THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
The first locality given is Staaten Land, and that has been quoted as the 
type-locality ; there seems no reason why this should not be followed, as a 
bird such as described by Latham would occur there. 
Forster’s description of his Procellaria ossifraga, p. 343, is noteworthy in 
that it lacks measurements, but as it was drawn up from a Terra del Fuego 
specimen, it becomes an absolute synonym of Gmelin’s name. 
It seems strange that since the day of Gmelin no forms of this species have 
been separated, more especially as variations appear to have been noted ever 
since the time of Solander. Cones {Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 1866, p. 32), 
noting the variation in colour, records the possession of a pure white 
specimen which he concludes is the first note of such a variety. He had 
apparently overlooked the fact that Gould, in his Birds of Australia eighteen 
years before, had mentioned that a white variety followed his ship for days. 
I can find no writer who attempted to account for the variation in colour 
until that of Wilson’s in 1907. 
I examined many specimens with a view to indicating the subspecific forms 
of the species ; it was obvious from a very casual examination that such were 
determinable, and after I had completed my preliminary studies, I carefully 
read Wilson’s {National Antarct. Exp., Aves, p. 93 et seq., 1907) detailed facts 
and theories. As Wilson had attacked the subject from an entirely different 
standpoint, it is most interesting to find that his conclusions should coincide 
with mine; for that is what it amounts to, though he has expressed himself 
differently. 
Before going into my own figures, etc., I reproduce the portions of Wilson’s 
account bearing upon my own experiences : — 
The relative distribution of the various phases of this bird is a point to which a 
good deal of attention was paid throughout the course of our voyage. By making a 
rough estimate daily of the number of birds that we saw of this species, and notes 
as to their colouring, we came to the conclusion that the white form, although seen from 
time to time in the more temperate region of the Southern Oceans, is really very much 
more abundant, both absolutely and relatively in the ice. And not only this, but that 
the abundance of the intermediate forms has also some relation to locality and climatic 
differences. 
We first met with the Giant Petrel in 35° S. Lat. on September 21st, when we were 
in the South Atlantic Ocean. It was in this case the darkest variety of aU, with a 
lemon-yellow bill, the variety that may with some truth be called black. Again on 
October 22nd in 45° S. Lat. we saw the bird in the Southern Indian Ocean, and this 
example was also black. From that day onward we had one or two with us almost 
constantly between 45° S. Lat. in 51° E., and the ice-pack in 61° S. Lat. and 143 E., and 
thence to New Zealand, At the Macquarie Island we obtained one of the paler grey 
variety, the lightest in colour that we had seen in coming from the west ; and a few 
days later, in passing up the western side of the Auckland Islands, we saw Ossifraga 
in very large numbers almost all of which seemed to be somewhat small and grey, instead 
of brownish-black, as though they were perhaps the hen birds or the young of a nesting 
colony. On November 23rd, when we had passed to the north of the Macquarie Islands, 
we first saw the whoUy white variety, and this was in Lat, 55°, between 300 and 400 
miles to the north of the ice-pack we had then just left. 
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