AVES—ALBATROSS. 659 
run on the top of it, they are also excellent divers. It skims along the 
hollows of the waves, and through the spray upon their tops, at the astonish- 
ing rate of sixty miles in anhour. They are very clamorous, and are called 
by the sailors Mother Cary’s Chickens, who observe they never settle or sit 
upon the water but when stormy weather is to be expected. They are 
found in most parts of the world; and in the Feroe islands, the inhabitants 
draw a wick through the body of the bird, from the mouth to the rump. 
which serves them as a candle, being fed by the vast proportion of oil which 
this little animal contains. 
Wilson supposed the American stormy petrel to be the same as that of 
Europe; but Charles Bonaparte has shown that it is a distinct species. It 
breeds in great numbers on the shores of the Bahama and Bermuda isles, 
and on the coast of East Florida and Cuba. This author enumerates four 
species of the stormy petrel. 
THE ALBATROSS 














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[s one of the largest and most formidable birds of Africa and South America_ 
The largest, which is called the wandering albatross,! is rather larger than 
1 Diomedea exulans, Lin. The genus Diomedea has the bill very long, stout, edged, 
compressed, straight, suddenly curved ; upper mandible channelled on the sides, andmuech 
hooked at the point, the under smooth, and truncated at the extremity; nostrils lateral, 
remote from the base, tubular, covered on the sides, and open in front; legs short, with 
only three very long toes entirely webbed ; the lateral one margined ; wings very long and 
narrow, with the primary quills short, and the secondaries long. 

