444 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



incredible when I state that during the twenty-four hours it 

 must have performed a much greater distance, since it was 

 only at intervals of perhaps half an hour that it was seen, 

 hunting up the wake of the vessel to secure any offal, &c. 

 that had been thrown overboard, the interim being employed 

 in scanning the ocean in immense circles. 



Its flight is not so easy, graceful and buoyant as that of 

 the Albatros, but is of a more laboured and flapping cha- 

 racter ; the bird is also of a more shy disposition, and never 

 approaches so near the vessel as the other members of the 

 family ; while flying, its white bill shows very conspicuously. 



On visiting Recherche Bay in D'Entrecasteaux's Channel, 

 Tasmania, I found thousands of this species sitting together 

 on the water and feeding on the blubber and other refuse of 

 the whaling-station. I did not observe the bird between 

 Sydney and New Zealand, but on arriving in lat. 50° S., long. 

 90° W., nearly off Cape Horn, a solitary wanderer flew about 

 the ship; and in lat. 41° S., long. 34° W., a few were still 

 seen in pairs. Captain Cook found it very abundant on 

 Christmas Island, Kerguelen's Land, in December, when it 

 was so tame that his sailors knocked it down with sticks. 



Captain F. W. Hutton states that " this bird breeds in the 

 cliffs of the Prince Edward Islands and Kerguelen's Land, 

 but the nests can be got at occasionally. The young are at 

 first covered with a beautiful long light grey down ; when 

 fledged they are dark brown mottled with white. When 

 a person approaches the nest the old birds keep a short 

 distance away while the young ones squirt a horridly smelling 

 oil out of their mouths to the distance of six or eight feet. It 

 is very voracious, hovering over the sealers when engaged 

 cutting up a seal, and devouring the carcase the moment it is 

 left, which the Albatros never does. It sometimes chases the 

 smaller species, but whether or not it can catch birds pos- 

 sessed apparently of powers of flight superior to its own is 

 doubtful ; but, supposing one killed, that it feeds only on its 



