Printed on the plate
“Sooty Albatros”
Diomedea fuliginosa
Engraved caption: Diomedea fuliginosa
Modern identification
Phoebetria fusca
- Judged
- Checked against the engraved caption
- Albatrosses · Diomedeidae
Why
The figure is a Sooty Albatross: one sooty brown from mantle to rump, with no ash-grey mantle, and the groove on the lower mandible painted cream-yellow, where the Light-mantled's is blue. Gould's synonymy and sightings mix both species, but the breeding colony he quotes from Latham, Tristan da Cunha, is the Sooty's alone.
Sources
List of Plates (vol. VII); engraved caption on the leaf; Gould's text; the plate; Salvin, Cat. Birds BM xxv: 453
Who made the plate
J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith
- John Gould drew and lithographed
- Henry Constantine Richter drew and lithographed
As the credit line gives it. More on who made these plates.