Letters, Announcements, ^c. 125 



raiso and Callao^ in about 15° S., I noticed an Albatros which 

 was certainly not D. exulans. 



As Captain Button's remarks show, the Albatros " sits down 

 to dinner ;" and I have seldom read a more graphic description 

 than that (p. 282) of its settling down in the water. Quite 

 agreeing with his observations respecting the non-diving and 

 non-fishing propensities of this bird, I am sorry to say that 

 my experience entirely differs from his with regard to the 

 habits of the Albatros being quite diurnal. I can of course give 

 no account of its movements during dark nights ; but, both by 

 moonlight and afterwards in the summer twilight of the An- 

 tarctic Seas, I have watched these noble birds come sweeping up 

 out of space, wheel over the main-truck, and then, without a flap 

 of their huge wings, drop away beyond the reach of vision. 

 Mingled with the Albatroses were some of a large dark Petrel, 

 though the latter always kept astern of the ship, and, from their 



sooty hue, 



" Like devils of the pit they seemed 

 Mid holy cherubim." 



But here I must stop ; for if I attempt to give any further de- 

 scription of these moonlight nights, some of the pleasantest of 

 my life, I shall begin to rhapsodize, and give Captain Hutton 

 cause to think that the night-flights of the Albatros are all 

 " moonshine." 



I have little to say about other birds of the Southern Ocean. 

 Cape Pigeons {Daption capensis) were duly caught, and as duly 

 converted into " sea-pie ;" foolish birds ! they came further north 

 than the Albatroses, and met the ship before we caught the gale 

 which gave us such a rattling run. When far south, I observed 

 a silvery-grey Petrel, which was, I presume, Procellaria glacia- 

 loides, but I did not capture any examples. Of the common 

 Storm- and the Fork-tailed Petrels I have taken many in the 

 North Atlantic, by means of stout threads left to trail from the 

 taffrail, with a double knot, or just the least bit of " sennit " at 

 the end, to act as a catch, when the birds become entangled in 

 their flight in the wake of the vessel. 



I trust that Captain Mutton's paper will draw forth some 

 observations from other voyagers, especially with respect to the 



