.--A Wandering Albatross, Diomedea exuIans, was discovered by residents of The Sea Ranch, Sonoma County, California, about 60 miles north of San Francisco, in the late afternoon of 11 July 1967. It remained in a field overlooking the sea overnight until the wind freshened in the afternoon of 12 July, when it "stretched its great wings, waddled into the wind, and took off over the bluff and out to sea" (Mrs. William E. Rand, pers. comm.). It was not seen again. This appears to be the first record of this species in the Pacific Ocean north of Panamir, and the first record for North America. Although no professional ornithologist or person familiar with this species saw the bird in the flesh, it was photographed by several persons, notably Louis McLane, resident architect of The Sea Ranch, and Mr. and Mrs. Rex Hardy of Los Altos, California. Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. William E. Rand of San Francisco prepared written statements of their observations of the bird. Photographs (Figure 1) have subsequently been examined by John W. Aldrich, J.P. Angle, George E. Watson, III, and Alexander Wetmore at the Smithsonian Institution, and by Eugene Eisenmann and Robert Cush- man Murphy of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. There seems to be no doubt about the bird's identification. Its size and the pattern of featbering about the base of the mandibles exclude all but the Wandering Albatross and the Royal Albatross, Diomedea epomophora. In only these two species of alba- tross does feathering extend out over the base of the lower mandible as far as the nostril. The Royal Albatross, in turn, is excluded by a number of other features: the ovoid rather than larger round nasal openings, the vermiculated back the large amount of black on the upper wing surfaces relieved only by some white on the secondary coverts, the black crown and tail tip, and the absence of a dark line along the cutting edge of the mandibles. I owe these details to Peter Harper, Associate Ornithologist of the Wellington Museum, New Zealand, who examined four of the McLane photographs at the Smithsonian Institution and pronounced the bird a young adult female. Eyewitnesses reported that the albatross appeared to be alert and without outward signs of ill health, although it showed no fear of persons or dogs. It responded to approach with "a clapping of the bill and a sound I can describe only as a gobble" (Mrs. Hardy, pers. comm.). While it would be idle to speculate on how this bird reached the coast of California in apparent good health and freedom, the possibility of human agency had at least to be investigated.. No North American zoo appears to have kept this species, and Ronald Reuther, Director of the San Francisco Zoological Garden, assures me that escape from a zoo can be ruled out (pers. comm.). I have been unable to learn of Wandering Albatrosses brought to this country for any other purpose and released. A number of 19th century records exist for the North Atlantic, the best confirmed being a bird ashore at Dieppe, France, in 1830 and another off Antwerp, Belgium, in 1833 (Harterr, 1912-21: 1441). It has frequently been asserted that these North Atlantic records were birds trapped by sailors and carried home to western Europe hence their concentration near busy ports in the final days of sail (Alexander, 1928: 7-8; Jones, 1936). This species is known to follow ships for long distances (Murphy, 1936: 544; Jameson, 1958: 34). As recently as October 1957 a Wandering Albatross was captured ashore alive in Sicily (Orlando, 1958). In recent years a number of records which have accumulated in August within 20 degrees of the equator in the South Atlantic suggest that the species reaches its most northerly distribution during the antarctic winter months (Van Oordt, 1939; Peakall, 1960). The most northerly previous Pacific Ocean record of the Wandering Albatross, also Figure 1. Wandering Albatross at The Sea Ranch, Sonoma County, California. Photographs by Louis McLane. in August, was a bird captured in the Bay of Panama off Balboa, some 8 degrees north of the equator in 1937 (Murphy, 1938). LITERATURE CITED ALEXA,mER, W. B. 1928. Birds of the ocean. New York, Putnam. HAmrERT, E. 1912-21. Die VSgel der pal[tarktischen Fauna, vol. 2. Berlin, Fried- lander & Sohn. JAVfESON, W.S. 1958. The Wandering Albatross. Londo.n, Hart-Davis. JONES, F. W. 1936. The wandering of albatrosses. Emu, 36: 103-105. MuRrq3/4, R. C. 1936. Oceanic birds of South America, vol. 1. New York, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. MuRrH3/4, R. C. 1938. The Wandering Albatross in the Bay of Panama. Condor, 40: 126. ORLANDO, C. 1958. Cattura di un Albatro urlatore, Diomedea exulans exulans (Linnaeus) in Sicilia. Rivista Italiana Orn., 28: 101-113. PLAXALL, D. B. 1960. Tropical records of the Wandering Albatross in the Atlantic Ocean. Ostrich, 31: 105. VAN OORDT, G.J. 1939. Over de noordelijkste verspreidingsgrens van enkele antarc- tische zeevogelsoorten in den Atlantischen Oceaan. Ardea, 28: 1-4. ROBERT O. PAXTOl, Setauket, New York 11785.