Apparently out of Place 355 



the little wanderers, from their never being seen to 

 feed at sea or ever to alight on the water, although 

 their feet are delicately webbed as if for swimming 

 purposes. Added to all this is their apparently feeble, 

 undecided flight, which seems so unnatural in a bird 

 that is met with a thousand miles from land, and that 

 does not avail itself, as far as can be told, of the rest 

 afforded by the sea-surface. I have never been able 

 to imagine what becomes of them in a gale. In theory 

 they should be hurled along like dried leaves without 

 power of direction, whithersoever the storm-wind 

 chooses to carry them. But knowing what we do of 

 the truly marvellous way in which all sea-birds can 

 and do manipulate their pinions in the tremendous 

 presence of the tempest, it is utterly unwise to suppose 

 that even the feeble Whale Birds are unable to main- 

 tain their position and prosecute their mysterious 

 business, no matter how fiercely the gale may rage 

 about them. 



As to their place of resort for breeding purposes, 

 I know no more certainly than that they frequent 

 at breeding time the same islets in the Southern Seas 

 as do the larger pelagic birds. Also that they are to be 

 found in warmer climates than the albatross and Cape 

 pigeon, being in this respect, indeed, more like the 

 dainty little Procellaria, which is equally at home on 

 the Equator or amid the table-topped icebergs of the 

 great lone Southern Sea. I should say, however, that 

 they would breed in colonies, as they are so very 

 gregarious, and that, judging from the little I have 

 been able to see of their habits, they are as addicted 

 to polygamy as is the domestic fowl, a circumstance 

 which differentiates them at once from all the other 

 really pelagic sea-birds. 



Before we return to the Cape Pigeon, whom, after 



