IIG AVAXDERINU ALBATROSS. 



Latham describes four species of Albatross, two of 

 whicli are recorded as visiting accidentally the seas of 

 Europe, namely, the subject of the present notice and 

 D. clilororynclios , the Yellow-nosed Albatross of Latham, 

 ("Synopsis," V, p. 309.) 



The Wandering Albatross, of which but few naturalists 

 have much personal knowledge, inhabits the Atlantic 

 and Pacific Oceans. Its appearance in European seas 

 is rare and accidental; at least but few instances of 

 its having been seen there are recorded. Degland 

 notices one specimen having been captured at Dieppe 

 about 1830, the head of which is preserved by M. 

 Hardy, the Avell-known naturalist of that place. Another 

 specimen was killed near Anvers in 1833, and three 

 more in the neighbourhood of Chaumont, in November, 

 1758. There is also a specimen in the museum at 

 Christiana, which Mr. Tristram informs me he has seen, 

 which was killed off the coast of Norway. Notwith- 

 standing these instances, however, ornithologists have 

 been tardy in admitting this species into the European 

 lists. Nuttall, whose descriptions are always interesting, 

 proceeding, as they did, from an accomplished naturalist, 

 who, like Audubon, earned his reputation in the 

 forests and the prairies, has given an excellent account 

 of this bird. "Vagabond," he remarks, "except in the 

 short season of reproduction they are seen to launch 

 out into the widest part of the ocean, and it is pro- 

 bable that, according to the season they ,pass from one 

 extremity of the globe to another. 



"Like the Fulmar, the constant attendant upon the 

 whale, the Albatross, no less adventurous and wandering, 

 pursues the tracks of his finny prey from one hemi- 

 sphere into another. Dr. Forster saw them in the 

 middle of the Southern Ocean, six or seven hundred 



