" MOLLYMOKES" 



Many of the sniallor albatrosses are known to seafarers as "moUxmokes." These pictures are of the 

 black-browed or spectacled albatross (Diomcdea melanophri/s) , a species fairly common at South Georgia. 

 During the long voyage to and from that island, the mollymokes were for weeks together the constant fol- 

 lowers of our whaling brig. As they poised above the quarter-deck, or swept across the stern so closely 

 that one could see the color of their eyes, they presented opportunities for studies in aeronautics as well 

 as in ornithology. The lower photograph shows a bird witli wings fully expanded to the light air. but the 

 ))air above, illumined by the early morning sun, are flexing their wings, or "shortening sail." in a man- 

 ner which tells tlie initiatid that a brisk breeze is blowing 



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