204 



HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



CHAP. III. 



OF THE ALBATROSS, THE FLRST OF THE 

 GULL KIND. 1 



THOUGH this is one of the largest and most 

 formidable birds of Africa and America, yet 

 we have but few accounts to enlighten us in 

 its history. The figure of the bird is thus de- 



1 The ocean has its own peculiar birds as well as the 

 land. Compelled to traverse incessantly its solitudes to 

 obtain their subsistence, they are endowed with a won- 

 derful power of flight, so that in a few hours they are 

 able to cross immense distances, and to betake them- 

 selves to those places to which their instinct directs them. 

 Among these numerous tribes there exist distinctions 

 of manners as decided as the physical characters by 

 which they are classified ; and this induces us to give 

 the name of birds of the ocean (mseaiuc pelagiens), pro- 

 perly so called, to the petrels and the albatrosses. The 

 former are found in every sea, under every meridian, 

 and in almost every latitude. Except the short time 

 which they devote to rearing their young, all the rest of 

 their life is occupied in traversing the ocean, and 

 laboriously seeking, in the midst of storms, a scanty 

 sustenance, almost as soon digested as procured ; which 

 seems to place them under subjection to a single duty, 

 that of obtaining nourishment. 



Boobies (Sula JBassana), noddies (Sterna), men of 

 war birds (Pelecanus Aquilus, L.), and tropic birds 

 (Phaeton erubescens) although they occasionally take 

 long flights over the sea, do not deserve the name of 

 birds of the ocean : they simply make excursions ; and 

 preferring their lonely cliffs to the rocking of the waves, 

 they generally return to them every evening. 



The discrimination of the several species of albatross 

 has become a matter of great difficulty, from the many 

 different names that successive travellers have bestowed 

 upon them, and from the difference between the sexes, 

 as well as from the change which takes place in the 

 same individual at different ages and at different seasons 

 of the year. 



The greatest number of albatrosses are met with 

 between the 55th and 59th parallel of latitude; and 

 probably in that direction they may have no boundary 

 but the polar ice. Although they are to be met with 

 over the whole of this va-t space, there are some places 

 for which they have a preference, and in which they 

 are found in greater numbers than elsewhere. They 

 are most abundant about the Cape of Good Hope and 

 about Cape Horn, and both these places are well known 

 to be almost constantly the scenes of very violent storms. 

 The petrels are more numerous, and more widely dif- 

 fused, since they are to be met with from pole to pole, 

 and they vary very much in size. The albatross is 

 distinguishable by its great size ; but one species of the 

 petrel (Procellaria gigantea) is nearly as large, while 

 another species is as different from this as a sparrow 

 from a goo^e. 



It is certain that fish do serve for food to the albatross 

 and petrel, although they were never seen pursuing the 

 flying-fish, which are said to fall a prey to them when 

 they leave the deep, and, betaking themselves to their 

 wings to avoid the enemy in the water, only encounter 

 e new danger in the albatross; nor were any remains, 

 either of these or of the mollusca which, as it were, 

 cover these seas, and would alone be sufficient to satisfy 

 one of these birds for a whole day ever found in their 

 stomachs. \Ve have seen them surrounded with sea- 

 blubbers, physalia-, Salpje, &<., but these afforded them 

 ot> nourishment; they invariably sought other food. 1 



scribed by Edwards : " The body is rather 

 larger than that of a pelican ; and its wings, 

 when extended, ten feet from tip to tip. The 

 bill, which is six inches long, is yellowish, 

 and terminates in a crooked point. The top 

 of the head is of a bright brown ; the back is 

 of a dirty deep spotted brown ; and the belly 

 and under the wings is white ; the toes, 

 which are webbed, are of a flesh colour." 

 Such are the principal traits in this bird's 



This was not the case with cuttlefish and calmar?, 

 fragments of which were constantly found in their 

 stomachs. 



One circumstance which could not escape notice 

 during our long voyages, is the habit we should almost 

 say the necessity which these birds are under of fre- 

 quenting rough seas. The tempest itself does not 

 alarm them; and when the wind is blowing most 

 furiously, they may be seen wheeling about without 

 appearing at all affected by it. When, on the other 

 hand, the face of the ocean is smoothed by a calm, they 

 fly to other regions, again to appear with the return of 

 winds and storms. No doubt the reason of this is, that 

 the agitation of the waves brings to their surface those 

 marine animals which serve for food to these birds. It 

 is from the same reason that they keep near the eddying 

 and disturbance occasioned by the passing of a vessel 

 through the water. This design was clearly demon- 

 strated to us when approaching the Cape of Good Hope. 

 We were accompanied by a great number of small 

 petrels, of the size of kingfishers, who were busy skim- 

 ming the surface of the water in a line of exactly the 

 width of our track. None were to be seen anywhere 

 else. We took great care that nothing should be 

 thrown from the corvette, and yet we saw them every 

 instant darting their bills into the water to seize some 

 object which we were unable to distinguish. 



The duration, the rapidity, the strength, and the 

 manner of flight of these birds in general, has been a 

 subject of study and astonishment to us. Their agility 

 in casting themselves, like a harpoon, on their prey, in 

 raising it with their beak, their activity in striking the 

 backs of the waves with their foot, or in traversing their 

 long unsteady ridges, were sometimes the only spec- 

 tacle which the solitudes of the ocean had to offer to us. 



One of the peculiar characters of these palmipedes 

 (web- footed birds) is, that their flight is effected almost 

 entirely by sailing as it were through the air. If they 

 do sometimes flap their wings, it is in order to raise 

 themselves more quickly; but such instances are rare. 

 In the albatross, which was principally remarked upon, 

 both from its great size and from its approaching nearer 

 to the ships, it was observed that their long wings were 

 concave underneath, and that they did not show any 

 apparent vibration in whatever position the bird might 

 be ; whether when skimming the surface of the wave 

 they regulated their flight by its undulations, or when 

 rising into the air they described wide circles around 

 the vessel. 



Land birds of prey who fly in this way without mov- 

 ing their wings, are generally descending towards the 

 earth when they adopt this mode of flight ; while the 

 petrel and the albatross easily raise themselves up into 

 the air, turn quickly round by means of their tail, and 

 go on in the face of the highest wind without their pro- 

 gress appearing to be at all diminished by its force, and 

 without any apparent motion being imparted to their 

 wings. But still we must admit that some impulse is 

 given to the air which sustains them although we can- 

 not perceive it, it is true, since it probably is exerted at 

 the end of very long levers (at the extremities of their 

 wings); for, otherwise, we cannot conceive how the pro- 



