WINGED ROBBERS AND NEST-BUILDERS. 1 63 



water. Here, if the sailors visit it at any time 

 between the months of October and January, they 

 will see vast numbers of the wandering albatross 

 describing graceful curves high in air, or sweeping 

 down on the table-land where their curious nests 

 are placed. 



The albatross, if it is a great wanderer, is also a 

 lover of home and has an excellent memory, for 

 after five months' voyaging over many leagues of 

 the dreary ocean's waste it always returns at the 

 end of that time to the land of its birth, and occu- 

 pies year after year the same abode. 



It is an odd nest that this remarkable bird 

 makes. It is in the shape of a half -cone, and this 

 is the manner in which it is constructed : after a 

 heavy fall of rain has softened the earth, both the 

 male and the female go to work with a will, dig- 

 ging with their strong bills a circular ditch six 

 feet round, pushing up the mud, mingled with 

 grass, nearer and nearer the centre of the circle, 

 pounding and shaping the mass with their spades 

 into a solid mound two feet high ; at the top is a 

 shallow cavity in which the mother albatross lays 

 only one white egg. 



And now begins a long, tedious season of incu- 

 bation. More than two months is required to 



