THE ALBATROSS 53 



when once he rises and shakes out his immense wings, and 

 goes gliding forward between sea and sky, where is the 

 bird that can compare with him? And, thus launched 

 in flight, he can hold on his course tirelessly for days 

 together ! 



From wing-tip to wing-tip, the average measurement 

 usually given by present-day naturalists is eleven or 

 twelve feet ; but I find, in a carefully compiled natural 

 history of fifty years ago, mention is made of " a specimen 

 in the Leverian Museum measuring thirteen feet ; while 

 Ives describes one, shot oft' the Cape of Good Hope, 

 which measured seventeen feet and a half from wing 

 to wing." 



Mariners in earlier days brought home stories of these 

 magnificent ocean fliers, and mention is made of them in 

 many an old book. One of these, Shelvocke's Voyages, gave 

 an idea to the poet Wordsworth which helped towards the 

 making of one of the most famous poems in the English 

 language, namely, Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 



The two poets had talked over the subject of the 

 poem, which was to be about a sailor of olden days who 

 should be condemned, on account of some crime, to wander 

 unrestingly about the world. Of course, most of it was 

 Coleridge's own * invention, but Wordsworth suggested 

 part of it. 



" I had been reading in Shelvocke's Voyages, a day or two 

 before," he tells us, "that while doubling Cape Horn they 

 frequently saw Albatrosses in that latitude, the largest sort 

 of sea-fowl, some extending their wings twelve or thirteen 

 feet. ' Suppose,' said I, ' you represent him [the Mariner] 

 as having killed one of these birds on entering the South 

 Sea, and that the guardian spirits of these regions take 

 upon them to avenge the crime.' " 



