556 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Nov. 30, 1888. 



tary inflation and diminution, the bird is thus rendered 

 capable of a sustained and buoyant flight unequalled by 

 that of any other living bird. The albatross is widely 

 renowned for the grace and elegance of its flight, afford- 

 ing, as it sails majestically along, with wings outspread 

 and motionless, and with its graceful head bending 

 slightly from side to side to steer its course, a striking 

 illustration of the " beauty of strength.'' It possesses 

 an unrivalled power of "sailing" for a considerable 

 time with no impetus but its own momentum. The 

 stormy petrel, strong in the wing though it be, never 

 sails at all, and even the night-hawk and other strong- 

 winged birds can only do so for some five or ten 

 minutes, but the albatross can sail without a single 

 movement of its wings for upwards of an hour. Captain 

 Hutton suggests in explanation that its shape, especially 

 when the neck is stretched out, bears a close resem- 

 blance to Newton's " solid of least resistance," and that 

 it steers itself carefully to avoid meeting any resistance 

 from contrary currents ; but the fact that the albatross 

 can sail against the wind as well as before it, renders the 

 latter theory somewhat unsound. These birds frequently 

 follow passing vessels for the sake of any chance food 

 that may be thrown overboard, or, as Figuier believes, 

 because the agitation of the ship's track brings to the 

 surface various forms of marine life which form the 

 bird's favourite food. Be that as it may, navigators in 

 the Antarctic Seas, where the nights are never dark 

 enough to interrupt observations, assert that the same 

 flock of albatrosses will sometimes accompany a ship 

 for many successive days, without exhibiting the 

 slightest sign of fatigue and without any perceptible 

 relaxation in the strength and evenness of their flight. 

 It was once an article of faith among sailors that the 

 albatross always slept on the wing, poised, like 

 Mahomet's coffin, midway 'twixt heaven and earth, 

 a fanciful conceit which the poet Moore refers to in his 

 " Fire Worshippers," — 



" The ruined tower tower'd so high 



That oft the sleeping albatross 

 Struck the wild ruins with her wing, 



And from her cloud-rock'd slumbering 

 Started— to find man's dwelling there, 



In her own silent fields of air." 



As a matter of fact, we believe that the monarch of 

 sea-birds, when far out at sea, seeks his well-earned 

 repose on the surface of the ocean, riding on the crest 

 of the waves with his head under his wing, and often so 

 oblivious of the watery world around him, that sailors 

 sometimes stealthily approach a sleeping albatross armed 

 with boat-hooks or harpoons, and succeed in capturing 

 the unwary bird. Fishing for albatrosses — strange though 

 old Isaak Walton might have thought it, to hear of angling 

 for winged and feathered prey — is an amusement often 

 resorted to to enliven the dull monotony of life in those 

 unexciting seas. The albatross must plead guilty to 

 the charge of unbridled gluttony and voracity, and its 

 indulgence of its undiscriminating appetite often ensnares 

 it to its destruction. Small shell-fish and fish spawn are 

 supposed to be the staple article of its diet, but large fish 

 and animal refuse of all kinds are greedily snapped up, 

 and, justly or injustly, it is even accused of assisting at 

 the happy despatch of one of its dead brethren, with no 

 apparent qualms of conscience at its cannibalistic conduct. 

 Thus it may easily be imagined that fishing for alba- 

 trosses makes far less demand upon one's patience and 

 perseverance than any other branch of piscatorial sport, 

 for the line being well baited with a good-sized lump of 



blubber, down swoops the hungry bird, and the bait 

 instantly disappears. It is one thing, however, to 

 induce an albatross to swallow the bait, and quite another 

 to "land " him safely. Sometimes he takes to flight and 

 soars aloft, when he has to be pulled in in kite-like 

 fashion that calls forth no mean amount of muscular 

 force in the fishermen's arms, whilst at others he remains 

 on the water, squaring his wings, and often breaking the 

 line with his fierce struggle. No amount of experience, 

 however, ever seems to instil the slightest caution into 

 an albatross ; its size seems fairly balanced by its stupidity, 

 and an albatross but just escaped from the line will sail 

 down again upon another piece of blubber without a 

 trace of hesitation. Indeed, birds who have been actually 

 captured and liberated again with ribbon round their 

 necks to identify them, have sometimes been recaptured 

 more than once by the very same crew. The morals 

 of the albatross are unfortunately not on a par with its 

 noble appearance. It is, as we have seen, both stupid 

 and gluttonous, and in spite of its size and strength, it is 

 cowardly to a degree. When beset by gulls or other 

 small enemies, who invariably attack it under the body, 

 its most vulnerable part, it never fairly shows fight, but 

 either resorts to the simple expedient of diving under 

 water and thus ridding itself of its assailants, or betakes 

 itself forthwith to ignoble flight. Despite these unheroic 

 qualities, however, the albatross was in olden time an 

 object- of almost supernatural veneration to the early ex- 

 plorers of the Southern Seas, where it was often the 

 only living thing to cheer their dreary solitude, and all 

 lovers of Samuel Coleridge will remember the weird 

 description given to the spell-bound wedding guest of 

 the suffering and illhap of the man who 



" . .with cruel blow did lay full low 

 The harmless albatross," 



the bird so loved by — 



" The Spirit who bideth by himself 

 In the land of mist and snow." 



In this prosaic nineteenth century, however, the albatross 

 is no longer jealously guarded from harm as a bird of good 

 omen, whose death will be followed by mystic and un- 

 told woe, but is heedlessly shot and slain as opportunity 

 offers ; by sailors, chiefly for the sake of its wings, which 

 make imposing souvenirs de voyage for stay-at-home 

 relatives, and by the natives of Kamtschatka for the 

 sake of its intestines and its hollow wing-bones, the 

 latter serving for pipe stems, and the former, well 

 inflated, making excellent buoys for the rough Kamts- 

 chatkan fishing- nets. 



British Wild White Cattle. — According to the 

 report of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science recently issued, it would appear that there 

 are only three herds of the ancient British wild cattle 

 now existing, which were originally enclosed on their 

 own ground. These herds are: 1, Chartley Park, in 

 Staffordshire, belonging to the Earl of Ferrers; 2, Chil- 

 lingham, in Northumberland, belonging to the Earl of 

 Tankerville; and 3, Cadzow, in Lanarkshire, owned by the 

 Duke of Hamilton. The Staffordshire herd is larger 

 now than it has been for some years past. It contains 

 nine bulls, twenty cows, and five bullocks, making a 

 total of thirty-four head. Chartley Park is a wild tract 

 of some r,ooo acres in extent, and remains in its original 

 condition. Many naturalists from all parts of England 

 come to visit these remnants of the past. An interesting 

 suggestion is made by the Sectional Committee of the 



