448 Murphy, Birds oj the South Atlantic. [oct. 



almost on their backs in the strong gale. They often skipped along 

 the water in flocks, and, all springing up together, looked much like 

 a school of gleaming flying fish. Four Sooty Albatrosses {Phoebetria 

 palpebratd) joined us during the morning and remained nearby for 

 several hours, flying with the preeminent grace of their kind. Their 

 white-ringed eyes are conspicuous even at a long distance. The 

 melanophrys 'Mollymokes' were on hand as usual. One or two of 

 them took a hook but succeeded in shaking it out. While quarrel- 

 ing in the water over a bit of fat, several of them sidled amusingly 

 round and round each other, croaking loudly all the while. In 

 alighting during the gale they sometimes slid along the surface on 

 their webs for ten or twelve feet, just as boys glide along an ' ice 

 slide.' 



Late in the afternoon the first example I had seen of the beautiful 

 Priocella glacialoides flew over the deck and poised for a moment 

 within a few feet of me. Then it dropped astern and fed on a 

 piece of refuse, along with other species. At the same time another 

 petrel white below, brownish above, with a little gray or brown on 

 its neck, passed about fifty feet away. I believe it was Thalas- 

 sceca cmtarctica. 



All of these wonderful fliers from "Mollymokes" down to 

 'Mother Carey's Chickens' {Oceanites), with the single exception 

 of the Giant Petrels {Macronedes), kept their wings flexed to a 

 much greater extent during the gale than they had done in calmer 

 weather; and with each more than ordinarily forceful puff of wind 

 they bent the manus at right angles to the forearm, thus " shorten- 

 ing sail" still more. The birds rarely, if ever, flew directly before 

 the wind, but either took it "on the quarter" or else headed into it, 

 raised the body axis, and allowed themselves to be carried back- 

 ward like a kite. The last method was regularly adopted by 

 Petrella capensis, flocks of these birds covering considerable dis- 

 tances tail-foremost. The pinions of the longer-winged species 

 could be seen to be always a-quiver; the gentle, almost unnoticeable 

 rocking and see-sawing of the wings with the bird's body as a 

 fulcrum, the gauging of the angle of the wing-axis with the horizon 

 according to the sharpness of a turn, all revealing to the observer 

 the constant action of the mechanism of balance. 



But the Wandering Albatross (Z). exulans) was more inexplicable 



