MATTINGLEY'S PRION 51 
MATTINGLEY'S PRION 
Heteroprion desolatus mattingleyi 
There exists on the Laurence Rocks, islands off the 
coast near Portland, a breeding-colony of Mattingley's 
Prion, known to the local fishermen as the Snow-bird. 
Hence come probably the majority of the Prions 
which follow the barracoutta shoals off Torquay in 
the autumn, for out of eighteen birds found dead on 
the beach in June, 191 1, no fewer than thirteen be- 
longed to this species. The bill is about equal in 
length to that of the last-described bird, but is broader 
at the base and not so slender in the centre. This 
Prion, like all the rest, lays one white egg, deposited 
at the end of a shallow burrow beneath coarse vege- 
tation on some islet in the Straits. 
WANDERING ALBATROSS 
Diomedea exulans rothschildi 
At least four kinds of Albatross rove up and down 
the turbulent sea-way we call Bass Strait, and of 
these the least frequently seen, but incomparably the 
largest and noblest, clean dwarfing all the rest with 
its wing-spread of 11 feet from tip to tip, is the 
Wandering Albatross. Sailors and fishermen, indeed, 
refuse the name Albatross to all but this, classing 
the rest as MoUyhawks. 
