DIOMEDEA IRRORATA. 



The following account of the species in the Galapagos is given by Messrs. 

 Rothschild and Hartert (Nov. Zool., VI., p. 193) : — " In breeding plumage D. irrorata 

 agrees with Salvin's description. The neck and forehead are white, but the crown 

 from between the eyes and the hind-neck are strongly washed with buffy-yellow. 

 The dark grey and white mottling is much coarser on the vent and under tail- 

 coverts, in sharp contrast to the almost uniform dark grey lower abdomen and 

 flanks. It is gradually lost on the fore-neck. Iris brown ; bill yellow ; tarsi and feet 

 lead colour, lead-blue, or greenish lead-colour." The bill and feet, too, are 

 represented as of a fleshy pink tint, instead of being as described above. 



" Eggs vary from elliptical ovate to perfectly oval, and are mostly without 

 spots, though some show small underlying patches of pale mauve, generally confined 

 to the larger end, but in one specimen it is spread all over the surface. Axis, 

 3.8^4.3 inches ; diameter, 2.6-2.75. The eggs seem to be dropped at random between 

 the rocks and bushes, but all found on this occasion were addled." 



Adult male. General colour above smoky-brown, with a few irregular bars or 

 spots of white on the longer scapulars, mantle, and inner secondaries, nowhere 

 very distinct ; the upper mantle and upper scapulars regularly barred with 

 blackish brown and whitish zigzag bars, the dark bars predominating ; hind-neck 

 and sides of neck white, varied with fine transverse lines of greyish black and white, 

 these vermiculated bars extending down the sides of the neck and sides of chest ; 

 lower back, rump and upper tail-coverts coarsely barred with black and white 

 zigzag markings, the upper tail-coverts having broader white bars ; head and neck 

 white with a slight shade of grey on the sides of face and over the eyes ; on the 

 hinder crown a wash of ochraceous buff, which overspreads the hind neck and 

 sides of neck ; cheeks, chin and throat white ; remainder of under-surface finely 

 vermiculated with white and dusky brown, which becomes darker on the flanks and 

 abdomen, the under tail-coverts whiter, more coarsely barred with dusky-brown ; the 

 under wing-coverts and axillaries greyish white, rather finely vermiculated with dusky- 

 brown ; edge of the wing dark brown ; quills blackish below, more ashy on the inner 

 webs, which are slightly vermiculated near the base. 



Total length, about 34.0 inches; culmen, 5.8; wing, 21.5; tail, 5.1; tarsus, 

 4.1 ; middle toe and claw, 5.5. 



Adult female. Similar to the male. 



Young. Described as uniform brown, but no specimen yet obtained. 



The description and figure are taken from Salvin's type in the British Museum. 

 Like most of the chromo-lithographed plates in the twenty-fifth volume of the 

 " Catalogue of Birds," that of Diomedea irrorata has faded, and is no longer 

 accurate, the bill and feet being also wrongly coloured. 



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