2g2 AVIFAUNA OF LAYSAN, ETC. 



spots of brownish maroon at the larger end. They measure : 106-5 by 70 mm., 102 by 66, 

 104 5 by 71, 106 by 69, 101 by 06, 103 by 65. 



I have also received two more albinistic specimens of this Albatross from I^ysan, one 

 of which is entirely white, while the other has the wing, dull grey. 



Professor Schaninsland sent me also for identification a most enrions Albatross winch is 

 doubtless a hybrid between Diomedea immutabilis and D. nigripe*. The description of this 

 bird is as follows :-ForeUead white, merging into the dark ashy-grey colour of the crown. 

 Lam-e patch in front of the eyes black, under the eye backwards a white line, sharply 

 separated from the blackish ashy grey of the sides of the hinder part of the crown. Chin and 

 sides of the head pale grey ; remainder of the head and neck ashy grey, the feathers white at 

 base Upper parts deep ashy grey, wing-coverts almost blackish. Upper tail-coverts white. 

 Eectrices blackish slate-colour, white at base. Underside from the fore-neck to the tad 

 white. Maxilla 3 7 inches, mandible 3 5, wing 19 75, metatarsus 3-7, middle toe with 

 claw 45. 



]). immutabilis is, as a migrant, widely spread. Mr. Alan Owston sent me a specimen 

 killed on Mviakejima, Japan, in October 1893 (Bull. B. O. Club, iii. p. xlvii, June 1894). 

 In the Museum d'Histoire Naturellc in Paris I have seen a specimen killed near Hawaii by 

 Mons. Bailleu. Mr. A. W. Anthony found this species near San Geronimo and Guadalupe 

 Islands on the coast of Lower California, and it is to be suspected that several reports of 

 Albatrosses observed on the western coast of North America refer to this species, and perhaps 

 also some of the specimens mentioned by Cassin (U.S. Expl. Exp. p. 399) might have been 

 J), immutabilis. Certainly the birds mentioned by Pickering {I. c. p. 401) as being observed 

 between Oahu and the north-west coast of America, and as being all " of a blackish or dark 

 dove-color, with a white frontlet or a circle around the base of bill," were all D. nigripes and 

 not the young of a white species ; but the white birds described on p. 399 could only have 

 been D. immutabilis or JD. albatrus. 



The literature referring to D. immutabilis is so far thus : — 



Diomedea (an exulans?), Kittlitz, Mus. Senckenb. i. p. 120 (1834). 



? Diomedea brachyura (partim— old white ones !), Cassin, U.S. Expl. Exp., Om. p. 399 (1858). 

 ? Diomedea melanophrys, Bean, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. v. pp. 170, 173 (1882). 



Diomedea immutabilis, Rothsch. Bull. B. O. Club, i. p. xlviii (June 1893) (reprint in Ibis, 1893, p. 448) ; 

 id. antea, Pt. I. p. 57 and plates (1893) j id. Bull. B. O. Club, iii. p. xlvii (June 1894) (reprint in Ibis, 

 1894, p. 548) j Salvin, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxv. p. 416 (1890) ; Anthony, Auk, xv. p. 38 (1898) ; id. Auk, 

 xvi. p. 99 (1899); Schauinsland, < Drei Monate auf einer Koralleninsel/ pp. 46, 52, 101; Scott Wilson, 

 Avcs Haw. pt. vii. text (1899). 



Mr. Scott Wilson in part vii. of his ' Aves Hawaiienses ' has recorded in the introduction 

 and the text the two Albatrosses known to breed on Laysan under three names, viz. : 

 " Diomedea albatrus (chinensis)" D. nigripes, and J), immutabilis. This is partly due to my 

 having erroneously identified Temminck's name of 1). chinensis with D. nigripes ; but if the 

 authors of ' Aves Hawaiienses ' had consulted page 446 as well as page 444 of vol. xxv. of the 

 ' Catalogue of Birds,' they would have found Mr. Salvin's correction of my mistake. 1 may 

 also say that if the authors had carefully read my article on what I called D. chinensis in 

 Part 1. of this work, they would have found out my mistake just as easily as Mr. Salvin did. 



