Vol. III. 

 190 



From Magazines, &c. 1 29 



to leave the burrow a few hours later, was caught in the 

 same trap and killed, and proved to be one of the largest of 

 its kind seen in the district. Mr. Bradford secured the brush 

 as a trophy of a unique haul, and has claimed the shire bonus on 

 the scalp. — Age, 28/3/03. 



The Flight of the Albatross. — In The Ibis for January, 1903 

 (pp. 81-88), appeared a paper from Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., 

 on this subject. After reviewing the varieties of this bird, and 

 pointing out that no two species " are known to breed in the same 

 locality," the author argues that the theory of natural selection 

 will not account for the variation in species, and that " we must 

 believe that isolation preceded the development of their specific 

 characters." Some Darwinians will possibly not agree with 

 Captain Hutton, but he has put his aspect of the case well. By 

 means of illustrations, his subsequent remarks on the " sailing " 

 flight of Albatrosses and the larger Petrels are made very lucid. 

 He favours the inclined plane theory to account for the bird's 

 power to " keep on the wing all day with very little exertion," and 

 urges that " as the velocity of the wind near the surface of the sea 

 is diminished by the friction of the waves, when the bird ascends 

 into the more rapidly moving upper current, its vis inertia makes 

 the wind blow past it, and so its stock of energy is increased." 

 Much close observation and keen reasoning have gone to the 

 making of this paper ; but it would be interesting to know what 

 the author has to say as to the " football " theory mentioned in 

 the next note. How wings as Captain Hutton depicts them 

 could form an oval eddy is not easy to see, nor is it clear that 

 passive resistance against wind force would enable a bird to 

 rise. One problem which has hardly been fairly faced by many 

 writers on the subject may be put thus : — Is vis inertia 

 (absence of effort or .power) sufficient to raise any bird against 

 the wind ? 



In the following (April) issue of The Ibis, p. 265, Captain 

 Hutton writes : — " In reference to my remarks on the Albatrosses, 

 I wish to add that Dr. Davidson, of s.s. Morning, has just brought 

 to the Museum two specimens of a Mollymawk from the Indian 

 Ocean, which I take to be the true Diomedea culminata. They 

 are certainly distinct from Diomedea bulleri of the Snares, and 

 therefore the latter remains a good species. The difference 

 between D. bulleri and D. culminata is in the culmicorn, which 

 is more expanded posteriorly in D. bulleri than in D. culminata. 

 If D. bulleri had been put into the genus Thalassogcron, and 

 the difference between it and D. culminata pointed out, there 

 would have been no difficulty in the matter. D. bulleri is cer- 

 tainly congeneric with D. salvini. Neither of them is such a 

 typical Thalassogcron as D. culminata or D. chlororhyncha, but 

 they cannot be separated generically. It is Diomedea bulleri 

 which breeds on the Snares, not D. culminata. I). chlororhyncha 



