ROYAL ALBATROSS. 57 



Immature, with down still adhering. Agrees in detail with the preceding ; it 

 has fewer white markings on the wing, and the cross-bars on rump and lower back 

 are more pronounced, with longer, black ends to the scapulars ; these seem the 

 only noticeable differences ; the tail is just as white, and the bill is more dully 

 coloured. 



Nestling, just commencing to lose down. Coloration exactly the same ; bill dark 

 coloured, but tail pure white. 



Nestling. Covered with pure white down, thick and woolly in appearance. 



Nest. Apparently like that of D. e. rothschildi. 



Egg. White. Dimensions 126 by 79.5 mm. 



Breeding -season. Commence to lay at the end of December. 



Distribution and forms. East Australian and New Zealand seas ; single speci- 

 mens also known from east and west coasts of South America. From the former 

 localities two subspecies have been separated : D. e. epomophora Lesson, breeding 

 at Campbell Island ; and D. e. mccormicki Mathews, from Enderby Island, Auckland 

 Group, with the scapulars cross-barred, only the longer ones having black tips ; the 

 olecranal patch larger, and wing coloration lighter. Murphy (Bull. Amer. Mus. 

 Nat. Hist., Vol. XXXVII., p. 861, Dec. 10th, 1917) has founded a new subgenus 

 Rhothonia, on a new species Diomedea sanfordi, killed at sea, forty miles off Corral, 

 Chile. This is obviously a form of the present species, agreeing in all details of 

 structure. We do not understand Murphy's measurements, otherwise we should 

 conclude his bird was less than the typical form, but he does state that " sanfordi 

 shows no trace of the white olecranal patch." 



ORDER FKEGATI. 



The order covers only one family with a few species of large seabirds with long 

 hooked bills, nostrils not obvious, very long wings, very long forked tails and small 

 webbed feet. They have comparatively very slight bodies and the male has a 

 gular pouch which is capable of large distension in the breeding-season. The peculiar 

 feet are diagnostic, the tarsus being unique in character. The distribution is 

 purely tropical throughout all oceans, the birds breeding gregariously on isolated 

 islands. 



This peculiarly well-defined order has been merged by anatomists with the 

 Steganopodes on account of the absurdly trivial superficial feature of the inter- 

 webbing of all four toes. 



Osteologically, the palate is termed desmognathous but it is a pseudo-desmog- 

 nathism which has puzzled osteologists, really only a simple development from 

 the schizognathous form, and the vomer is fused posteriorly with the palatines only 

 in the adult. The nasals are holorhinal and there are no basipterygoid processes ; 

 the lachrymal is large with a large descending process which reaches the jugal bar 

 and an uncinate bone which reaches the palatine. The quadrate is also peculiar. 

 The cervical vertebrae are twelve or thirteen and opisthoccelous ; the sternum 

 differs from that of the succeeding in its greater depth posteriorly and the furcula 

 is anchylosed with the acrocoracoid and the carina sterni while the pelvis differs 

 and is similar to that of some Procellarise, as is also the skull. The tarsal bones 

 are more or less separated, in this respect recalling those of the Impennes alone. 

 Both carotids are present and the syrinx is tracheo-bronchial but flattened from 

 before backwards. The digestive sj^stem is periccelous and orthoccelous and shows 

 little peculiarity, the caeca being small. The leg muscles are restricted to the 

 femoro -caudal and the ambiens, the others missing ; the biceps slip is also absent 

 from the wing muscles and, as would be anticipated, the biceps itself is peculiarly 

 formed. The oil gland is present and tufted, a minute aftershaft is present and the 

 wing is aquincubita,!. The pterylosis is very uniform and the down is very thick. 



