AUSTRALIAN FLAT-BILLED MOLLYMAWK. 
It will be seen that the details differ though the measurements are the 
same. I show in the next article the reason for this confusion. In the Proc. 
Zool. Soc. (Lend) 1843, p. 107, Gould described his Diomedea cuhninata as 
follows : — 
Diomedea culminata. Diom. spatio circumocular nigrescenti-cinereo, gradatim 
pallescente ; facie alba ; vertice corpore subtus et uropygio albis ; dorse, alis et cauda 
cinerescenti-fuscis ; culmine olivacea-flavo. 
Space surrounding the eye blackish-grey, gradually passing into the white of the face ; 
crown of the head, aU the under surface and rump white ; back of the neck sooty-grey ; 
back, wings and tail dark greyish-brown, the latter with white shafts ; culmen for its 
whole length olive-yellow ; base of the under surface of the lower mandible fleshy hom- 
colour, remainder of the bill black ; point of the upper mandible horn-colour ; feet bluish- 
white. 
Total length, 30 inches ; bill 4;| ; wing 20 ; tail 9 ; tarsi SJ. 
Habitat : Southern, Indian, and South Paciflc Oceans. 
Four years later Gould figured the Australian bird as representing the 
species, and I am therefore accepting Bass Strait as designated by myself 
{Nov. Zool.^ Vol. XVIII., p. 205, 1912) as the type-locahty of Gould’s 
D. cuhninata. 
Recently Rothschild {Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, Vol. XXIX., p. 70, 1912) has 
separated a form from Campbell Island, New Zealand, thus : — 
Diomedia culminata mathewsi. 
Adult. Differs from D. c. culminata in having the cheeks and throat pure white, and 
the top of the head almost white, instead of deep blue-grey. The back and hinder part 
of the neck are also browner and of a less pure white. 
Habitat. Campbell Island, New Zealand seas. 
This would appear to be the bird recorded by Filhol ( Buffer, Suppl. Birds 
New. Zeal., Vol. I., p. 154, 1905) as breeding at Campbell Island, and which 
New Zealand ornithologists have not recently recognised. 
Marriner’s note (given by Waite, Subant. Isl. New Zeal., p. 574, 1909) — 
“ These birds had their rookeries only on the north end of the island [Campbell 
Island] situated on the top of the cliffs ; individual birds were seen on the 
harbours ” — may also refer to this form, and not to D. melanophrys, where 
Waite has placed it. 
More probably the solution is that both D. c. mathewsi and Th. m. impavida 
breed in the same colony, and this suggestion is reinforced by the following 
note, written in Campbell’s Nests and Eggs Austr. Birds, p. 935, 1901 : 
“Sir James Hector informed me that during a trip southward in February, 
1895, he believed he saw the Flat-billed Albatrosses nesting in groups among 
the Blackbrowed variety on the great cliffs at Campbell Island.” 
Until series are collected at their breeding-grounds we cannot be sure of 
this birds’ plumage-changes. The following is suggested from examination 
of birds from about the same locality: — 
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