MONOGRAPH OF THE PETRELS. 



The yellow culmen of the bill doubtless suggested to Latham the name " Yellow- 

 nosed Albatros," by which this bird has since been known to naturalists. 



The original description was taken from a specimen procured on one of Captain 

 Cook's voyages, and a pencil drawing of it was made by George Forster, who was 

 the artist accompanying the expedition. The figure is scarcely recognisable, but 

 in the description of the collections made during the voyage, John Reinhold 

 Forster diagnosed this Albatros and gave it the name Diomedea chrysostoma. 

 Forster's Descriptiones Animalium was not published till 1844, and in most cases 

 his names have been anticipated. He gives the home of D. chrysostoma as " Oceano 

 Australi extra tropicum." From this manuscript Latham evidently derived the 

 habitat of his " Yellow-nosed Albatros," which he gives as the " Southern seas without 

 the tropics." The specimen described came from the Cape of Good Hope, and 

 was formerly in the British Museum, but is no longer in existence. 



T. chlororhynchus is an inhabitant of the South Atlantic, the South Indian and 

 the Australian Oceans. Gould relates that the species came under his observation for 

 the first time on the 24th July, 1838, in Lat. 30° 38' S., Long. 20° 43' W., from 

 which period till the ship reached New South Wales scarcely a day passed without its 

 being seen. Upon some occasions it appeared in considerable numbers, many of 

 the birds being apparently one or two years old, and these were easily distinguished 

 from the adults, especially when flying, by their dark-coloured wings, back and tail, 

 and by the culmen of the bill being less distinctly marked with yellow. 



Dr. E. A. Wilson, the naturalist on board the " Discovery," says that the 

 species was first encountered in the South Indian Ocean on September 22nd, 1901, 

 in Lat. 35° S., Long. 14° W., and remained with the ship till the 30th of that month ; 

 it reappeared quite close to shore off False Bay on the coast of South Africa, as well 

 as in the neighbourhood of the Agulhas Sandbank, but eastward of this in the 

 southern ocean its place was taken by T. culminatus, which had not previously 

 been observed. T. chlororhynchus appears to frequent different localities varying with 

 the season of the year. 



Mr. Robert Hall mentions T. chlororhynchus as frequenting the entrance of 

 Christmas Harbour in Kerguelen Island, but he did not find it breeding. Dr. Filhol 

 says that the species breeds on Campbell Island, but there is some doubt whether he 

 identified the bird accurately (Ibis, 1903, p. 266). Mr. Nicoll, however, believed, 

 that at the time of the " Valhalla's " visit to Tristan da Cunha, the " Yellow-nosed 

 Albatros " was nesting on the top of the crater, but the weather was too unfavourable 

 to allow of his reaching its haunts. 



Adult. Upper-surface dark brown, wings and scapulars a little darker, upper- 

 back tinged with grey ; rump and whole under-surface white ; head and neck white, 

 tinged with grey, especially on the sides of the face ; an indistinct dark grey mark, 



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