Unsatisfiable 335 



in the haunts of the Albatross, these birds are always 

 in the majority, for they angrily drive away all others. 

 It seems rather a pity that so splendid a creature 

 should be such a foul and greedy feeder, but so it is. 

 It never seems to have had enough, even though it 

 should have so loaded its stomach that it cannot rise 

 from the water. It sits there almost helplessly, 

 now and then giving utterance to a harsh scream, 

 as if of rage at its inability to eat any more. And 

 very often it may be seen to disgorge a quantity of 

 what it has swallowed, and immediately rush upon 

 the carcase again as if eager to renew its rapacious 

 devourings, at the same time dealing savage blows 

 right and left at its neighbours. It seems to think 

 that none have any right to be at the great banquet 

 but itself. 



Dr. Hartwig says that the Albatross alights in 

 considerable numbers upon the body of a dead whale 

 and there tears its food from the giant carrion. But 

 this is wrong. In the southern hemisphere, where 

 alone the Albatross is found, the only bird that can 

 and does alight upon the body of a whale is the evil- 

 smelling fulmar, or giant petrel, an ugly bird as big 

 as an ordinary duck and armed with a dirty greenish 

 beak, with which it tears and rends the blubber, to 

 the envious disgust of the other birds who cannot 

 perform the same feat. 



I would not like to assert that the Albatross has 

 a superior development of the senses to other sea- 

 birds, but I believe that he has. At any rate, in 

 common with all soaring carrion-eaters, he possesses 

 the power of discerning, either by sight or scent, or 

 some other sense unknown to us, food at immense 

 distances. Again and again I have noted when whaling 

 in the Southern seas that during the chase there has 



