Mr. R. Swinhoe on Formosan Ornithology . 431 
dies stirred up in revolving. They always kept a long distance 
in rear, and made no attempt to board us. Their long wings 
enable them to skim the surface of the water with great ease 
and grace. 
181. Diomedea brachyura, Temm. 
This is the large Albatros of the China Seas, being seen in 
more or less abundance on every voyage. They travel as far 
north as Japan. I have never discovered their building-site, 
though, from their being found at all seasons, I suspect the 
island or islands are not distant from the south coast of China. 
The young of this species, of a uniform blackish brown, has 
been figured in the ‘ Fauna Japonica*; but its legs are there 
represented as of a flesh-colour, and its bill pinkish, whereas 
American writers state that both bill and legs in the living 
young are brownish, changing to black after death. 
The Albatros on wing is never figured correctly. When fly¬ 
ing, the wings are curved like the head of a pickax, and it 
skims the surface, rising and falling with every trough of the sea, 
with scarce any motion perceptible in the wings, except at their 
tips. They often sail upwards, and continue in their flight, throw¬ 
ing first one shoulder forward and then the other. In the male 
of this Albatros, the bronchi, on leaving the trachea, bulge con¬ 
siderably as they run horizontally, then contract and bend for¬ 
wards and downwards, and lastly, turning sharp round, rise 
upwards and bulge again before entering the lungs. In the 
female they are short and simple, without convolutions. 
182. Diomedea nigripes, Aud. Orn. Biog. 1839, p. 327. 
D. fuliginosa, Gmel., of my Amoy List, Ibis, 1860, p. 67. 
This small species, at once distinguishable from the Sooty Alba¬ 
tros, or Cape Hen, by its black feet and the absence of the pale line 
along the bill, is the representative of that species in the North 
Pacific and China Seas. Cassin in his ‘ American Ornithology/ 
for some unaccountable reason, has confused this species with 
the black young of the preceding large form. This bird is 
abundant in the Formosan channel at all seasons. The male is 
a good deal larger than the female, has a longer and larger 
bill, and is of a uniform sooty brown, without the white round 
