SNOWY ALBATROSS. 
me of the coincidence that Murphy and I could each discriminate the 
species by this means. That this group is difficult is seen by the follow- 
ing quotation from the Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, Vol. XXXVIII., No. CCXXX., 
Jan. 28, 1918, p. 39 : “ Lord Rothschild further made the following 
remarks on a recently described Albatross : — ^In Article XXXV. of the 
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XXXVII., pp. 
861-864, Dec. 10, 1917, Mr. Robert Cushman Murphy describes a new 
Albatross, collected by Mr. R. H. Beck, on the Chihan coast, and which 
he calls Diomedea sanfordi. This bird he compares with exulans and 
epomophora regia). He even goes so far as to establish a new sub- 
genus Rhothonia for it. On reading the description I was at once struck 
by the fact that the differences mentioned were exactly those separating 
chionoptera and exulans. On comparing my old and young chionoptera 
from Kerguelen Island (Robert HaU coll.) this was confirmed, and, more- 
over, we have at Tring a specimen of the latter from Sydney Harbour, 
belonging to Mr. Mathews, and there is a record for West Austraha. 
This shows that the bigger Albatrosses fly far and wide, out of the 
breeding season, and so could easily reach the coasts of S. America. 
Mr. Mathews has, in his book, made chionoptera a subspecies of exulans, 
but this, to my mind, is doubtful, and Mr. Mathews is inclined, also, now 
to doubt this. To sum up D. sanfordi Murph. = D. chionoptera Salv.” 
This necessitated the reconsideration of the material, and when 
I studied my series I found that the form which had been distinguished 
as chionoptera really did represent a species which is separated from the 
whitest form of what is called exulans by its large size and the white- 
wedge mark on the inner-web of the primaries. Series have not been 
collected even on Kerguelen Land, where apparently this species breeds 
and has no plumage changes, taking on the mature plumage from the 
nest. The recognition of the species from Sydney Harbour indicates that 
it breeds somewhere in the New Zealand seas. I have a young specimen 
procured by Mr. Roy Bell, at Norfolk Island, showing the same perfect 
plumage, the only difference being the less white wing-pattem and slightly 
more vermiculation. This suggests that some of the colonies oh the 
New Zealand islets may be of this species and the source of these 
specimens. 
Iredale {Austral Avian Record, Vol. II., No. 1, p. 29, Aug. 2, 1913) 
wrote : “ Exceptionally fine D. exulans rothschildi Mathews, though freely 
vermiculated on the upper-back, were also considered ‘ 5th year.’ ” It 
is suggested that these were chionoptera, as the distinguishing features 
of the species were, at that time, unknown to Iredale. No definite 
429 
