Gough^ ICergnele7iy and South Georgia Islands. 437 



Order, TUBINARES. 

 Family, Diomedeid^. 

 4. Diomedea exulans Linn. Wandering Albatross. " Albatross." 

 Diomedea exulans Linn., S. N., i, 1766, p. 214, and of authors generally. 



Two skins and six eggs from South Georgia and 87 eggs and one 

 skeleton from Gough Island. 



Common at all three islands. 



Mr. Comer writes : — " The albatrosses come ashore during the 

 month of December to mate up.* The male bird usually remains 

 by till the nest is built, though not always, but have never seen them 

 help to make the nest. The old nests are usually taken and built 

 higher, the bird sitting on the nest and reaching out and picking up 

 the moss and mud and short grass around her. The nests are from 

 4 to 10 inches in height and from 12 to 16 inches across, the top 

 being nearly as broad as the bottom. They do not build near other 

 birds but lay scattering and generally on knolls, and usually on high 

 land where there is a good chance to run against the wind and 

 so rise from the ground. These birds lay but one e,gg. When 

 robbed they will remain on their nest for a few days and then leave. 

 I have taken a second egg from the same nest, but my belief is, that 

 the first bird had left the nest and another taken it. The albatross 

 skeleton I send you, was a female and had jast layed when I killed 

 her ; there were no other small eggs in her, such as I have always 

 found in the other birds that lay again. 



The young albatrosses have to be at least ten months old before 

 they can fly, and I think it safe to say that not more than five out of 

 a hundred live to leave their nests. They are killed by sea-hens and 

 nellies." 



Mr. Comer further told me that Dr. Kidder's suppositionf that the 

 almost entirely black specimen taken by him was a young bird of 

 the preceding year was perfectly correct. He also said that the 

 albatrosses at South Georgia were considerably larger, and those at 



* In his journal at Gough Island he notes: " Dec. 26th, the albatrosses have com- 

 menced to lay. Got one egg." On the 27th he got two, on the 28th four, and on 

 Jan. .3d notes that, "we have plenty of albatross eggs now." In his journal at 

 French Bay, South Georgia, he first speaks of getting the eggs on Dec. 13th, when 

 he took two, on the 14th he got forty-six and from that time on they were appar- 

 entlj' plenty. 



f Bull. Nat. Mus. No. 2, p. 21. 



