THE ALBATEOSS. 313 



metres across.* Its plumage is generally white, with the exception 

 of a dark back. Courage is not measured by size. This rule 

 holds good in these birds, for, notwithstanding their wonderful 

 strength and their large, strong, sharp, and hooked bills, they 

 exhibit the most unaccountable cowardice. Even a poor weak Sea 

 Mew will attack an Albatross, and endeavour to tear its stomach 

 open. The pusillanimous Albatross can find no better means of 

 getting rid of his enemy than by plunging into the water. 

 Although they are most gluttonous in taste, they prefer to fly away 

 rather than contend for their food. This consists of small marine 

 animals, moUusks, mucilaginous zoophytes, and the eggs and 

 spawn of fish. They will even swallow large fish without tearing 

 them to pieces. When they are completely gorged, and the 

 fish which they have seized is too large to swallow whole, they 

 may be seen with part of it hanging outside their bill, until the 

 first half of their pi;ey is digested. The same is done, as is 

 well known, by several kinds of Serpents. When thus embar- 

 rassed, the Albatross has only one mode of escape if it happens 

 to be pursued ; namely, by disgorging the food with which its 

 stomach is overloaded. 



Gifted as they are with an extraordinary power of flight, these 

 birds venture out to enormous distances from all land, more espe- 

 cially in stormy weather. They seem to delight in the warring 

 of the elements. When overcome with fatigue, they take repose 

 on the surface of the sea, placing their heads under their wings. 

 When in this position they are very easy to capture : in order to 

 do this, the sailors have only to approach silently, and knock them 

 down with a boat-hook or spear them with a harpoon. 



Navigators have found opportunities of observing these birds in 

 the Polar regions, where there is no night during half the year. 

 They see the same flocks hovering around their vessel during 

 many successive days without exhibiting the least signs of fatigue, 

 or the slightest relaxation in their strength. The peculiarity in 

 their mode of flight is that, whether they are ascending or descend- 

 ing, they seem to glide, for they flap their wings but seldom. 



* The weight of this bird much varies. A specimen in the Leverian Museum 

 measured thirteen feet from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. One shot off 

 the Cape of Good Hope was said to he seventeen and a half feet. — Ed. 



