[ 3°4 ]
i.
+• WANDERING
A.
• » W I T H S H O R T L E G S .
G e n u s LXXXIII. A L B A T R O S S .
N 0 i. Wandering A . 3* Yellow-nofed A.
2. Chocolate A. 4. Sooty A.
BI L L ftrong, bending in the middle, and hooked at the end
of the upper mandible; that of the lower abrupt; the
lower part inclining downwards.
Noftrils opening forwards, and covered with a large convex
guard.
Tongue fcarcely perceivable, only the rudiment of one.
Toes three in number, all placed forwards.
Diomedeaexulans, Lin. Syft. i. p. 214., 1.
V Albatros, Brif. Orn. vi. p. 126.— Buf. Oif._ ix. p. 339. pi. 24. — PI.
Enl. 237.
Man of War Bird, Albin, iii. pi. 81. (the head.)
Tchaiki, Hiß. Kamtfchat. p. 154*
Albatrofs, Edhv. pi. 88.— Pall. Spic. Fafc. v. p. 28.
Wandering Albatrofs, Artt. Zool. p. 506.
Br. Muf. Lev. Mu/.
TRIGGER than a Swan: length from three feet fix inches to
four feet: the general extent is ten feet from wing to wipg;
but many of our voyagers, mention them as greatly exceedin
D e s c r i p t io n .
P1 OQ
thefe dimenfions * : weight from twelve to twenty-eight pounds.
The bill dirty yellow : crown of the head pale cinereous brown :
the reft of the body for the moft part white, crofted with blackilh
lines on the back and wings, and with fpots in the fame direftion
towards the rump : the greater quills are black: the tail dulky
lead-colour, and rounded in lhape : legs flelh-colour.
The young birds are faid to be brown; as they advance have
more or lefs a mixture of white ;, but do not become of the colour
of the above-defcribed till mature age.
AlbatroJ/es are very frequent in many parts without the tropics,
both to the northward as well as fouth ; not being by any means
confined to the laft, as has been by fome imagined f . Indeed
they are in great-plenty in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good
Hope, as all voyagers can teftify; and not only thefe but other
forts alfo, and from thence in every temperate fouthern latitude J,
as far towards the pole as has yet been exploded.
Thefe birds are alfo often feen in vaft flocks in Kamt/chatka,
and adjacent iflands, about the end of June, where they are
called Great Gulls; but it is chiefly in the bay of Penjchinenji, the
whole inner fea of Kamt/chatka, the Kurile ifles, and that o f Bering
; for on the eaftern coafts of the firft they are fcarce, a Angle
ftraggler only appearing now and then. Their chief motive for
* Above ten feet. Forjl. Voy. i. p. 87.— Ten feet two inches called an
enormous ilze. Hansskef. Voy* iii. p. 627.— Eleven feet feven inches. Parking.
Voy. p. 82.— Eleven feet. Cook's Journal, p. 77.— Twelve feet. MS. at Sir
Jofepb Banks's,.— One at Sir AJhton Lever's is faid to have expanded thirteen feet.
— And Ives even mentions one ihot off the Cape of Good Hope, which meafured as
far as feventeen feet and a half from wing to wing. See Voy. p. 5.
t Buf. Oif. ix. p. 339.
J Seldom below 30 degrees: never in the torrid zone. Forjl, Voy. i. p. 482.
Vot. III. R r frequenting