234 Tnoisaciioiis. — Zoology. 



months without food of any kind. Professor Hutton attempted 

 to account for the good condition of tne young birds by sug- 

 gesting that they may be nocturnal in their habits (although 

 the old ones are strictly diurnal) and "go down to the sea at 

 night, returning to their nests in the morning;" but Mr. 

 Harris rejected that theory on the ground that the young 

 l)irds are incapable of flight, and tliat the situations occupied 

 by many of them make it impossible to get to the water except 

 by that means. 



Captain Fairchild has described to me from personal ob- 

 servation the coming-hornc of tlic Wandering Albatros after 

 its long absence from its island sanctuary, and the peremptory 

 manner in wdiich the young bird in possession is ordered to 

 quit the nest, so as to make room for its successor. The ease 

 with which the old birds find their way to their own particular 

 nest among so many is not the least wonderful thing in this 

 marvellous romance of island life. And when I ponder on 

 these strange facts I can only ask, as I have done before,"''' 

 " What is that divinely-implanted faculty which enables this 

 bird, after wanderings that defy calculation, and perhaps en- 

 circle the globe, to lind her way back at the right moment^ 

 across the pathless deep, to that little speck of rock in mid- 

 ocean wliere she had cradled her young the season before ? 

 Doubtless the same mysterious unerring instinct that guides 

 the swallow in its annual pilgrimage — that leads the pipit, 

 without landmark of any kind, straight to her little nest in the 

 grass, amidst miles of waving tussock — that enables the 

 nesting sea-bird, when she comes back from fishing, to pick 

 out her two painted eggs from amongst the thousands that lie 

 upon the barren rock." 



Diomedea regia, sp. nov. 



Ad. — Albus : tectricibus alarum nigris vix brunnescentibus,. 

 majoribus interioribus plus minusve albis, margine carpali albo 

 et brunneo vario : remigibus brunnescenti-nigris, apicem versus 

 pallidioribus, scapis flavicanti-albidis : scapularibus albis, ad 

 apicem nigris : supracaudalibus caudaque albis, hac nigro 

 apicata, rectricibus exterioribus basaliter brunneo irregulariter 

 marmoratis : subtus pure albus : rostro albido, carnoso vix 

 tincto, ad apicem flavicanti-corneo : pcdibus corneo-albi- 

 cantibus : iride saturate brunnea : annulo ophthalmico nigro. 



Adult. — General plumage pure- white ; upper surface of 

 wings blackish-brown, varied with pale-brown and white along 

 the edges, and with an extensive patch of white on the hu- 

 meral flexure ; primaries brownish-black, with paler tips and 



' " Birds of New Zealand," vol. ii., p. 197. 



