^p6 WANDERING ALB.ATROSS. • 



• W I T H S H O R T L E G S. 



'XLVIII. ALBATROSS. Gen. Birds, LXXXIL 



4S3, Wakderikg. Diomedea Exulans,, !/«.%?. 214. — PL Enl. z'i'j.— Latham, ill. 



Albatrofs, Ediu. 88. — Pallas, Spicil. Zool. Fa/c. v. 28. ' • 



Tfchaiki of the Kamtfchatkans, Lev. Mus. — Bl. Mvs. 



ALB. With a (Irong bill, finking a little in the middle j hooked, 

 at the end of the upper mandible, abrupt at that of the lower j 

 noftrils covered with a ftrong guard, ^and opening forward ; color 

 red ; tip dufky : the plumage, in fome, wholly dufky, with the 

 color moft intenfe on the upper part; others again have their under 

 fide^entirely white: the tail is rounded : legs and feet of a dufky redt 

 the webs duflcy. 



5,25. Albatrosses differ greatly in fize. Whether they differ in fpecies 



- I cannot determine. They weigh from twelve to twenty- eight pounds : 

 and vary in extent of wings, from feven feet feven inches to ten 

 feet feven. 



p, .^, The white and the brown variety or fpecies appear annually in 



flocks of thoufands, about the end oijune, and fpread over the whole 

 Ochotjchan fea, the gulph of Fenjchinjhi, and the Kurile iflands ; but 

 very rarely on the eaflern coaft of Kamtjchatka. They alfo arrived 

 in great numbers about Bering's Ifland, at the time when Stelkr was 

 preparing to depart from his long confinement, after the fhipwreck 

 of his illuftrious commander. He failed from thence on the loth of 

 Augufi. This coincides with the re-migration of thefe birds, who re- 

 ,tire from the former places about the end of July or the middle of 

 ,Auguft. Their arrival is the certain forerunner of fifh. It is pro- 

 bable that they purfue their prey northward, as they do not return 

 the fame way. They fpread to the coafts of America *, and tend 



• Seen the 4th of July, In lat. 56. 30, ofF the weftern coaft of America.'— Ellis's 

 ' Foj. i. 292. 



from 



