^'°'i9i4"'^^] Murphy, Birds of the South Atlantic. 449 



than his smaller brethren. He seemed to have one style of flight 

 suitable for all weathers except a calm. The quivering of continual, 

 automatic balance-stress was evident, but the huge wings appeared 

 to be set the same whether for hurricane or catspaw, and he flew as 

 though all directions were downhill. Probabh' the weight of the 

 body is a powerful factor in the albatross's control of his momen- 

 tum.^ 



November 19, lat. 49° 40' S., long. 35° 51' W. Continuation 

 of the storm. Fregetta grallaria was observed in numbers for the 

 first time, only single birds having been noted previously. Halo- 

 baena cceridea was common. 



A few minutes before five p. m., a brief snow flurry came up with 

 a violent southwest puff. In the midst of the storm three or four 

 hundred 'Whale-birds' {Prion banksi) settled on the water near 

 the stern of the Daisy, and for a quarter of an hour J had an oppor- 

 tunity of watching them feeding while many of the birds were 

 within twenty feet of me. I soon understood the significance of 

 the name ' scooper ' which is applied by whalemen to the members 

 of the genus Prion. The birds progressed along the water with an 

 odd crawling motion, resting the breast upon the surface but hold- 

 ing the wings about an inch above it, the feet furnishing the motive 

 power. Then as they scurried along quite rapidly the heads were 

 thrust under the water and the open lamellated bills 'scooped' 

 for food. It was impossible to determine upon what organisms 

 the birds were feeding. To me the flock recalled a human swim- 

 ming race in which each contestant was using the 'crawl stroke,' 

 for the bodies of the birds were stretched out upon the water in 

 much the same way. Continuously, however, birds would slip 

 below the surface out of sight, and emerge a foot or two, or perhaps 

 a yard, ahead. They did not stay under more than a fraction of a 

 second except when they shot through the crest of a smallish wave, 

 a,s sometimes happened. In a definite field on the water birds were 

 disappearing below and reappearing with sych rapidity that the 

 area fairly twinkled. About as many were below as above all the 

 time. There was a very rugged sea, with wide troughs between the 

 waves, and whenever one of the great rollers with a white and 



'cf. Nichols, Auk, XXX, 1913, p. 509. 



