REMARKABLE POWER OF FLIGHT. 
43 
permit a rapid and sustained flight ; while short and rounded wings, 
with loose plumage, are adapted only for a leisurely mode of progres- 
sion. With a long broad tail the bird can change his direction abruptly; 
with great broad rounded wings can hover with very little effort. 
In flying, as already stated, a bird advances with greater swiftness, 
and continues his advance longer, than any other animal. In truth, 
what he accomplishes is almost incredible. In a few days he traverses 
thousands of leagues; in a few hours, he crosses a sea. The carrier- 
pigeon covers in a day a distance which would fatigue the strongest 
rider. There is a story on record that a falcon of Henry II. of France, 
which was let loose one day from Fontainebleau, was captured on the 
day following at Malta; while another falcon, sent to the Duke of 
Parma, returned from the orange-groves of Andalusia to the wooded 
valleys of the island of Teneriffe, a distance of two hundred and fifty 
leagues, in sixteen hours. Humboldt afiirms that he has seen the condor 
of the Andes cleaving his onward way at an elevation of 23,273 feet 
above the level of the sea, and yet suddenly descending to the sea-shore, 
so as to traverse all the climatic zones, as it were, in a few minutes. 
Mr. Gould remarks that the powers of flight of the albatross are truly 
wonderful. He is almost constantly on the wing, and seems equally at 
ease while sailing over the glassy sea in a breathless calm, or sweeping 
with arrowy swiftness before the most terrific gale. A vessel before 
the wind will sail upwards of two hundred miles in twenty-four hours, 
and yet the albatross will easily keep up with it ; and not only so, but 
win perform diversions of many miles in extent, and always return 
without difficulty into the ship's course. Coleridge indulges in no 
poetical license when he represents an albatross as steadfastly pursuing 
the vessel of the Ancient Mariner : — 
" And a good south vnnd sprang up behind ; 
The albatross did follow, 
And every day, for food or play, 
Came to the mariners' hollo 1 
" In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 
It perched for vesjjers nine ; 
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 
Glimmered the white moon-shine." 
