ZOOLOGY. 
269 
Never having seen such a bird before, and all the Indians who saw it having declared 
positively that it was new to them, the above named gentlemen had the bird skinned. The 
specimen, however, was unfortunately afterwards destroyed. 
The fact that the bird sat on the xoater , and upon becoming alarmed retreated to it again at 
but a short distance, forbids the idea that it was a “crane;” besides, the fact that the long 
feet and legs of one of the ardeince would have at once been recognized. Perhaps the bird 
was an albino cormorant, yet its want of shyness or fear would seem to indicate the contrary.—S. 
Family P RO C E L L A R I D A E , The Petrels. 
Sub-Family DIOMEDEINAE.—T he Albatrosses. 
DIOMEDEA BRACHYURA, Te mini nek. 
Tlie Short-Tailed Alliatross. 
Diomedea brachyura, Temm. PI. col. v, about 1828.— Cassin, Ill. I, 1855, 289, pi. 1. Adult.— Baird and Lawrence, 
Gen. Bep. Birds, 822. 
Diomedea nigripes, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 327 .—Jb. Birds Am. VII, 1842, 198.— Cass. Ill. I, 1854, 210 ; pi. 
xxxv. (Young.) 
Sp. Ch.— Adult. —Head and neck white, tinged with pale yellow ; primaries, tips of secondaries and tertiaries, upper idge 
of the wing, and greater wing coverts brownish black ; tail white, tipped with dark brown ; back and entire under plumage 
pure white ; bill pale reddish yellow; legs flesh color. 
Length, 33 inches; alar extent, 84; wing, 20 ; tail, 5£ ; bill, 5 ; tarsus, 3J. 
The young are ashy brown, lighter on the abdomen ; for some distance around the base of the bill, and a space below the 
eye, grayish white; bill dusky; tarsi and feet black. Length, 30.50 inches; extent, 85 inches. Iris brown; bill black, 
with a purple tint; feet black. 
Hah .—North Pacific ; coasts of California and Oregon. 
I 
A dusky colored albatross, which proved to be the Diomedea brachyura , was obtained by me 
in the spring of 1856 from Captain Diggs, of the brig Cyrus, who had taken it off the coast of 
Oregon a few days before. 
During a winter passage of fourteen days from the Straits of Juan de Fuca to San Francisco, 
although I saw many birds of the genus , I saw but one individual in light colored plumage, and 
that was near the mouth of the Columbia. All the birds I noticed seemed to belong to the 
species which Cassin has figured as the D. nigripes of Audubon. In a late number of Mr. 
Cassin’s work he takes the ground that the D. nigripes is merely the D. brachyura in immature 
plumage. If this be the case I cannot understand why the young birds preponderate so greatly, 
as in my voyage from the Straits of Fuca I saw the single bird in light colored plumage spoken 
of above, and a little later, in my voyage from San Francisco to Hong Kong, China, I saw but 
one more in white plumage, as far west as the 145th degree of east longitude, and north of 
latitude 12° north, although in both passages dark colored birds were common. One of these, 
caught about four hundred miles southwest of San Francisco, had the white spot at the base of 
the bill very apparent, and many other birds of the species seen flying in our wake were 
similarly marked. 
I fully concur in the remarks of Mr. Peale, quoted by Cassin, that the species D. chloror- 
hynchus and D. fusca (D. fuliginosa , Gmelin) are confined to the south of the equator, and 
think, therefore, that they should both be stricken from the northwest fauna. It is true that 
specimens of both species brought home by Dr. Townsend are said to have been obtained from 
