Mr. R. Swinhoe on Furrnosan Ornithology. 431 



dies stirred up in revolving. They always kept a long distance 

 in rear, and made no attempt to board us. Their long wings 

 enable them to skim the surface of the water with great ease 

 and grace. 



181. DiOMEDEA BRACHYURA, Tcmm. 



This is the large Albatros of the China Seas, being seen in 

 more or less abundance on every voyage. They travel as far 

 north as Japan. I have never discovered their building-site, 

 though, from their being found at all seasons, I suspect the 

 island or islands are not distant from the south coast of China. 

 The young of this species, of a uniform blackish brown, has 

 been figured in the 'Fauna Japonica'j but its legs are there 

 represented as of a flesh-colour, and its bill pinkish, whereas 

 American writers state that both bill and legs in the living 

 young are brownish, changing to black after death. 



The Albatros on wing is never figured correctly. When fly- 

 ing, the wings are curved like the head of a pickax, and it 

 skims the surface, rising and falling with every trough of the sea, 

 with scarce any motion perceptible in the wings, except at their 

 tips. They often sail upwards, and continue in their flight, throw- 

 ing first one shoulder forward and then the other. In the male 

 of this Albatros, the bronchi, on leaving the trachea, bulge con- 

 siderably as they run horizontally, then contract and bend for- 

 wards and downwards, and lastly, turning sharp round, rise 

 upwards and bulge again before entering the lungs. In the 

 female they are short and simple, without convolutions. 



182. DiOMEDEA NiGRiPEs, Aud. Om. Biog. 1839, p. 327. 



D. fuliginosa, Gmel., of my Amoy List, Ibis, 1860, p. 67. 



This small species, at once distinguishable from the Sooty Alba- 

 tros, or Cape Hen, by its black feet and the absence of the pale line 

 along the bill, is the representative of that species in the North 

 Pacific and China Seas. Cassin in his ' American Ornithology,^ 

 for some unaccountable reason, has confused this species with 

 the black young of the preceding large form. This bird is 

 abundant in the Formosaii channel at all seasons. The male is 

 a good deal larger than the female, has a longer and larger 

 bill, and is of a uniform sooty brown, without the white round 



