BY WAY OF APPENDIX. 
199 
to man — would not understand, would perhaps 
only smile, at the following passage from Herman 
Melville, about this bird : — " I remember the first 
albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged 
gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. . . . 
I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there 
dashed upon the main-hatches, I saw a regal 
feathery thing of unspotted whiteness. ... At 
intervals it arched forth its vast wings, as if to 
embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings 
and throbbings shook it. Though bodily un- 
harmed, it uttered cries, as some king's ghost in 
supernatural distress. Through its inexpressibly 
strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets not 
belovv the heavens. As Abraham before the angels 
I bowed myself ; the white thing was so white, its 
wings were so wide ; and in those for ever exiled 
waters I had lost the miserable warping memories 
of traditions and of towns. Long I gazed at that 
prodigy of plumage ; I cannot tell — can only hint 
— the things that darted through me then. But 
at last I awoke ; and, turning, asked a sailor what 
bird was this. 'A goney,' he replied. Goney ! 
I had never heard that name before ; is it con- 
ceivable that the glorious thing is utterly unknown 
to men ashore ! Never ! But some time after I 
learned that goney was some seaman's name for 
albatross. So that by no possibility could Cole- 
