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Laysan Albatross on San Nicolas Island, California

James L. Peters

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On April 5, 1909, C. B. Linton’s Mexican camp cook, during his employer’s temporary absence, captured an albatross on San Nicolas Island, which he cooked and ate. Mr. Linton succeeded in saving the head which remained in his possession until his collection was acquired by John E. Thayer. Linton identified the remains as those of the Short-tailed Albatross, Diomedea ulbatrus, and as such the specimen was first recorded by George Willett in Pacific Coast Avifauna No. 7 (1912, p. 17). The same bird again appeared in literature in 1917 when A. B. Howell (Pac. Coast Avif. No. 12, p. 30) quoted the record first published by Willett, while its third appearance was in 1933 when Willett again published the original instance of occurrence (Pac. Coast Avif. No. 21, p. 14) as the last known record of capture of Diomedea albatrus in California.

Apparently the basis of the record was originally identified by Linton and his determination was accepted without question by both of the authors involved; in fact neither Willett nor Howell mentioned having examined the specimen themselves.

Recently, while going over the Procellariiformes in the Thayer Collection, now in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, it was quite obvious that the specimen was not Diomedea albatrus, but more probably D. immutabilis, and as such I tentatively identified it. However, just to make sure, I sent the head to Dr. R. C. Murphy who concurs with me in its identification.

Thus it appears that when Linton’s camp cook killed this bird he was not taking the last specimen of D. albatras to be secured off the southern California coast, hut the first specimen of the Laysan Albatross, D. immutabilis, from the Pacific coast north of Lower California.

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 8, 1937

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