THE BLACK-BROWED ALBATROSS. 113 



The same remarks exactly apply to the next few days, until, on January 2nd, 

 we sighted ice. On that morning we had five birds of phase 1 with us, and one of 

 phase 3. After this we lost them entirely. 



On our homeward voyage, from McMurdo Sound to the Auckland Islands, we first 

 encountered them, six or eight together, and all of phase 2, on February 29, 1904 

 (67 30' 8., 174 E.). We saw them in gradually increasing numbers, always of 

 the same phase, from March 1st to March 14th. During this fortnight we saw probably 

 over a hundred birds, and all were of phase 2, except one, which was of phase 4. 



While anchored in Port Ross in the Auckland Islands we saw them out at sea, 

 but they never came into the harbour. Between New Zealand and the Straits of 

 Magellan, to our surprise, we saw not a single example of the bird. It appeared 

 again, however, on the day that we sighted South America, and in the Straits we saw 

 many hundreds sitting in large companies on the water. On the Atlantic side between 

 Punta Arenas and the Falkland Islands we occasionally saw one or two of the typical 

 adults, the last on July 27th, when D. melanophrys disappeared entirely, and its place 

 was taken by a form we had before this hardly seen at all a bird in every respect the 

 same in shape and size as D. melanophrys, but with a grey ring always round the 

 neck and the bill always quite black.* 



Diomedea melanophrys wanders over all the southern oceans, and occasionally has 

 made its appearance far in the North Atlantic. Of its seasonal migrations very 

 little appears to be known, but even our own limited observations seem to show that 

 they have definite movements at certain seasons. No mere weather changes can 

 account for their congregation in the Straits in mid-winter, neither can accident only 

 account for our having met only the fully adult form in the ice in autumn. 



THALASSOGERON CULMINATUS. 



The Grey-headed Albatross. 



Diomedea cnlminatus, Gould, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. xii. (1844), p. 361. 



Thalassor/eron culminatus, Baird, Brew., and Ridgw., Water Birds N. Amer. ii. (1884), p. 358 ; Sharpe, 

 Rep. ' Southern Cross ' Coll. (1902), p. 162, ibiqm citata. 



MATERIAL IN THE 'DISCOVERY'S' COLLECTION. 

 No. 6, ad. skin, ? . Dec. 29, 1901. 56 54' S. 170 E. 



* This bii-d appears to agree with the " Mollymawk " (Thalassogeron sp. inc.), mentioned by Mr. Eagle 

 Clarke amongst the birds of Gough Island (op. cit., p. 265). Those that we saw were evidently adult. They had 

 the bill entirely black, and the head white, shading on the occiput, or sometimes on the hind neck, into grey 

 which deepened round the sides of the neck to form a well-marked grey collar, incomplete upon the fore neck. 

 The feet were rosy pink. In other respects, as in size, the bird closely resembled D. melanophrys. We saw it 

 several times in March, from 55 S. lat. northwards as we came up to the Auckland Islands from Wilkes' Land. 

 We saw nothing of it in the South Pacific ; but in July we found it again in the South Atlantic, between 30 and 

 40 S. lat. as we came north from the Falkland Islands in 1904. 



