes Islands instead. I wish other peoplke better luck.   Bill Bourne wrpb...@yahoo.co.uk