314 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 



I shall never forget the long watchings I have devoted to the 

 great " wandering albatrosses " off the southern coast of New 

 Zealand. They are the largest birds that fly, and live only on 

 the stormy extremes of the Pacific. Their wings are extended 

 in flight from twelve to fifteen feet. There is one preserved in 

 the British Museum with eighteen feet of outstretched wings. I 

 have watched them for hours when the wind was high, without 

 once observing a motion of the wings that appeared to be made 

 to aid them in flight. They seemed to ride on their expanded 

 wings as if it were their simple will alone that buoyed them up ; 

 now sailing down the wind with a magnificent sweep, then turn- 

 ing w T ith increased momentum and mounting in the face of 

 the gale. 



Ever since the time of Solomon, " the ways of a bird in the 

 air " have been one of the things that have seemed to be past 

 understanding. But after observing how often these master nav- 

 igators were obliged to trim their sails and scud off on a side 

 wind, as the sailors would say, I began to think I had some little 

 insight to their tactics. It is well known that an ice yacht, sail- 

 ing with the wind nearly abeam, can be made to go many times 

 faster than the wind is blowing. So a sail boat can always make 

 better speed with a side wind than with a stern wind. The 

 reason is that with a side wind the full force of it is pressing 

 against the sails all the time, no matter how fast the boat goes ; 

 whereas, with an aft wind, the boat is going along with it, and 

 by just so much the force of the wind against the sails is lessened. 

 Like the sail-crowded ice boat then, these great birds spread their 

 enormous wings to as much of a side wind as their steering gear 

 can hold them to, and when they have attained a speed that is 

 faster than the wind, they turn to face the blast, and rise to it as 

 if they mocked its fury. They are the most perfect of sailors, 

 the most storm-daring of sea-birds, and to me the most absorbing 

 study of the ocean. 



In the museum of Dunedin, among the specimens of the 

 great albatrosses, there is an unfledged young one, said to be ten 

 months old. It is absolutely larger than the old birds, and looks 

 like a huge mass of unsorted down. It is a fact that the young 



