13-2 



At the other side of the world, surrrounded by the greatest extent of ocean on our globe, and at a distance 

 so remote from other lands that man rarely visits them, lie scattered several groups of uninhabited islands 

 Search in your atlas to the south of New Zealand, and you will find these desolate shores marked as little dots 

 and called respectively— I mention those only which the Wandering Albatros seeks for the purpose of reproduc- 

 tion — Antipodes Island, Auckland Islands, and Campbell Island. There is no lighthouse on these islands, and, 

 as they are frequently enveloped in heavy fog — to say nothing about the treacherous currents which swirl 

 round them — they are best known through the many and fearful shipwrecks which have occurred there. The 

 land is mountainous, and for the most part the, shores rise in bold and naked grandeur. What bays there are, 

 are fringed with dense bush, above which grows a belt of wind-pressed thicket denser still. Beyond this! 

 stretching away and upward to the summits of the hills— which in some cases reach an altitude of two 

 thousand feet— the country is covered with a heavy growth of tussock grass. A desolate land, yet, strange to 

 say, a land filled with a glory of wild flowers. Exaggerated marguerites with rich purple centres, wondrous 

 asters, gorgeous gentians, golden lilies, and a dozen other rare and beautiful flowering plants, blaze here as if 

 to mock the tempest-ridden shores with a semblance of peace. Sea-lions and seals, tamer even than cows in 

 a meadow, frequent these islands in vast numbers. But, beyond all things, it is the land of the bird. 

 Here, upon naked rocky shelves overlooking the water, Penguins, Mollyhawks, and Petrels congregate in 

 such countless hordes that the stench from their ' farms ' pollutes the air, while the clamorous and melancholy 

 cries which they continuously utter drown the roar of the sea. No attempt could be successfully made to tell 

 in figures the myriads in which these birds swarm. When seen flying to and fro against a pitchy black back- 

 ground of gathering storm-clouds, they are like nothing so much as the whirling flakes of a heavy fall of snow. 



The tussock grass on the uplands is so high and rank as to make it extremely difficult for one to force his 

 way through the tangle. You stumble and fall continually— or 'just as you get up you fall down again,' as I 

 once heard a sailor express it— and often take several hours to scramble over a distance of one mile. But not 

 until you have passed through a tough struggle with this fearful grass, and have reached the higher ground, do 

 you catch your first glimpse of the Albatros. Then their pure white heads and necks, which are noticeable 

 objects in the coarse herbage, greet your delighted eye. 



Seen at close quarters, the Albatros seems to have increased greatly in bulk. We now discover its body 

 to be much larger than that of a swan, and its expanded wings to measure in some cases as much as seventeen 

 feet from tip to tip. But the glory of the Albatros has departed. Nothing can be grander than its flight at 

 sea ; nothing can be more ungainly than its waddle on land. To add to the pitifulness of the sight, the noble 

 bird which we remember to have seen sailing over the deep, far out of our reach, is at our mercy now. The 

 wings that defy space cannot smite. The only sign the bird can give of defence when approached is to clap 

 its beak in a ridiculously helpless manner. 



The Albatros builds always far up the hillsides, on grass-covered declivities which slope towards the sea. 

 It is obvious that it selects situations of this description that it may be able, by running downhill, to get 

 sufficient impetus to rise upon the wing. It collects in such places in prodigious numbers, dotting the hills 

 with little points of white. During the early part of the breeding season the birds stand in pairs, or in small 

 groups, bowing to each other, touching their bills together, whispering much that would, I have no doubt, 

 look very silly in print, and bowing again ; and all the while, although you stand within a few paces of them, 

 remaining as indifferent to your presence as a couple in Hyde Park. 



The nestling is fed assidiously until it becomes so grossly fat that it exceeds a full-grown bird in weight. 

 It is then deserted by its parents, who set forth to roam the winter through over thousands of miles of track- 

 less ocean, often accomplishing in their wanderings the circumnavigation of the globe. Octobir has dawned 

 before they return. 



And now I have arrived at the remarkable feature in the domestic economy of the wandering Albatros 

 which - gives the title to this paper — a feature so extraordinary that the long list of natural-history wonders 

 may be searched in vain for a parallel. How does the young bird receive food during the absence of its parents ? 

 It does not receive any ! During the whole time — a period often longer than four months— it lives solely on its 

 own fat ! In this there is no assumption whatever. Naturally, the nestling is incapable of flight, and in 

 ninety-nine cases out of every hundred the situation occupied by it makes it impossible to get to the water in 

 any other way. That being the case, the conclusion is incontrovertible. 



Nor is the marvellousness of this prolonged fast fully realised until we have looked more closely into the 

 matter. The necessity of food is proportional to the rapidity of the circulation of the blood. In the case of 

 animals which hibernate, the pulsations of the heart during the torpid state decrease considerably, and the 



