PLATE 



X XXY. 



DIOMEDEA CULMINATA (Gould). 



CULMINATED ALBATROS. Genus: Diomedea. 



4 LMOST as plentiful in the Australian seas as the black-eyebrowed variety, this species, although 

 not the largest, is one of the most active and powerful of the Albatroses, and in its habits and 

 mode of life generally so closely resembles its congeners that details of these particulars would be needless 

 repetition. The specific differences of this species from Diomedea Chlororhynchos, for which, when at a 

 distance, it is sometimes mistaken owing to the* similarity of plumage, are in the shape of the bill and 

 the size of the feet. The bill of D. Chlororhynchos is more laterally compressed and the culmen is 

 rounded, while in the subject of this plate the culmen is broad and flat, and from this feature is derived 

 the name of Culminated Albatros ; the feet also of this species are very much larger, this peculiarity 

 being at once noticeable when the bird is about to settle upon the water at a short distance. 



In size this species is intermediate between the one previously described and that to follow. 



The Auckland, Campbell, Bounty and Antipodes Islands are visited by these birds in common 

 with other Albatroses for breeding purposes ; at the Falkland Islands, in the South Atlantic Ocean, 

 there are also extensive breeding grounds. 



Back, wings and tail, a very dark grey, the latter with white shafts ; head and neck, dull 

 white, washed with greyish -black ; before and behind the eye a mark of greyish -black, which is 

 interrupted beneath by a thin streak of white immediately below the lower part of the lid ; rump and 

 all the under surface, white ; bill, black, except the culmen and tip and the lower edge of the under 

 mandible, which are horn-colour. 



Habitats : From the Great Australian Bight to Cape Maria Van Diemen — the northern 

 extremity of New Zealand — this species is very abundant ; about the southern coast of New South 

 Wales, and thence to Bass's Straits, it is frequently met with. 



