AVES DIOMEDEID^E. 169 



pinions Some disgorged what they had been feeding on, which consisted 

 principally of large Cephalopods of the genus Ommastrephes or Loligo. I 

 killed two specimens with the aid of chloroform, the skin of one of which 

 I afterwards preserved, and several more were slaughtered by the ship's 

 company for the sake of certain of their wing-bones (the radii) which are 

 held in much esteem for pipe-stems. The largest captured measured ten 

 feet nine inches in expanse of wing, while that which I preserved was 

 somewhat smaller." 



Moseley in " Notes by a Naturalist on the 'Challenger'" (1879) writes 

 on page 134: 



"Besides the birds I have mentioned the great Albatross (D. exulans] 

 breeds at Tristan da Cunha, and on the top of Inaccessible Island. At 

 Tristan da Cunha it nests actually within the crater of the terminal cone 

 around the lake, 7,000 feet or more above the sea. 



"The Mollymauk is common in Tristan da Cunha, and its eggs were 

 brought off to us by the islanders for sale; they are not bad eating." 



Our page 171 of the same book Moseley says: "The tracts of lower, 

 nearly flat, land of Marion Island skirting the sea, and the lower hills and 

 slopes along the shore, presented a curious spectacle as viewed from the 

 ship as it steamed in towards a likely-looking sheltered spot for landing 

 The whole place was everywhere dotted over with albatrosses, the large 

 white albatross or Goney (D. exulans]. The birds were scattered irregu- 

 larly all over the green in pairs, looking in the distance not unlike geese 

 on a common." 



On page 180 he says: "The Skuas of course were close at hand, and 

 swooped down at once on the body of a penguin that we skinned. 

 Beyond the penguin rookery was a large tract of nearly flat land, very 

 swampy, and covered with grass. On the drier parts were numerous 

 troops of from twenty to thirty King Penguins, and in one place a smaller 

 rookery, but as far as I saw without brooders. 



"There was here a shallow freshwater lake, on which some young alba- 

 trosses were swimming. I ascended the slope inland towards the snow, 

 going up the gentle slope of the modern looking lava flow already referred 

 to. The ground was very boggy, and let one sink in sometimes almost 

 up to the middle. There were numerous Great Albatross's nests scattered 

 about, but they did not extend more than 100 feet above sea level, and 

 hardly anywhere as high up as that." 



