2292 TUBE-NOSED BIRDS, DIVING BIRDS, PENGUINS 



times rests on the surface of the water, it is almost constantly on the wing and is 

 equally at ease while passing over the glassy surface during the stillest calm, or fly- 

 ing with meteor-like swiftness before the most furious gale; and the manner in 

 which it just tops the raging billows and sweeps between the gulfy waves has a 

 hundred times called forth my wonder and admiration. Although a vessel running 

 before the wind frequently sails more than two hundred miles in the twenty-four 

 hours, and that for days together, still the albatross has not the slightest difficulty 

 in keeping up with the ship, but also performs circles of many miles in extent, re- 

 turning again to hunt up the wake of the vessel for any substances thrown over- 

 board." Moseley states that these birds make the utmost use of the momentum 

 acquired by a few powerful strokes of the wings, taking all possible advantage of 

 the wind, and progressing largely by a gliding movement. Still, however, he adds, 

 they seem to move their wings more frequently than is generally supposed. ' ' They 

 often have the appearance of soaring for long periods after a ship without flapping 

 their wings at all, but if they be closely watched very short but extremely quick 

 motions of the wings may be detected. The appearance is rather as if the body of 

 the bird dropped a very short distance and rose again. The movements cannot be 

 seen at all unless the bird is exactly on the level with the eye." 



During the breeding season, when the light colored species are in the full 

 beauty of their white plumage, albatrosses resort in large numbers to oceanic islands 

 and rocks. In Tristan da Cunha both the wandering albatross and the smaller 

 yellow-billed albatross (D. chlororhyncha) are found in numbers during the breeding 

 season; the latter being easily distinguished by its yellow gape and the broad yellow 

 stripe on the tip of the otherwise black beak. Commonly known to the sailors as 

 " mollymauks," the yellow-billed albatrosses, according to Moseley, "take up their 

 abode in separate pairs anywhere about in the rookery, or under the trees, where 

 there are no penguins. They make a cylindrical nest of tufts of grass, clay, and 

 sedge, which stands up from the ground. The nest is neat and round, there is a 

 shallow concavity on the top for the bird to sit on, and the edge overhangs some- 

 what, the old birds undermining it, as the Germans said, during incubation, by 

 pecking away the turf of which it is made. ' ' The nest may be as much as fourteen 

 inches in diameter, by ten in height; and at the proper season it contains a single 

 white egg, somewhat larger than that of a goose. During incubation the egg is 

 held in a kind of pouch, so that the bird has to be driven quite off the nest before 

 it can be ascertained whether or not an egg is present. In all cases the sitting 

 birds allow themselves to be approached without making the least movement -, and 

 almost seem to have forgotten the use of their wings. The wandering albatross 

 builds a larger and more conical nest than the mollymauk, and its egg is about five 

 inches in length, or about equal in size to that of a swan. At its larger end the egg 

 has some specks of red, but is otherwise white. The male birds commonly stand 

 or sit near their brooding partners; and when the latter are approached, they dis- 

 play their displeasure by savagely snapping their beaks at the intruder. 



