Characters.—A large oceanic bird with sooty-brown coloration; darker on nape, wings and tail; lighter on forehead, sides of head, and abdomen; area surrounding bill whitish; tail whitish at base; bill dark reddish-brown; feet black.
Remarks.—This albatross has been recorded from waters near the Mariana Islands. Quoy and Gaimard (1824:145) observed "albatross" between the Mariana and the Hawaiian Islands. The only actual specimens obtained from the islands were reported on by Oustalet (1896:51). These were eight Black-footed Albatrosses which were taken on the coast of Agrigan by Marche in December, 1888, and January, 1889. Oustalet gives the following measurements: total length, 680-785; wing, 485-525; tail, 180-225; tarsus, 80-90; culmen, 108-125. The specimens are apparently in the Paris Museum.
Peters (1931:43) lists the Marshall Islands as part of the range of D. nigripes.
In the period of the late war Gleise (1945:221) observed eight Short-tailed Albatrosses (D. albatrus Pallas) "off Saipan." Specimens of D. albatrus have not been taken in Micronesia. According to Austin (1948b:32) this albatross "is now virtually extinct," and this record may be questioned.
Puffinus pacificus chlororhynchus Lesson
Wedge-tailed Shearwater
Puffinus chlororhynchus Lesson, Traité d'Ornith., 8, 1931, p. 613. (Type is from Shark's Bay, West Australia.)
Puffinus sphenurus Schmeltz and Krause, Ethnogr. Abth. Mus. Godeffroy, 1881, p. 299 (Mortlock).
Puffinus chlororhynchus Wiglesworth, Abhandl. und Ber. Zool. Mus. Dresden, no. 6, 1890-1891 (1891), p. 80 (Luganor?); Godman, Monogr. Petrels, pt. 2, 1908, p. 88 (Carolines); Kuroda, in Momiyama, Birds Micronesia, 1922, p. 33 (Luganor or Ruk?).