252 ZOOLOGY. 



The Wandering Albatross, (Diomedia exulans,) so 

 commonly seen off the Capes Horn and Good Hope,* 

 has a white plumage, beautifully pencilled on the back 

 and scapulars, and the wings marked with black and 

 white.f In size and form of body it is intermediate 

 to the goose and the swan. The average length of the 

 species is five feet, and its spread of wing ten and a half : 

 amongst a multitude of specimens, I have seen none 

 in which the spread of wing measured more than eleven 

 feet. There are two other birds which may be re- 

 garded as varieties of the above. The one, and which 

 I have seen only in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, 

 differs from the kind last mentioned, in possessing a 

 vertical line of rose-coloured plumage on each side the 

 neck. The other offers a more marked distinction ; 

 its plumage being light-brown speckled with white. 



The principal anatomical peculiarities I have noticed 

 in this species are, the existence of an epiglottis, partly 

 closing the aperture of the larynx ; and a supplemental 

 bone, or spurious wing, articulating with the humerus, 

 at its junction with the radius and ulna. I have been 

 unable to detect the function of the large and peculiar 

 superciliary glands which are found on the cranium of 

 both the Albatross and Petrel tribes. They have no 

 very distinct deferential ducts ; but that which most re- 

 sembles one, passes into the nasal cavity, along the 

 roof of the upper mandible. 



The second well-determined species is D. Chlororyn- 

 chus, the Molly-maux.J: It is smaller than the Wan- 



* We have met with this bird in so low a latitude as 21 S. 

 f The plumage of the young bird is uniformly gray. 

 J The lowest latitudes in which we have seen this species, are 28 N. 

 and 35 S. 



