124 YELLOW-NOSED ALBATROSS. 



the southern hemisphere, all round the pole, and flies 

 five or six feet above the surface of the sea. 



Dr. Bennett, who gives a lengthened account of the 

 ^^ Wandering Albatross," and also mentions the "Sooty- 

 Albatross" as occurring in the South Seas, does not 

 allude by name to the subject of the present notice, 

 except as having been figured by Gould among the 

 birds of Australia. He no doubt, however, includes it 

 among the "smaller species," which he states, at p. 77 

 of his "Gatherings of a Naturalist," when "placed upon 

 . the deck, hopped in the same manner as a Gull, 

 aiding their progress by their wings; they would utter 

 a loud hoarse cry when attemps were made to stop 

 them." 



In Captain Carmichael's interesting "Description of 

 the Island of Tristan du Cunha," "Linnean Transac- 

 tions," vol. xii, p. 469, the breeding habits of four 

 species of Albatross are recorded, and it is worthy of 

 note that those habits, at least of three of them, are 

 essentially different, although the birds are so closely 

 allied. D. exulans and D. spadicea make no nest, 

 merely laying the e^^ in a depression of the ground, 

 D. fuliginosa, the "Sooty Albatross," is gregarious at 

 the breeding-season; Captain C. saw no less than one 

 hundred nests in the area of half an acre. "They 

 are constructed of mud, raised five or six inches, and 

 slightly depressed at the top," D. cMororhyncos, on 

 the contrary, "builds its solitary nest in some sheltered 

 corner, selecting the small drains that draw the water 

 off" the land into the ravines. There it runs up its 

 nest to the height of ten or twelve inches, of a 

 cylindrical form, with a small ditch round the base." 



"A curious circumstance, Avith regard to this bird, is 

 that when irritated the feathers of its cheeks are 



