28 SEA-BIRDS 



of the Faeroes and in the Oslo Fjord, Norway; one is even alleged to have reached 

 Oesel in the Baltic. In i860 (Andersen 1894) a female black-browed albatross 

 turned up among the gannets of Mykinesholmur in Faeroe, and came to the cliff 

 every season with them until 1 1 May 1894, when it was shot by P. F. Petersen. For 

 many years the only British record was of one which was caught exhausted in a 

 field near Linton, Cambridgeshire, on 9 July 1897; but on 14 May 1949 an im- 

 mature albatross which was probably of this species was seen at the Fair Isle, between 

 Orkney and Shetland. It was first noticed soaring off the south face of the Sheep 

 Craig, the famous landmark on the east side of the island, and obligingly glided over 

 George Waterston, G. Hughes-Onslow and W. P. Vicary, who got a fine view of it 

 (Williamson 1950, 1950b). Further, in September 1952 one was picked up alive 

 in Derbyshire (Edmunds, 1952; Serventy, Clancey and Elliott, 1953). 



No other albatross has been certainly seen in Britain: a record of the yellow- 

 nosed albatross from the Lincolnshire-Nottinghamshire boundary on 25 November 

 1836 is not admitted to the British list. This species, D. chlororhynchos^ has been 

 certainly obtained, however, in south Iceland, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence 

 river, in the Bay of Fundy (New Brunswick), and in Oxford County, Maine. A 

 record of D. chrysostoma from Bayonne in France* may possibly refer to this species, 

 for D. chlororhynchos and D. chrysostoma are extremely similar, and almost impossible 

 to distinguish in the field. D. chrysostoma, the grey-headed albatross, has, however, 

 certainly been recorded once in the North Atlantic — from South Norway in 1837 

 (or 1834). The light-mantled sooty albatross Phoebetria palpebrata, a relatively small 

 species which breeds on sub-antarctic islands, has been recorded from Dunkirk, 

 France*. The greatest of all the albatrosses, the wandering albatross Diomedea exulans, 

 has been taken, in France (Dieppe), Belgium (Antwerp) and on the Atlantic coast of 

 Morocco ; this magnificent animal has a wingspread up to 11^ feet and may weigh 

 seventeen pounds or more; we can imagine the excitement of those humans who 

 encountered these South Atlantic wanderers on their North Atlantic wanderings! 



Sometimes these wanderings may end in queer places; for instance, F. J. Stubbs 

 (19 1 3) found an albatross that he judged to be D. exulans hanging among the turkeys 

 of Christmas 1909 in a game-dealer's shop in Leadenhall Market. When he saw it 

 'the bird appeared quite fresh, and bright red blood was dripping from its beak.' 

 There was no indication whence it had been obtained. 



Unidentified albatrosses have been seen at sea west of Spitsbergen on 2 May 

 1885, by the Captain David Gray who shot the 1878 black-browed albatross; 

 off the mouth of Loch Linnhe, West Highlands of Scotland, in the autumn of 1884 

 by W. Rothschild; and twenty miles north-west of Orkney on 18 July 1894, by 

 J. A. Harvie-Brown (1895). 



Apart from the three regular non-breeding summer visitors and the albatrosses, 

 at least six other tubenoses have wandered into the North Atlantic from the South, 

 or from the Pacific. The Cape pigeon Daption capensis, has been recorded from France*, 

 Holland and Maine, but the three British records have been rejected from the official 

 list on the grounds that sailors have been known to liberate captured specimens 

 in the Channel. Quite probably they are valid. Peale's or the scaled petrel Pterodroma 

 inexpectata, has once been taken in New York State. Pterodroma neglecta, the Kermadec 

 petrel, has been once found dead in Britain (on i April 1908 near Tarporley in 

 Cheshire). One Trinidad petrel Pterodroma arminjoniana, was driven to New York 



* Not included by N. Mayaud (1953) in his List of the Birds of France 



