Birds of Kerguelen Island. 17 



DioMEDEA MKLANOPHRYS Temm. ; Salvin, Cat. B. xxv. 

 p. 447. 



The Black-browed Albatross seems to me to have a voice 

 like the bleat of a sheep. Near the South Head of Greenland 

 Harbour an opportunity was given me to see a magnificent 

 rookery of this species. The cliff faced the east, and was, 

 roughly, over 700 feet high. The birds were dotted upon it 

 to a height of about 400 feet, where an incline led to it ; but 

 in other directions the cliff looked precipitous, bold, and 

 forbidding. I counted 40 to 50 birds in a flock on the water, 

 just in front of the nesting-ground; but this number was 

 proportionately very small, and there must have been from 

 500 to 700 birds in the mass of whitened spots. Individuals 

 flew off and on, associated into groups and separated, lodged 

 on the water and quickly left it, all the time displaying their 

 very elegant flight. Although I had spent three days in 

 visiting the islands and the mainland, in search of this 

 rookery, I could not see it until I was sailing within a few 

 hundred yards, and quite opposite it*. 



Captain Steensohn hooked two of these Albatrosses for me. 

 One was caught by the leg through quarrelling with another ; 

 while the second was captured by the beak, which does not 

 often occur, owing to the bird's bump of caution, for the bait 

 is nearly always dropped at the first pull and the barb of the 

 hook does not usually hold. On thro^ving a large piece of 

 fat overboard, I noticed that each time the bird tugged at it 

 the open wings jerked forward and the tail flicked upward. 

 Although this mass of birds was so near a large harbour, 

 more than three or four were seldom seen inside it at one 

 time, and very few appeared 30 miles west of the colony. 

 From this I concluded that this Albatross is very local in its 

 distribution, and finds its food straight out from the shore. 



We kept one alive on board from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m., and 

 when released it joined a mate with apparent good humour 



* [The discovery of a breeding-place of this species is interesting, 

 inasmuch as the Black-browed Albatross was not ascertained by the 

 * Challenger ' Expedition to nest on Kerguelen, although two specimens 

 of it were obtained there. — Edd.] 



SER. VII. VOL. VI. C 



