Bill and Foot of a Short-tailed Albatross

“Diomedea brachyura. Short-tailed Albatross. Bill 5.00 or 6.00 inches long, with long, with moderately concave culmen and prominent hook. Frontal feathers forming almost no reentrance on culmen, running nearly straight around whole base of upper mandible, and extending scarcely farther on sides of under mandible, with hardly any convexity. Tail very short, contained rather more than 3 times in length of wing. Adult plumage white, the head and neck usually washed with shining rusty-yellow; wings and tail dark or blackish, with a wholly indeterminate amount of white on the coverts and inner quills - sometimes nearly all the wing-coverts white excepting a line along the border of the fore-arm - sometimes the white restricted to a small space at the elbow. Bill pale reddish-yellow, drying pale dingy-yellowish; feet flesh-color.” Elliot Coues, 1884

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