

ALBATROSS EGGS. 361 



have been subsequently made to it, when some guano 

 traders, about 1869, succeeded in effecting a landing; 

 but in doing so they lost their boat, which was dashed 

 to pieces on the rocks, leaving them dependent for 

 subsistence upon the albatrosses, on which they had to 

 live until they could be rescued by their friends. 



The whole of this region is a stormy one, where strong 

 winds frequently prevail for weeks together, and on these 

 islands the angry sea dashes up cliffs 60 or 70 feet in 

 height; it also seems there is no permanent supply of 

 fresh water there. Landing is in consequence an 

 operation of considerable risk, as a sailing ship or boat 

 is apt to be carried away by the winds and the strong 

 currents that here prevail, as Bass found to his cost 

 in 1798, when he had great difficulty in rejoining his 

 ship after getting off from the island. In November 1 894 

 however, Messrs. Ash worth and Le Soueff made a 

 special expedition to inspect the breeding grounds of 

 the albatross, known to exist on this historic island ; 

 and found some 400 nests of these birds scattered along 

 the cliffs, mostly of the species known as "Diomedia 

 Cauta " or the shy albatross. They contained but a, 

 single young bird, or one egg not hatched, size about 

 4 by 2f inches, of a creamy white colour, marked 

 at the large end with some red spots. * Those eggs 

 that we have ourselves seen, may be described as 

 somewhat about twice as large as a goose egg, and 

 are rather long and pointed in form ; the fact of only 

 one young bird being produced in each nest, which 

 seems hardly ever to be exceeded, will account for the 



* See paper read by Messrs. H. P. C. Ashworth and D. Le Soueff at 

 Melbourne, before the French Naturalists Club, Jan. 17, 1895 (Reported 

 in The Victorian Naturalist, Vol. xi, No IO for Jan. 1895, pp. 138 140). 



