

AI.I'.IX. 



AI.P.: 



The top of the head U a ruddy gray ; the rest of the pluiuagr : 



with the exception of several transverse black bauds on the back, uid 



Common Albatross (Tliomeilfa erw/aru). 



a few of the wing feathers. The feet and membrane are of n deep 

 fleah colour ; the bill a pale yell v. . 



The weight of this bird has been variously stated from 12 to 28 

 pounds ; and a similar difference appears to exist in authors with 

 respect to the distance between the extremity of the extended wings. 

 Forster says above 10 feet ; Parkins, 11 feet 7 inches ; Cook, 11 feet ; 

 another says 12 feet; a specimen in the Leverian Museum measured 

 13 feet ; and Ires (p. 5) mentions one, shot off the Cape of Good Hope, 

 which measured 174 f 6 ^ from wing to wing. 



We can, from this circumstance, readily understand the exten- 

 sive range in which the Albatross U found ; not being confined, as 

 Buffon imagined, to the Southern Ocean, but being equally abundant 

 in the northern latitudes, though Forster says he never observed it 

 within the tropics. These' birds are seen in immense flocks about 

 Behring's Straits and Kamtchatka about the end of June, frequenting 

 chiefly the inner sea, the Kurile Islands, and the Bay of Pentachinensi, 

 whereas scarcely a straggler is to be seen on the eastern or American 

 shore. They seem to be attracted thither by vast shoals of fish, whose 

 migratory movements the albatrosses follow. On their first ap; 

 in those seas they are very lean, but, from finding abundance of food, 

 they soon become fat. Their voracity is so great, that they will often 

 swallow a salmon of four or five pounds weight. 



They do not, however, confine themselves to fish, but will prey on 

 any other sea-animal ; and Cook's sailors caught them with a line and a 

 hook. The Kamtchatkadales take them by fastening a curd to a large 

 hook, baited with a whole fish, which the birds greedily seize. Their 

 usual food, however, seems rather to be fish-spawn and small shell-fish. 



Notwithstanding their strength, they never venture to attack other 

 sea-birds, but are, on the contrary, attacked by the gulls. " - 

 large gray gulls," says Cook, " that wore pursuing a white albatross, 

 afforded us a diverting spectacle : they overtook it, notwithstanding 

 the length of its wings, and they tried to attack it under the belly, 

 that port being probably defenceless : the albatross had now no means 

 of escaping but by dipping ita body into the water; it* formidable bill 

 seemed to repel them." 



Their flesh is t.iugh and dry ; but the Kamtchatkadales take them 

 for the sake of their entrails, which they blow up, and use as buoys for 

 their net*. They employ the wing-bones also, which Edwards says 

 are as long as their wliolr body, for tolutcco pipes. 



A I. P.I V. -i whit- variety of .i /.../,// )///</'. | AruPHVU.ITK.] 



ALBI'XOS, a word of Portuguese origin, by which the Portuguese 

 voyagers denominated the white negroes whom they found on the coast 

 rica. These negroes were also termed /.< "'//>'<// a term 

 signifying white negroes. Both names are now used, bat the former 

 popularly, to designate individual! who exhibit characters similar to 

 those n the white negroes, among whatever race i in 



whatever country the variety may arise. 



These singular beings ore distinguished from other individuals of the 

 human race by remarkable character*, which are invariably the same 

 among whatever people or 111 -nut] circumstances the 



variety 'n found. Th-ir most, ctrikii." i .<* consint in the 



colour of their skin and in tlmt of ilic yes. 



Their skin in of a pearly whitenem, without any admixture whatever 

 of a pink or a (frown t. In the snow-white skin of the fairest 

 Kuropean woman there is always some tint of a pink or brown colour, 

 . th- AH. in..- i)i- B! in in wholly d- i'.her ting.-. 



of a dull pearly whiteness. It is often not soft and smooth in pro| M >r- 

 tion t.o iu whiteness, as U generally the case with the Lion. Is . 

 Kiirptwn race ; but, on the contrary, is rough, dry, and harsh. 



Tli. win-en,-:-' ..r ili- hair always corresponds to the whiteness of 

 th- -I y the hair of the head, but alao that of the eyebrows, 



eyelashes, beard, and even the soft down that covers the external 

 surface of the body, baa the same unnatural whiteness. 



With this whiteness of the skin and hair is connected a still 

 striking peculiarity, namely, a redness of the eyes. That jwrt . 

 eye called the iris is of a pale rose colour, while tho pupil is intensely 

 red : in a word, the eye is exactly similar to that of many forms of 

 white animals, as the white rabbit, rat, mouse, Ac. 



Thin peculiarity -rtain cells it 



ill-.l pigment-cells, which, wherever present, give a nx 

 less dark colour to the surface on which they are develop!. It in the 

 formation of these cells in tli- skin and hair, au.l in th. in; 

 e\-, that givm the various colours to these parts of the body : and 

 when these cells are absent they present the appearances obeen 

 All. in. w. In the skin tho part which secretes these cells is the iip|K-r 

 surface of the cu>i>, or true skin. They are mixed, however, with 

 varying proportions of colourless cells. These cells together constitute, 

 when they lie flat upon the surface of the body, the r;.iW. r 

 scarf-skin. The cells wliicli have not yet become hardened were 

 sup|Kised to form a soft layer, which was called the rtie micro." 

 mucous layer. It in in the black races of mankind that th- p; 

 cells most abound, and just in proportion as tli tin.) 



them deficient in quantity or less dark in colour: but in the . 

 races these pigment-cells are found. In the same manner ili.ir 



e in the hair produces the various shades of colour ... 

 in this appendage of the skin, and they may be very numerous in tin- 

 hair and not so in the skin generally. The eyfc requiring f> -i 

 a dark chamber, has developed in its interior a large . 

 pigment-cells, constituting the pigmcnium nigrum of its in 

 membranes. What is true of man is also true of the lower animals, 

 and the colour of their skin and hair depends on these peculiar . 



The anatomical condition of Albinism is the absence of the 

 pigment-cells. In the complete Albinos they are everywhere absent 

 from the skin, the hair, and the eyes. It is this which (_'i\es the 

 unnatural whiteness to the skin and the hair, and the redness to 

 the eyes; this latter phenomenon resulting from tl >k>o.l- 



veasels reflecting the colour of the blood in them, an appearance 

 which is entirely absent when the pigment-cells are deposited as 



On the other hand it appears that there is a tendency in some 

 animals which have naturally only a few pigment-eells to <le\.l><|. 

 them in greater number than usual, as we see in the occa 

 presence of Mack sheep in a flock. Black varieties and white vm 

 with a mixture of the two colours, are not at all uncommon nn> 

 our domesticated animals. Of the causes which produce tin- peculiar 

 affection of the organs in question we are ignorant ; an. I the ~pecui 

 of Buffon on this subject afford a striking exai 

 into which men, even of acute minds, fall when tli.-i 

 conjecture for investigation, or deem it consistent with tl 

 philosophy to place trust in fancy, when they an 1 without know 



assuming that while is the primitive colour of nature. h> 

 that this colour may be varied by climate, fo<xl, and maun. 

 yellow, l.r.nvn, or block; that these colours may, under 

 eiVuinstances, return to the primitive colour, but HO uuicli sft 



has no resemblance to the original whiteness, because it has 

 been adulterated by the causes that have been assigned. Nature. In- 

 tel In us, in her most perfect exertions, made men white ; and this same 

 Nature, after suffering every possible change, still renders them white; 

 but the natural or specific whiteness in very different fivi. 

 individual or accidental. It is useful, occasionally, to recur t" 

 v. a- formerly considered, and U still sometimes considered, as an 

 explanation of the phenomena of nature. 



Some writers represent the peculiarities which distin/iiv-li the 



-s as altogether the result of disease. T I this 



opinion on the roughness and harshness of the skin, on the t 

 ness of the eyes, and the comparative physical weakness of 

 individuals. But the harsh and almost leprous appearance of the 

 skin, though sometimes found, is by no means uni- 



ness of the eyes arises from the increased sensibility of the 

 organs in consequence of the abstraction of the dark -coloured 



nee by which, in the natural state, they arc defended from 

 the ligh n admitting it to IKS a fact, which however 



pear to be fully established, that these ioally 



it. would not follow th 



..f disease. ' m be judged fnm- 



and from their accounts of (heir own feelings. Albino:- i I'uctly 



healthy, an. 1 many do not exhibit a single mark of di.-.-:ue what, \, i. It 

 is also certain that domestic animals which exhibit varieties JN-I > 

 those of tin 



erved in the she. p. pig, horse, cow, dog, cat, 

 mouse, ferret, monkey, squirrel, rat, hamster, guinea-pig, 

 opossum, nrirtin. we; 

 beaver, bear, camel, buffalo, and atw; and even in tin ..l.ir.l. 



oird. partr.. : 1. able, 



