ALBATROSSES 115 



before, and probably all albatrosses go through 

 something of the kind. It is au fond unquestion- 

 ably a courtship, but I really think that it provides 

 some sort of pleasure other than this alone, for 

 I have seen it indulged in by a pair of birds w^hich 

 already possessed an egg, and again I saw one in- 

 dividual go through part of it with at least three 

 other albatrosses in turn. 



The sequence is not always the same, but the 

 upward stretch always begins it, and all the phases 

 are enacted by each bird in turn. The grunts or 

 groans or rasping notes are sometimes frequent or 

 the whole thing may take place in silence. There 

 is no emotional climax. It begins and ends in the 

 cahnness which the gentle eyes of these birds and 

 their philosophical treatment of an intruder such 

 as myself indicate as a deep-seated character. 

 Fortunately it was a very easy matter to obtain a 

 perfect series of motion pictures of the fencing, 

 and thus to preserve what mere words so com- 

 pletely fail to delineate. 



I found that the sole food of these albatrosses 

 consisted of rather small squids, and this seems to 

 be the case with all other species, although like 

 gulls, they have learned that galley scraps cast 

 overboard are delectable dainties, and will follow 

 vessels for many hundreds of miles on the lookout 

 for such manna. As a quite radical change from 

 squid diet there was once found in the stomach of 

 a wandering albatross an undigested Roman 

 Catholic tract with a portrait of Cardinal Vaughan. 



When we finally left the rookery we walked up 



