NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 



265 



not open by a single definite mouth towards the sea, but split up into numerous channels 

 leading down to a number of easy tracks through the rocks. A little way in there was 

 a clear open track 6 feet wide, and in places as much as 8 or 10 feet in width. 

 On each side narrow alleys led nearly at right angles to the rows of nests with which the 

 whole space on either side of the main street was taken up. 



Amongst the Penguins here were numerous nests of the Yellow-billed Albatross, 

 Diomedea chlororhyncha, Gmelin, 1 called by the Tristan people " Mollymauk," 

 variously spelt in books, Molly Hawk, Mollymoy, Mollymoc, Mallymoke. It is, as 



Fig. 105. — Nightingale Island from the South. 



are most of the sealers' names in the south, a name originally given to one of the 

 Arctic birds, in this case to the Fulmar, and then transferred to the Antarctic forms 

 from some supposed or real resemblance. The Mollymauk is an albatross about the size 

 of a goose, head, throat, and under part pure white, the wings grey, and the bill black 

 with a yellow streak on the top and with a bright yellow edge to the gape, which extends 

 right back under the eye, and shows out conspicuously on the side of the head (it is not 

 thus shown in Gould's coloured figures). The birds are extremely handsome. They take up 

 their abode in separate pairs anywhere in the rookery, or under the trees where there are no 



1 This i? called Thala»»iareke culminata'm Mr. W. A. Forbes' Report on the Tubinares, Zool. Chall. Exp., part, xi., 1882. 

 (narr. ciiai.l. E.xr. — vol i. — 1884.) 34 



