64 



PROCELLARIIFORMES 



CHAP. 



his wings, his head goes back, and his back goes in ; down drop 

 two enormous webbed feet straddled out to their full extent, 

 and with a hoarse croak, between the cry of a Eaven and that of 

 a sheep, he falls ' souse ' into the water. Here he is at home 

 again, breasting the waves like a cork. Presently he stretches 

 out his neck, and with great exertion of his wings runs along 

 the top of the water for seventy or eighty yards, until, at last, 



f-i 







,^^ ^- 



Fig. 18. Wandering Albatros. Diomedea exulans. 



having got sufticient impetus, he tucks up his legs, and is 

 once more fairly launched in the air." ^ D. regia, of the New 

 Zealand seas, has no undulations on the back ; the similar D. 

 chionoptera, of the Southern Indian Ocean, has nearly white wing- 

 coverts ; and D. albcUrus, of the North Pacific, has buff crown 

 and nape. Of the smaller forms, or Mollymauks (p. 65), I). 

 irrorata, of West Peru, is sooty -brown with plentiful white 

 mottlings and white head ; D. nigi^ipes, of the North Pacific, is 

 the same colour, but shews white only at the base of the tail 



1 This, 186.', pp. 281, 282. 



