DIOMEDEA MELANOPHRYS, Temm. 
Black-eyebrowed Albatros. 
Diomedea melanophrys, Temm. PI. Col. 456. — Less. Traite d’Orn., p. 609. 
The Diomedea melanophrys may be regarded as the most common species of Albatros inhabiting the south- 
ern ocean, and from its gregarious habits and very familiar disposition, it is known to every voyager who 
has rounded either of the Capes. I have never myself been at sea many days between the 35th and 55th 
degrees of south latitude without recognising it, and it appeared to me to be equally numerous in the Atlantic 
as in the Pacific. On my passage out to Australia, numerous individuals followed our vessel for hundreds of 
miles as we proceeded eastward, and I have no doubt that in the course of their peregrination they frequently 
make the circuit of the globe ; a not unnatural conclusion, when we reflect upon the great powers of flight 
given to all the members of the present genus, and that their natural food is as abundant at one part as at 
another. It was nowhere more numerous than off the southern coast of Van Diemen’s Land, where a 
large company followed our vessel for many days and continued to hover around us until we entered 
Storm Bay, but on our approaching the land, they suddenly disappeared, betaking themselves again to 
the open ocean. Of all the species with which I am acquainted, this is the most fearless of man, and it 
often approaches many yards nearer the vessel than any other ; I have even observed it approach so near 
that the tips of its pinions were not more than two arms’ length from the taffrail. It is very easily captured 
with a hook and line, and as this operation gives not the least pain to the bird, the point of the hook 
merely taking hold in the horny and insensible tip of the bill, I frequently amused myself in capturing it in 
this way, and after detaining it sufficiently long to afford me an opportunity for investigating any particular 
point respecting which I wished to satisfy myself, setting it at liberty again. I also caught numerous 
examples, marked and gave them their liberty, in order to ascertain whether the individuals which were 
flying round the ship at nightfall, were the same that were similarly engaged at daylight in the morning 
after a night’s run of 120 miles, and which in nearly every instance proved to be the case. When 
brought upon deck, from which it cannot take wing, it readily becomes tame, and allows itself to be 
handled almost immediately ; still, I believe that no member of this group can be fairly domesticated in 
consequence of the difficulty of procuring a supply of, or substitute for, its natural food. In heavy, black 
and lowery weather, the snowy white plumage of this bird offers a striking and pleasing contrast to the 
murky clouds above and behind them, almost leading one to imagine he is witnessing the descent and 
evolutions of those fantastic little beings the fairies. 
No difference whatever is observable in the plumage of the sexes, neither is there any visible variation in 
this respect between youth and maturity ; a never-failing mark, however, exists by which these latter may 
be distinguished : the young bird has the bill dark brown, while in the adult that organ is of a bright buffy 
yellow ; and individuals in the same flight may frequently be seen in which the bill varies from dark horn- 
brown to the most delicate yellow. 
I did not discover the breeding-place of this species, but I doubt not that it resorts for this purpose to 
situations similar to those selected by the Diomedea eoculans. 
Head, back of the neck, all the under surface and the upper tail-coverts pure white ; before, above and 
behind the eye a streak of blackish grey ; wings dark brown ; centre of the back slaty black, into which 
the white of the back of the neck gradually passes ; tail dark grey, with white shafts ; bill buffy yellow, 
with a narrow line of black round the base ; legs and toes yellowish white, the interdigital membrane and the 
joints washed with pale blue ; irides vei-y light bi'own, freckled with a darker tint. 
The figures represent a middle-aged and a young bird rather more than two-thirds of the natural size. 
