MONOGRAPH OF THE PETEELS. 



recent research tends to prove that under the common title of D. exulans three 

 distinct forms, as now generally accepted, were included, viz., the true D. exulans, 

 frequenting the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans ; D. regia, of the New 

 Zealand area ; and D. chionoptera, inhabiting the Cape Seas and the South Indian 

 Ocean. The specific differences between D. exulans, D. regia and D. chionoptera 

 are given in detail below. 



Museums, both at home and abroad, contain comparatively few examples of 

 Albatroses, and without an exhaustive series of carefully collected specimens, it is 

 impossible to compile a correct history of D. exulans, or of the two allied 

 species. My conclusions have been drawn from the series in the British Museum, 

 supplemented by that in the Tring Museum, which has been placed at my 

 disposal by the Hon. Walter Rothschild ; these together indicate the various stages 

 of plumage through which the birds pass. The Tring Museum contains a nestling 

 of D. exulans exhibiting the slaty or purplish-grey down, as described by Sir 

 Walter Buller, the nestling-down of D. regia and D. chionoptera being pure white. 

 D. exulans passes through a succession of plumages, beginning with a brown 

 phase, the head having always a certain amount of white, the general colour 

 gradually becoming greyer, till it finally reaches the adult white stage with 

 blackish vermiculations on the neck and back : these progressive phases are said 

 to occupy from five to seven years, though the exact time must be more or less 

 conjectural. 



The Campbell Island specimens of D. regia in the British Museum prove that 

 the bird passes from the stage of a downy white nestling directly to a white plumage, 

 scarcely distinguishable from that of the adult, and the absence of vermiculations 

 on the back forms a further distinctive character for the separation of the species. 



The nestling of D. chionoptera is said to be covered with a pure white silky 

 down, and in its first stage of plumage is described as a brown bird like the 

 young of D. exulans. 



Gould, who did not perceive the difference between D. exulans and its two allies, 

 says that the Wandering Albatros, which is widely distributed over the whole 

 of the Southern Oceans, is abundant between the 30th and 60th degrees of 

 S. Latitude, though not confined to any one part. He first observed the species 

 on the 24th July, 1838, in Lat. 30° 38' S., Long. 20° 43' W., and thence continuously 

 until his arrival in Storm Bay, Tasmania ; he says that it was most plentiful near 

 the Cape and St. Paul's Island (Handb. Birds Austr., II. , p. 427) ; it may, however, 

 have been D. chionoptera in the last-named locality. 



Professor Giglioli, in the excellent map published in the " Fauna Vertebrata neh" 

 Oceano " (p. 49), shows the distribution of D. exulans as he observed it during the 

 voyage of the " Magenta," and gives the following account : — 



" On the journey from Montevideo to Batavia the commonest Albatros in sight 



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