s0 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
Mollymawks—-sailing as lightly before these furious winds 
as ever do Paolo and Francesca. Round the world they go. 
I doubt whether they land more than once a year, and then 
they come to the islands of these seas to breed. 
There are many other beautiful sea-birds, but most 
beautiful of all are the Snowy petrels, which approach 
nearer to the fairies than anything else on earth. They are 
quite white, and seemingly transparent. They are the 
familiar spirits of the pack, which, except to nest, they 
seldom if ever leave, flying “here and there independently 
in a mazy fashion, glittering against the blue sky like so 
many white moths, or shining snowflakes.” + And then 
there are the Giant petrels, whose coloration is a puzzle. 
Some are nearly white, others brown, and they exhibit 
every variation between the one and the other. And, on the 
whole, the white forms become more general the farther 
south you go. But the usual theory of protective coloration 
will not fit in, for there are no enemies against which this 
bird must protect itself. Is it something to do with radia- 
tion of heat from the body? 
A ship which sets out upon this journey generally has a 
bad time, and for this reason the overladen state of the 
Terra Nova was a cause of anxiety. The Australasian 
meteorologists had done their best to forecast the weather 
we must expect. Everything which was not absolutely 
necessary had been ruthlessly scrapped. Yet there was not 
a square inch of the hold and between-decks which was not 
crammed almost to bursting, and there was as much on the 
deck as could be expected to stay there. Officers and men 
could hardly move in their living quarters when standing 
up, and certainly they could not all sitdown. To say that we 
were heavy laden is a very moderate statement of the facts. _ 
Thursday, December 1, we ran intoa gale. We short- 
ened sail in the afternoon to lower topsails, jib and stay- 
sail. Both wind and sea rose with great rapidity, and before 
the night came our deck cargo had begun to work loose. | 
“You know how carefully everything had been lashed, but 
no lashings could have withstood the onslaught of these 
1 Wilson in the Discovery Natural History Reports. 
