436 BIRDS OE AUSTRALIA. 



Sp. 620. DIOMEDEA CULMINATA, Gould. 

 Culminated Albatros. 



Diomedea culminata, Gould in Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist., vol. xiii. 



p. 361. 

 {Thalassarche) culminata, Bonap. Compt. Rend, de FAcad. Sci., 



1856. 



Diomedea culminata, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. vii. pi. 41. 



This species appears to be more plentiful in the Australian 

 seas than elsewhere ; numbers came under my notice during 

 a voyage from Launceston to Adelaide, particularly off Capes 

 Jervis and Northumberland ; I frequently observed it between 

 Sydney and the northern extremity of New Zealand, and it 

 also occurred in the same latitude of the Indian Ocean as 

 abundantly as any of it congeners. It is a powerful bird, 

 and directly intermediate in size between Diomedea cauta 

 and D. chlororhynclios. The specific differences of the three 

 species are so apparent, that I had no difficulty whatever 

 in distinguishing them while on the wing. In B. chlororhyn- 

 clios the bill is more compressed laterally, the culmen is round, 

 and the yellow colouring terminates in an obtuse point mid- 

 way between the nostrils and the base ; while in B. cidminata 

 the culmen is broad and flat, and has its greyish-yellow 

 colouring continued of the same breadth to the base; the feet 

 of the latter are also fully a third larger than those of the 

 former. 



The habits, mode of life, and the kind of food partaken of 

 by the B. cidminata are so precisely similar to those of its con- 

 geners, that a separate description would be a mere repetition 

 of what has already been said respecting the preceding 

 species. 



Back, wings, and tail dark greyish black, the latter with 

 white shafts ; head and neck white, washed with greyish 

 black ; round the eye a mark of greyish black, interrupted 

 by a streak of white immediately below the lower part ^f the 



