At the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ), University of California, Berkeley, I re-examined a controversial specimen of a dark-plumaged shearwater, collected on 19 December 1910 in Monterey Bay by Rollo Beck (MVZ specimen number 18691). Beck was evidently puzzled by this bird and tentatively identified it as a Christmas Shearwater (Puffinus nativitatis). Loomis (1918:116) described the specimen, presented its measurements, featured a photo of it, and carefully re-identified it as a Black-vented Shearwater (P. opisthomelas) representing “a peculiarly significant example of melanism.” Notwithstanding this, Everett (1988:97) asserted that the specimen “is actually a typical Short-tailed Shearwater (Puffinus tenuirostris)… The reason Loomis re-identified the specimen as opisthomelas is unknown.” The bird was labeled as a Short-tailed Shearwater when I examined it at the MVZ on 1 February 2007, but it is not recorded who identified it as such (C. Cicero pers. comm.). Everett, unlike Loomis, offered no rationale for his opinion.