338 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the brown and mottled plumage of the back. I mention it here in connection 

 with the Feeroese specimen, but will write more fully of it later. Since 

 penning the above I have ascertained, through Mr. Harold Raeburn, that 

 the Albatross referred to is at present in the possession of a Mr. Andersen, 

 not in the Museum. Mr. A. says it is D. melano])hrys, and Herr Winge 

 confirms this. Mr. Raeburn adds, " It is said that it has been living for 

 thirty years amongst Gannets on Mygganaes." T think T heard the 

 period put at from thirty-five to forty years both by Herr Muller and 

 Mr. Petersen. It may possibly turn out that it does not belong to the 

 species D. melanophrys, but to a closely allied form with black eyebrows 

 which inhabits the N. Pacific, described by Mr. W. Rothschild as D. im- 

 mutabilis, and found by his collectors breeding in numbers in Laysan. 

 But the bird seen by me in Fseroe, in Mr. Petersen's possession at Naalsoe, 

 had no black eyebrow, or only the very faintest trace ; about the same 

 difference existed as between a Common Guillemot's spectacle streak and 

 that of the so-called Bridled Guillemot. It seems to me that the Peterhead 

 bird and the Faeroe specimen are indeed as closely allied as the two forms 

 just mentioned; but I cannot say anything more decisive without further 

 knowledge of the genus than I at present possess. It would be desirable 

 to know more about the geographical range of these northern and southern 

 Albatrosses, both during their sedentary nesting season, and during the 

 period of what our German friends would call their " Wanderungen." — 

 J. A. Harvie Brown (Dunipace, Larbert, N.B.). 



While on a visit to the Faeroe Isles last spring, I was shown a skin of 

 an Albatross which had been shot by a fisherman at Mygganaes, the most 

 western island of the group. I took the following dimensions: — Length 

 from tip of beak to tip of tail, 3 ft. 1 in. ; beak, 4| in. ; wing (closed), 

 1 ft. 7£ in. ; foot, 5 in. This is evidently not the Wandering Albatross, 

 but more probably the Yellow-billed Albatross, as I think it is called 

 (Diomedia melanophr\js). I have no book of reference by me as I write. 

 Can this bird have found its way so far north ? or has it escaped from 

 some passing ship? — H. L. Popham (21, Ryder Street, St. James's, S.W.), 



Cuckoos calling on the Wing. — According to my experience, Cuckoos 

 constantly call on the wing during the breeding season, uttering the usual 

 note, as well as the note which sometimes follows it, and which is some- 

 thing like the hubble-bubble sound of a hookah-pipe, as recently suggested 

 by the Rev. Julian Tuck (' The Field,' June Oth, 1894), who attributes this 

 note to the female. I was always under the impression that it was produced 

 by the male, as I have certainly frequently heard the same Cuckoo utter 

 the ordinary note, and the "hubble-bubble" note also ; and as the plumages 

 of the two sexes are so very similar, I do not understand how any person 

 can tell whether it is the cock or hen bird that makes this peculiar noise 

 without shooting one in the act of calling and dissecting it. There is 



