DIOMEDEA CHIONOPTERA. 



4° 29' E.) by Mr. M. J. Nicoll, and presented to that institution by the Earl of 

 Crawford. 



Mr. Eagle Clarke (Ibis, 1905, p. 264) says that an Albatros, which he supposed 

 to be D. exulans, was noticed on Gough Island towards the end of April, 1904, by the 

 naturalists of the Scottish Antarctic Expedition. Mr. G. E. Verrill, in his account 

 of the birds observed on Gough Island by Mr. Comer (Tr. Conn. Acad., IX., p. 437), 

 says that D. exulans was breeding there at the end of December, and the first eggs 

 were obtained on the 26th of that month, and were quite plentiful by the 3rd of 

 January. The young, he says, must be ten months old before they can fly, and not 

 more than five per cent, leave their nests, as they are killed by the Skuas and Giant 

 Petrels. 



I think it highly probable that the Albatros of Gough Island will be found to 

 be D. chionoptera rather than D. exulans, but at present I have not sufficient evidence 

 to decide the point. 



Mr. Robert Hall describes the habits of this majestic Albatros in Kerguelen, 

 where the old birds have a habit of rubbing their bills together when courting, and 

 he noticed on one occasion four of them " billing " each other ; two were birds of the 

 previous year, while the other two were adults. Two old birds were sitting on their 

 nests near by, so that within a few paces, eggs of the year, young birds of the last 

 year, and presumably the parents of both, were to be found (Hall, Ibis, 1900, pp. 13, 

 15). Mr. Hall also examined the nests of this Albatros on Prince of Wales' Foreland, 

 Long Island, in Royal Sound, and Howe Island, where a typical one was 37 inches 

 in breadth, the diameter of the bowl 18 inches, and depth 5 inches. The nests 

 were generally placed within 50 feet of the sea-level, though on one occasion he 

 found one half a mile inland. The largest colony was near Mount Campbell, where 

 many nests were discovered. 



Further accounts of the breeding of D. chionoptera are given by Dr. Kidder, who 

 accompanied the American " Transit of Venus " Expedition. He recorded the species 

 under the name of D. exulans and stated that on the low strip of beach which 

 connected Prince of Wales' Foreland with the mainland of Kerguelen, he saw many 

 Albatroses nesting upon hillocks, placed at a little distance from each other, and built up 

 some two feet or more from the ground. The nests were chiefly constructed of grass, 

 combined with fibrous peat, and were of various heights, having been used repeatedly, 

 and added to year after year. 



Sir J. Hooker informs us that he found fifty or sixty nests crowded together on 

 grassy slopes above the precipices 700 to 800 feet above the sea ; a good deal of straw 

 and stubble was mixed with the clay to give it consistency. 



I have little doubt that the eggs brought by Captain Armson from the Crozets 

 were those of D. chionoptera, and they have been determined as such by Mr. E. W. 



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