116 The Zoologist — March, 1866. 



in the sl<y at a very considerable elevation above the horizon, so that 

 it must have been flying at a very great alliliide. 



These birds are coiuraonly believed to follow ships to pick up what- 

 ever may be thrown overboard, but I do not believe such is the case, 

 for they follow a school of whales in the same manner, and I have 

 seldom seen three or four whales together unless they were attended 

 by sea-birds. Some species of petrel are called " whale-birds" by 

 sailors, whom I have always found pretty accurate observers in such 

 matters. I have no doubt, however, that these birds find their favourite 

 food much more abundantly in the wake of a shijD or of a whale than 

 elsewhere. 



I have opened the stomachs of numerous sea birds belonging to the 

 following species: — Diomedea exalans, D. melanophrys, PiifBnus 

 major, and a large black species of Puffinus called a "Nelly" by 

 sailors, as well as Dapliou capensis, with the same invariable result; 

 they all contained masses of small cuttle-fish, and nothing else, except 

 now and then a lump of fat with which wo had fed them, whilst the 

 gizzard always contained the horny jaws of these C('phalo|)ods, 

 I have found as many as thirty in the gizzard of the blacU pufl^n, 

 which I have called a "Nelly"; in fact, the cavity of the organ was 

 quite ftdl of them. Now I think it extremely unlikely that a bird 

 should follow a ship thousands of miles for hall-a-dozen pieces of fat 

 which may possibly fall to its lot, allhough, unless there are plenty of 

 passengers to throw fat to them, they would probably never get any : 

 the truth is these birds all feed on the wing, picking up the cuttle-fish 

 which come to the surface, and these are thrown up by the motion of 

 the water in a ship's wake, just as worms are turned up by a plough. 



The flight of oceanic birds is peculiar ; it is somewhat analagous to 

 that of vultures, except that, instead of soaring at great heights like 

 thera, they skim the surface of the sea. Mr. Darwin, in the ' Voyage 

 of the Beagle,' mentions the fact that he has observed the condor 

 remain suspended for hours in the air, without his being able to per- 

 ceive the slightest motion of the wings, I have myself observed the 

 same thing with the Egyptian and griffon vultures, but I have never 

 seen such wonderful movements made with so little appai'ent muscular 

 action as I have seen in the flight of oceanic birds. The captain of the 

 ship in which I sailed, an old Scotch skipper, with an opinion of his 

 own on most subjects, always attributed their movements to some 

 supernatural power, which he said " made the birds go." I think he 

 wished to express the existence of some unknown motive force in 



