I 76 Shufeldt on the Beak of the Short-tailed Albatross. [April 



the head of the one from which figure 2 was taken has this color 

 dashed here and there with pale brown. 



In specimen No. 3 this brown becomes much deeper and is 

 the prevailing color of the head, to the gular space and about 

 the base of the superior mandible, in which localities it is of a 

 dirty white. The last specimen has the plumage of the entire 

 head a deep sootv brown, being somewhat paler in the parts 

 where the dirty- white occurs in specimen No. 3. Of these four 

 heads I take the specimen marked No. 1 in the figures to be the 

 oldest, if not, as I have already said, a full-grown bird, while the 

 others become younger and younger, as indicated by their num- 

 bers. No. 4 being the youngest of all. 



The figures of these beaks were all drawn from the specimens 

 by Mr. John L. Ridgway, a brother of the ornithologist. They 

 are carefully and accuratelv done, as is all the work of this artist. 



In figure 1 I have added the letters from a to g in order that 

 we might have something to designate the parts by in referring 



Figure 2. Left lateral aspect of the beak in Diomedea brachyura, a younger speci- 

 men than the one figured in Fig. 1. Reduced one-half from nature. 



to them. The letters given in figure 1 refer to like pieces of the 

 sheath in the other figures. 



In the beak of an Albatross collected at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, Africa, and presented to me many years ago, I find the 

 little horny dome, covering the nostril and marked c in figure 1, 

 to be a separate piece, and I presume the parts referred to by the 

 other letters are likewise. It hardly seems possible, however, 

 that any of these parts are ever moulted during the breeding sea- 



