IfiB ALBATROSS. 121 



LsTemn museum measured thirteen feet; and Ives (p. 5), 

 mentions one, shot off the Cape of Good Hope, which 

 measured seventeen feet and a ha*f from wing to wing. Dr. 

 Amott, in his Physics, says, — " How powerful must be the 

 wing-muscles of birds, which sustain themselves in the pky 

 for hours together ! The Great Albatross, with wings extend- 

 ing fourteen feet or more, is seen in the stormy solitude of 

 the Southern Ocean, accompanying ships for whole days 

 without ever resting on the waves V 



We can, from this circumstance, readily understand the 

 extensive range in which the Albatross is found ; not being 

 confiEed, as Buffon imagined, to the Southern Ocean, but 

 being equally abundant in the northern latitudes, though 

 Forster says, he never observed it within the tropics. These 

 birds are seen in immense flocks about Behring's Straits 

 apd Kamtschatka, about the end of June, frequenting chiefly 

 the inner sea, the Kurile Islands, and the Bay of Pent- 

 Bchinensi, whereas scarcely a straggler is to be seen on the 

 eastern or American shore. They seem to be attracted 

 thither by vast shoals of fish, whose migratory movements 

 the albatrosses follow. On their first appearing in those 

 ieas, they are very lean, but, from finding abundance of 

 food, they soon become fat. Their voracity is so great, that 

 they will often swallow a salmon of four or five pounds 

 weight, and then, being half choked, and unable, in con- 

 eequence, to move, the natives easily knock them dows 

 with a stick. 



