An Annotated Bibliography on North Pacific Albatrosses 1 
Hubert Frings, Mable Frings, and Carl Frings 2 
Three species of albatrosses (Family Diome- 
deidae) are breeding residents in the North 
Pacific — Laysan Albatross {Diomede a immu- 
tabilis ), Black-footed Albatross (D. ni gripes ) , 
and Steller’s or Short-tailed Albatross (D. 
albatrus). At various times each of these has 
been decimated by man, and for some time D. 
albatrus was believed to be extinct. Their fate 
is by no means certain now, and scientific in- 
terest in them is growing, particularly in the 
two species resident on the Leeward Islands of 
the Hawaiian chain (D. immutabilis and D. 
ni gripes). In our own attempts to gather in- 
formation on these birds from the literature 
we experienced great difficulty, for, while the 
total number of published articles and books is 
not too large, the bibliographies in published 
works are incomplete or inaccurate, and the 
papers are scattered in many journals. Accord- 
ingly, we have attempted to prepare a bibliog- 
raphy that is as complete as we can make it now. 
Each reference has been read, classified, and 
abstracted, and this publication embodies the 
results. 
This bibliography does not represent all of 
the literature on the North Pacific albatrosses, 
but we believe it includes all major works. We 
have a few incomplete references which we 
have been unable to verify or identify as yet. 
When found these will be read and abstracted. 
Also other references may turn up or be called 
to our attention. We hope to be able to publish 
these, as soon as all are found, in a supplement. 
The bibliography is arranged alphabetically 
and chronologically by first author. This is fol- 
lowed by a combined taxonomic and subject 
index. Each reference, besides containing the 
1 This compilation was aided by Contract Nonr 
(G) 00033-62, (NR 301-661), between the Office of 
Naval Research, Department of the Navy, and the 
University of Hawaii. Manuscript received February 
23, 1965. 
2 Department of Zoology, University of Hawaii, 
Honolulu. 
usual information, is followed by a group of 
symbols within parentheses forming a symbolic 
abstract, and by a brief statement of contents. 
Since many longer works deal with more than 
just these birds, relevant pages of larger papers 
are given; this should be useful for persons 
wishing to order photocopies. 
The following sample references illustrate 
the system used in this bibliography: 
Kaeding, Henry B. 1905. Birds from the West 
Coast of Lower California and adjacent 
islands. Condor 7:105-111. (Tech.; nig., 
imm. ; Dist., Ecol.) Sighting records with 
notes on seasonal variation in numbers (p. 
107). 
Hattori, Toru. 1889. (The story of the Albatross 
of Torishima.) [In Japanese.] Zool. Mag. 
(Dobutsugaku Zasshi), Tokyo 1(12) :405- 
411. (Tech.; alb.; Gen.) Austin (1949): 
general work on behavior, reproduction, and 
habits. 
The first of the symbols within the paren- 
theses, before the semicolon, indicates the level 
of writing of the author. The four designa- 
tions used are: 
Tech.: technical, scholarly, scientific pre- 
sentation 
S. Tech.: semitechnical, scholarly, but less 
formal and more anecdotal 
S. Pop.: semipopular, written for the edu- 
cated layman, with few technical 
terms 
Pop.: popular, entirely nontechnical 
These classifications imply no judgment of the 
validity of the information presented; popular 
articles, for instance, may be of great value for 
certain studies. 
Next, followed by a second semicolon, are 
the species discussed: 
nig.: D. nigripes 
imm.: D. immutabilis 
alb.: D. albatrus 
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