142 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



eight inches to three feet from the ground, and are decidedly 

 well-built, compact structures. These birds have probably few 

 natural enemies, their diminutive size making them unworthy the 

 notice of the larger birds of prey. Their extinction, so far as my 

 district is concerned, is at most a matter of a few years, as in- 

 creased settlement, and the consequent burning of all scrub-clad 

 areas, will ultimately exterminate them. The usual clutch is, in all 

 probability, three eggs, and as I have, so far, never found a nest 

 late in the season I am inclined to the belief that but one brood 

 is reared in each year. I have never found the birds among crops 

 or in cultivated areas, though they may frequent such places if 

 adjacent to their natural habitat. 



NOTES ON THE EGG OF THE SHORT-TAILED 

 ALBATROSS. 



By A. J. Campbell. 



( Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, loth December, 189 7.) 



Of the fifteen species and varieties of albatrosses inhabiting the 

 globe, twelve of them fly the ocean wastes of the Southern seas, 

 therefore most of them occur in Australian or New Zealand 

 waters. The remaining three species are found in the North 

 Pacific Ocean. 



The Short-tailed Albatross, Diomedea albatrus, belongs to 

 the northern birds, and is supposed to range as far south as the 

 seas of the northern part of Australia. This fine bird resembles 

 the Wandering Albatross, from which it may be distinguished, as 

 Gould points out, by the shortness of its tail and by the 

 truncated form of the base of the bill. 



There is a halo of romance surrounding this family of great 

 oceanic birds, chiefly, I think, on account of the weirdness or 

 sublime isolation of their breeding homes. These are, for 

 instance, the island of Tristan d'Acunha, with its mist-enveloped 

 mountain peak 8,ooo feet above sea level ; Prince Edward 

 Island, where snow in midsummer (December) covers its sharply- 

 shaped mountains ; islands of the Crozet Group, towering from 

 the water's edge in great basaltic cliffs and hills to a height 

 of 4,000 feet ; and Kerguelen's Land, or Captain Cook's Islands 

 of Desolation (whither two of our field naturalists, Messrs. 

 H. Gundersen and Robert Hall, have gone). Islands capped 

 with towering conical peaks (6,ooo feet high), sheltering a glacier, 

 although very imposing, are, according to navigators, severe and 

 sterile, with a dismal climate — rain and snow even at mid- 

 summer — and where gales are said to rage for three weeks out 

 of four. Surely this region must be one of the " Chambers 



