WANDERING ALBATROSS. 279 



the inexhaustible supply of molluscous animals with which the 

 milder seas abound. They are nowhere more abundant than 

 off the Cape of Good Hope, where they have been seen in 

 April and May, sometimes soaring in the air with the gentle 

 motion of a kite, at a stupendous height ; at others nearer the 

 water, watching the motions of the flying-fish, which they 

 seize as they spring out of the water, to shun the jaws of the 

 larger fish which pursue them. Vast flocks are also seen round 

 Kamtschatka and the adjacent islands, particularly the Kuriles 

 and Bering's Island, about the end of June. Their arrival is 

 considered by the natives of these places as a sure presage of 

 the presence of the shoals of fish which they have thus followed 

 into these remotest of seas. That want of food impels them to 

 undertake these great migrations appears from the lean condi- 

 tion in which they arrive from the South ; they soon, however, 

 become exceedingly fat. Their voracity and gluttony is almost 

 unparalleled, — it is not uncommon to see one swallow a salmon 

 of four or five pounds weight ; but as the gullet cannot con- 

 tain the whole at once, part of the tail end will often remain 

 out of the mouth ; and they become so stupefied by their 

 enormous meals as to allow the natives to knock them on the 

 head without offering any resistance. They are often taken 

 by means of a hook baited with a fish, though not for the sake 

 of their flesh, which is hard and unsavory, but on account of 

 their intestines, which the Kamtschadales use as a bladder to 

 float the buoys of their fishing-nets. Of the bones they also 

 make tobacco-pipes, needle-cases, and other small implements. 

 When caught, however, these birds defend themselves stoutly 

 with the bill, and utter a harsh and disgusting cry. Early in 

 August they quit these inhospitable climes for the more genial 

 regions of the South, into which they penetrate sometimes as 

 low as the latitude of 67°. 



In Patagonia and the Falkland Islands they are known to 

 breed, but not in the northern hemisphere, to which they prob- 

 ably migrate only in quest of food. They repair to this south- 

 ern extremity of the American continent about the time they 

 leave the northern regions, being seen at the close of Sep- 



