Diomedea exulans, Linn. (Wandering Albatros.)

I have already mentioned the tame Albatros which lived so long at Government House, under Mr. Gillington's assiduous care.^* But there is a still more remarkable instance of the kind, for Mr. Martin Chapman had a live one in his possession for several months, having obtained it as a nestling from the Auckland Islands. It partook freely of fat meat, and had an inordinate appetite. It became quite tame, but on being provoked would snap audibly with its mandibles.

Captain Fairchild informs me that when visiting the Brothers and Stephen's Island in June last, in perfectly calm weather, he saw at least six hundred Albatroses resting on the water, and that from the anchorage off the latter he counted as many as a hundred. He says he has noticed that during the last five years they have been getting more and more plentiful off the New Zealand coast. Prior to that he never saw more than a straggler now and then, and generally at Flat Point, about midway between Wellington and Napier.