1835.] Observations on the Albatross. 107 



as appears by Mr. Rennie's quotation, at ' 14 feet or more ;' while the specimen 

 in the Zoological Society's Museum in Bruton Street, and we have seen this spe- 

 cimen, is set down in the Society's catalogue, where a picture of it is given at the 

 following dimensions : — ' Length from tip of bill to extremity of tail 3 feet 4 inches, 

 expansion of wings, 9 feet.' The mean of these three statements of the spread of 

 the wings of the Albatross is 10 feet 10 inches *: and although true, without doubt, 

 is the proverb ' medio tutissimus ibis,' we care less about the precise dimen- 

 sions, than to show that the expansion is on all hands admitted to be great. 

 This great expansion of wings, and that wonderful provision in the physiology of 

 birds, by which they are enabled to charge and fill every bone in their body with 

 rarified air, to promote and secure as by a series of balloons their buoyancy ; and 

 together with the comparative smallness, and therefore lightness of the body, of 

 the Albatross, in part prepare us to give credence to a supposition entertained by 

 some, that this bird sleeps while on the wing, and the great distance from any 

 land at which it is frequently seen towards the close of day farther favours the 

 supposition. 



"This power of sleeping in the air has been alluded to by Thomas Moore in his 

 beautiful Eastern poem of Lalla Rookh, when describing a rocky mountain 

 beetling awfully o'er the sea of Oman, he says : 



1 While on its peak, that braved the sky, 

 A ruin'd temple tower'd so high, 

 That oft the sleeping Albatross, 

 Struck the wild ruins with her wing, 

 And from her cloud-rocked slumbering 

 Started, to find man's dwelling there, 

 In her own silent fields of air." 



" The Albatross is doubtless spoken of in the following facts, told us by a sai- 

 lor friend, now dead and gone : ' A very large bird, sometimes alights on the 

 yards of vessels passing the coast of the Cape of Good Hope, and no sooner is it 

 upon the yards, than it is asleep, and while sleeping, is very easily captured. 

 When upon the deck, it cuinot soar into the air, on account of the length of its 

 wings. It makes a loud and disagreeable noise when molested. It is called ' the 

 Booby' by the crew. 



" The term Booby is, we have since been told, commonly applied by sailors 

 to any long -winged bird, of a whitish colour ; although in the above case of the 

 Albatross, the term would seem to express its incautious or booby-like habit of 

 going to sleep within reach of molestation ; a habit which those who scout the 

 idea of the bird's sleeping in the air will impute to the desperateness of its neces- 

 sity." 



* I am informed by a gentleman at this station, who came out on the " Wil- 

 liam Fairlie," that an Albatross was shot on the 23rd March, in lat. 26* 57' south 

 long. 29* 9' west, which was wholly white, with the exception of a few feathers 

 clouded with pale-brown on the wings. It measured 12 feet from tip to tip of the 

 wings. On the 8th April, five more were shot in lat. 37- 18' south, long. 14° 

 26' east. The flesh was good, and not at all fishy to the taste. It was dry and 

 insipid. 



P 2 



