LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN PETRELS AND PELICANS. 17 



writers as to the status of the two species, Thalassogeron cuhnmatus 

 and T. chlororhynchns, which are evidently closely related, and the 

 identity of American specimens does not seem to be well established. 

 Godman (1907) says of T. culmlnaius: "The species is Avidely dis- 

 tributed in southern waters, especially in the Australasian seas, 

 whence it ranges throughout the Pacific to South America, extend- 

 ing north to the coast of Oregon ; it is also found in the South Atlantic 

 and Indian Oceans;" and that " ?'. chlororhynchus is an inhabitant 

 of the South Atlantic, the South Indian, and the Australian Oceans." 

 Both species have been called yellow-nosed albatross, and many ob- 

 servers have probably not detected the slight differences on which 

 the species have been separated, so that it becomes a difficult, if not 

 impossible, task to properly separate the references between the two 

 species, and I shall not attempt to do so. 



Audubon (1840) referred to a specimen of yellow-nosed albatross, 

 said to have been taken by Doctor Townsend off the mouth of the 

 Columbia River; Audubon called this bird Diomedea chlororhynchos, 

 but Professor Baird afterwards identified it as Thalassogeron cvl- 

 fiilna.tiis. Doctor Cooper saw^ a skull, which " was taken by Dr. W. O. 

 Ayres from a dead specimen found on the outer beach near the Golden 

 Gate," according to Baird, Brewer, and Eidgway (1884), and which 

 he identified as belonging to this species. In Nuttall's Manual, by 

 Chamberlain (1891), the following statement occurs: 



The claim of tliis species to recogoiition liere is based upon the capture of 

 an immature bird near the mouth of river St. Lawrence in ISS-^. I examiiied 

 the skin, which is preserved in the Museum of Laval University, at Quebec, 

 and was told by the curator, Mr. O. E. Dionne, that he purchased it from 

 the fisherman who shot the bird. The claim is sli.i?ht, but tliere is no reason 

 why it should be ignored. 



Nesting. — Very little is known about the breeding habits of the 

 yellow-nosed albatross. Mr, Robert Hall (1900), in his notes on 

 the birds of Kerguelen Island, says : 



Of the yellow-nosed albatross I saw no nests, but birds were observed near 

 the entrance to the harbor of our last anchorage (Fuller's). Suitable lofty 

 Islets were near this coast, and the birds in adult plumage would probably 

 be breeding there or on the cliffs to the southward of Christn)as Harbor. 

 This species makes an addition to the list of Kerguelen birds. 



]\Ir. W. Otto Emerson (1886) has published the following notes 

 on an ^gg of this species which he obtained : 



It was collected January 12, 1S80, by Captain Thos. Lynch, at Diegos, 

 Kavnen's Rocks, S. by E., fifty-two miles from Cape Horn. The nest was 

 composed on the outside of tussocks of grass and mud, inside of fine grass 

 and feathers. The diameter outside at the top was twelve inclies, and at 

 the base eighteen. Inside it was ten inches, and the depth inside was five 

 inches. It was situated on the top of the rocks, on a loamy plain. The 

 incubation was fresh. The following notes by .7. W. Detmiller, M. D., were 



