22 BULLETIN 121, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



PHOEBETRIA PALPEBRATA AUDUBONI Nichols and Murphy. 

 AUDUBON SOOTY ALBATROSS. 



HABITS. 



This is another species of ocean wanderer which has but a slight 

 claim to a place on our list. It is a common species of wide distri- 

 bution in southern and antarctic oceans; but its wanderings seldom 

 bring it to our coasts, where it is very rare and of doubtful occur- 

 rence at the present day. Audubon (1840) first introduced it to our 

 fauna and described it under the name of Dlomedea jusca^ from a 

 specimen procured by Doctor Townsend off the coast of Oregon ; so 

 far as I know, no other specimen has ever been taken in American 

 waters. 



TV^es^mp'.— Sir Walter Buller (1888) says: 



This species is more wary in its breeding habits than any other species of 

 albatross. It breeds both in the Auckland and Campbell Islands. But it usually 

 selects, as a nesting place, a ledge of rock high up on the face of the cliff, and 

 quite inaccessible either from above or below. 



Not far from Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlantic Ocean, lies 

 a beautiful and picturesque island, on the rocky cliffs of which the 

 sooty abatross finds a congenial breeding place. Mr. W. Eagle 

 Clarke (1905) has given us the following description of this ocean 

 gem: 



Gough Island rises on every side abruptly from the ocean in sheer precipices 

 several hundred feet high. The general aspect of the island, as seen from ship- 

 board, is very beautiful, with its green slopes and moss and lichen-covered 

 cliffs, over which numbers of rushing waterfalls shoot out into the sea with a 

 drop of several hundred feet. The only apparent landing place is on the 

 eastern side, where the party from the Scotia landed. Here a ravine runs down 

 from the interior to the coast and along it flows a small stream. Near the sea- 

 ward end of this ravine are a few acres of level ground covered with grass or, 

 in the moister parts with ferns and rankly growing celery and docks. Here, too, 

 is a narrow beach, perhaps a hundred yards long, strewn with many large 

 boulders and numerous fern rhizomes of considerable size. At the southwest 

 end of the island there appears to be a plateau of about half a square mile in 

 extent at an elevation of some 300 feet, but everywhere else the island rises 

 into steep ridges separated by narrow valleys, which must render its explora- 

 tion a matter of extreme difficulty. On the lower ground and up to a height 

 of over 1,000 feet the island is thickly covered with tussock grass {Spartina 

 arundm<icea) and bucking trees (Phylica nituJa) ; the former spread pro- 

 fusely over the steeper slopes, and the latter gnarled and stunted, yet growing 

 vigorously even on the most exposed ridges. These trees appear hardly 

 to rise beyond twenty feet in height and generally bear a thick growth of 

 lichens on their stems. Under the waterfalls and along the sheltered banks of 

 the streams ferns and mosses grow in luxuriance. More than the general 

 aspect of the vegetation on the higher ground could not be determined, but 

 the very summit of the island seemed by its green appearance to be clothed with 

 mosses and lichens. 



