MONOGRAPH OF THE PETRELS. 



Nikolai Hanson captured his first specimens on October 13th, 1898, in Lat. 33° 37' S., 

 Long. 9° 54 > E. 



On Kerguelen Island the species was obtained by the naturalists of the " Erebus " 

 and "Terror" {Phil. Trans., Vol.168, p. 146), and by those of the " Challenger " 

 Expedition, while Mr. Robert Hall found it breeding on the cliffs facing the east 

 at a height of four hundred feet. 



Gould described this Albatros as the commonest in the Southern Oceans ; and 

 from Lat. 35° to 50° S., whether in the Atlantic or Pacific, it was rarely absent, while 

 off the coast of Tasmania it was particularly abundant, following the ship to the 

 entrance of Storm Bay, whence it departed for the open sea. 



Professor Giglioli records the species between Batavia and Melbourne up to 

 the entrance of Port Jackson, and Mr. A. J. Campbell adds Queensland, New 

 South Wales, Victoria, S. W. Australia to its habitat (Nest and Eggs of Austr. Birds, II., 

 p. 926). 



In the New Zealand Seas, Sir W. Buller says that D. melanophrys was far more 

 common than D. exulans, and this is the Albatros which is supposed to nest on the 

 Sisters, some outlying islands of the Chatham group, where a thousand young birds are 

 said to have been taken by the Maories in a single season (Buller, Suppl. Birds New Zeal., 

 I., p. xxiv., 1905). The nests on Chatham Island were in such inaccessible places that 

 Captain Fairchild of the " Hinemoa " was unable to reach them (Buller, t.c, p. 147). 

 On Campbell Island Captain Hutton says the birds commence to breed during the 

 middle of September {Ibis, 1903, p. 82). 



Dr. Wilson relates that during the voyage of the " Discovery " he first met with 

 D. melanophrys on September 27th, 1901, in Lat. 28° S., and it shortly after appeared in 

 great numbers, accompanying the ship to the vicinity of Table Bay, and again on leaving 

 the Cape on their southward voyage it reappeared. Some birds had a pale grey head 

 and neck, while others had a grey collar of varying width and incomplete below. The 

 size of the birds also differed considerably, but all had the dusky yellow bill with darker 

 tip. The grey-necked birds are doubtless immature, and could easily be distinguished 

 from Thalassogeron chlororhynchus and T. culminatus, as the colour of the bill in the 

 two last named birds is more defined, and more distinctly black and yellow than that 

 of the young D. melanophrys. Until October 19th only immature examples were seen, but 

 thenceforth till October 28th adult birds alone appeared ; from that time, however, 

 onwards, he saw white-headed adults with lemon-yellow bills and orange tips, white- 

 headed birds with bright yellow bills and dusky tips, or with dull yellow bill and 

 blackish tip, and grey-headed birds with dusky brownish bills and darker tips. 

 The conclusion arrived at was that they were all forms of D. melanophrys in various 

 stages of plumage. Throughout the first half of November one or more of these forms 

 was seen daily, till on reaching the ice, they disappeared, only to reappear on leaving 

 it as the ship went north. They were very numerous in the neighbourhood 



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