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DIOMEDEA MELANOPHRYS, Temm.
Black-eyebrowed Albatros.

Diomedea melanophrys, Temm. Pl. Col. 456.—Less. Traité d’Orm., p. 609.

 

Tur Diomedea melanophrys may be regarded as the most common species of Albatros inhabiting the south-
ern ocean, and from its gregarious habits and very familiar disposition, it is known to every voyager who
has rounded either of the Capes. I have never myself been at sea many days between the 35th and 55th
degrees of south latitude without recognising it, and it appeared to me to be equally numerous in the Atlantic
as in the Pacific. On my passage out to Australia, numerous individuals followed our vessel for hundreds of
miles as we proceeded eastward, and I have no doubt that in the course of their peregrination they frequently
make the circuit of the globe; a not unnatural conclusion, when we reflect upon the great powers of flight
given to all the members of the present genus, and that their natural food is as abundant at one part as at
another. It was nowhere more numerous than off the southern coast of Van Diemen’s Land, where a
large company followed our vessel for many days and continued to hover around us until we entered
Storm Bay, but on our approaching the land, they suddenly disappeared, betaking themselves again to
the open ocean. Of all the species with which I am acquainted, this is the most fearless of man, and it
often approaches many yards nearer the vessel than any other; I have even observed it approach so near
that the tips of its pinions were not more than two arms’ length from the taffrail. It is very easily captured
with a hook and line, and as this operation gives not the least pain to the bird, the point of the hook
merely taking hold in the horny and insensible tip of the bill, I frequently amused myself in capturing it in
this way, and after detaining it sufficiently long to afford me an opportunity for investigating any particular
point respecting which I wished to satisfy myself, setting it at liberty again. I also caught numerous
examples, marked and gave them their liberty, in order to ascertain whether the individuals which were
flying round the ship at nightfall, were the same that were similarly engaged at daylight in the morning
after a night’s run of 120 miles, and which in nearly every instance proved to be the case. When
brought upon deck, from which it cannot take wing, it readily becomes tame, and allows itself to be
handled almost immediately; still, I believe that no member of this group can be fairly domesticated in
consequence of the difficulty of procuring a supply of, or substitute for, its natural food. In heavy, black
and lowery weather, the snowy white plumage of this bird offers a striking and pleasing contrast to the
murky clouds above and behind them, almost leading one to imagine he is witnessing the descent and
evolutions of those fantastic little beings the fairies.

No difference whatever is observable in the plumage of the sexes, neither is there any visible variation in
this respect between youth and maturity ; a never-failing mark, however, exists by winch these latter may
be distinguished : the young bird has the bill dark brown, while in the adult that organ 1s of a bright buffy
yellow ; and individuals in the same flight may frequently be seen in which the bill varies from dark horn-
brown to the most delicate yellow.

I did not discover the breeding-place of this species, but I doubt not that it resorts for this purpose to
situations similar to those selected by the Diomedea ewulans.

Head, back of the neck, all the under surface and the upper tail-coverts pure white ; before, above and
behind the eye a streak of blackish grey; wings dark brown; centre of the back: slaty black, into which
the white of the back of the neck gradually passes ; tail dark grey, with white shafts; bill buffy yellow,
with a narrow line of black round the base ; legs and toes yellowish white, the interdigital membrane and the
joints washed with pale blue ; irides very light brown, freckled with a darker tint.
esent a middle-aged and a young bird rather more than two-thirds of the natural size.

The figures repr

 

 

bed td hith

 

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