Flight of Birds roy 
exertion, scanning from their airy height the country for 
miles around, on the look-out for their carrion food. Like 
all birds that soar, both over sea and land, when it is calm 
the vultures are obliged to flap their wings to fly; but when 
a breeze is blowing they are able to use their specific gravity 
as a fulcrum, by means of which they present their bodies and 
outstretched wings and tails at various angles to the wind, 
and literally sail. How often, when becalmed on southern 
seas, when not a breath of air was stirring and the sails idly 
flapped against the mast, have I seen the albatross, the 
petrel, and the Cape-pigeon resting on the water, or rising 
with difficulty, and only by the constant motion of their long 
wings able to fly at all. But when a breeze sprang up they 
were all life and motion, wheeling in graceful circles, now 
presenting one side, now the other to view, descending rapidly 
with the wind, and so gaining velocity to turn and rise up 
again against it. Then, as the breeze freshened to a gale, 
the petrels darted about, playing round and round the 
scudding ship, at home on the wings of the storm, poising 
themselves upon the wind as instinctively and with as little 
effort as a man balances himself on his feet. The old times 
recurred as I rode over the savannah, and the soaring vultures 
brought back to my mind the wheeling stormy petrels that 
darted about whilst under close-reefed topsails we struggled 
against the gale, rounding the stormy southern cape; when 
great blue seas, “ green glimmering towards the summit,” 
towered on every side, or struck our gallant ship like a sledge, 
making it shiver with the blow, and sending a driving cloud 
of spray from stem to stern. Then the petrels were in their 
element; then they darted about—above, below, now here, 
now there—all life and motion; as if their chief pleasure was, 
like Ariel, “‘ to ride on the curled cloud” and “ point the 
tempest.” } 
We were travelling nearly parallel with the edge of the 
great forest which was two or three miles away on our right; 
in all other directions the view was bounded by ranges, some 
grassed to their tops, others with forests climbing up their 
1 The Duke of Argyll, in his Reign of Law, has some excellent remarks 
on the flight of birds that soar, or hover. My remarks, of which the 
above account is a paraphrase, were written out in my journal in 1852, 
but were not published. 
